Godzilla - King of the Monsters

I'm thirsty, I need an ice cold can of Dr. Pepper

Godzilla returns after being absent all these years after his defeat at the end of the original picture. The reaction of the world leaders is to nuke him (those dummies). Japan disagrees and says that no nuclear weapons will be used on Godzilla in Japan. The Japanese have a secret weapon and are defeating Godzilla until those wacky Russians launch a nuke at Godzilla! Now why did they want to do that? That was just what Godzilla needed! More radiation to perk him back up!

This movie marked the return of Godzilla to movie screens and is the first movie of the new continuity. It's too bad they had to ruin the American version by sticking in tired non-sensical scenes with Ramond Burr And the Oscar for best supporting actor goes to... (reprising his role as Steve Martin), the American Military, and a can of Dr. Pepper. Raymond Burr stands there, looking morose, while the git next to him swills Pepper non stop. There's even a Dr. Pepper vending machine in the war room of the Pentagon for God's sake! Hell, I half expected to see Godzilla ripping a Dr. Pepper vat open and sculling 5000 liters after torching Tokyo. If you ignore the scenes with Burr's wooden performance and the bad American actors drinking soda this movie is pretty good. They tried to recapture the feel of the original movie here.

All in all not a bad return for the big guy. The S-FX were sharp but still needed a bit of tweeking, and Godzilla got to do what he is famous for... Stomping through Tokyo!

CREDITS

Gojira (1984)
Released in U.S. as Godzilla 1985 (1985)

CAST

Prime Minister Mitamura.........Keiju Kobayashi Goro Maki............................Ken Tanaka Naoko Okumura..................Yasuko Sawaguchi Hiroshi Okumura.....................Shin Takuma Prof. Hayashida..................Yosuke Natsuki Prof. Minami....................Hiroshi Koizumi

CREW

Director........................Kohji Hashimoto Screenplay.....................Shuichi Nagahara Original Story..................Tomoyuki Tanaka Special Effects................Teruyoshi Nakano Music............................Reijiro Koroku

Running Time: 103 minutes

U.S. VERSION

Released by New World Pictures CAST Steve Martin.......................Raymond Burr General Goodhue...............Warren Kemmerling Colonel Raschen......................James Hess Major McDonough...................Travis Swords Can of Dr. Pepper.......................Himself CREW Director.............................R.J. Kizer Producer.........................Anthony Randel Screenplay...........................Lisa Tomei Editor...........................Michael Spence Additional Music....................Chris Young Sound Editor.........................Bob Bigert

Alternate Title: The Return of Godzilla

Running Time: 91 minutes

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