Just when he though he was out, they pulled him back in: Inspired by the absolute cheapness of the stock-footage-heavy Gamera films that still managed to turn a profit, Toho decided that the franchise wouldn’t actually end with Destroy All Monsters after all, and instead a new film would be released. And marketed toward kids. And on the cheap. How can we go wrong?
Godzilla’s Revenge (which is how I’ve known it since I was a young’n, but just about everywhere else it’s called All Monsters Attack, almost like a retort to the previous entry) begins with a blast of cooky, childlike music before we’re fully introduced to young Ichiro. He’s got an issue with a gang of bullies, led by the taller-than-most Gabara. He’s also something of a latchkey kid, with both of his parents working some late hours, leaving him alone in his flat. He’s friends with a toy-making neighbor, but he spends most of his time traipsing about abandoned and construction sites and fantasizing about visiting Monster Island (the new name going forward for Monsterland, which isn’t currently guarded by any anti-monster countermeasures (remember, that film was set in the future, so perhaps they’ve just not been installed yet)). Every now and again, he will escape the drudgery of childhood by tuning his imagination radio to the proper frequency and heading off to Monster Island, where he befriends Minilla, learns some lessons about growing up and standing up for himself from Godzilla, and even puts his monster-fight-spectating experience to good use by thwarting a pair of bumbling criminals on the lam (yes, really) and finally taking on Gabara.
Now, I’ll admit, this sounds like a decent-enough plot, but you kinda have to see this film to understand why it’s so despised amongst the G-fan community. For one thing, nearly all of the monster action is taken from previous films, including battles with the mantises and condor from Son of Godzilla and a bit from Destroy All Monsters. In fact, the only new footage on Monster Island is the stuff with the scaly feline-looking Gabara – the invisibly-veiled metaphor for Ichiro’s bully problems – and some interactions with Minilla. Ah, Minilla… See, in the English dub, the version I’ve watched many, many times in the past, Minilla is given a voice (yes, he speaks!) very similar to that of Don Knotts, of all people. He’s somehow doofier than Ichiro, and his speaking parts are all what the kids these days would call cringe-worthy.
Speaking of cringes, the rest of the film is some cheap, gag-laden kids fare that only entertained me as a child because of the knowledge that monsters would be appearing soon. Keeping to the dub, Ichiro is as obnoxious as can be, both in action and in dubbed speech, the editing is trying too hard to make something out of nothing when it comes to action (just look at the stutter job given to the scenes where Ichiro battles the crooks and his bullies), and the way everyone just leaves a dork like Ichiro alone all the time raises some harsh questions about Japanese society at the time.
It’s a lazy and often annoying entry in the franchise, and one that many fans simply write off as a one-off that doesn’t fit into continuity (so to speak: continuity is hardly kept to throughout, anyway, often purposely). It hasn’t aged well at all, but I still find some minute bit of perverse enjoyment from it, if for no other reason than intense nostalgia.
Our next stop, though, is one of the most divisive entries the franchise has to offer…
Allusions of Grandeur 