Godzilla (Gojira) Review

Before the series rebuilt him as a brawling atomic lager-lout, Godzilla bubbled out of the ocean as a stark, depersonalised horror. All animal. And all analogy. With the after-pulse of Hiroshima still pounding, the movie’s behemoth-as-bomb parallel is all the more apparent in this original, previously unseen cut.Director Ishirô Honda was an understudy to Akira Kurosawa, and qualities have been handed down from the films of his old friend: sturdy acting, a ripe sense of melodrama, a thumping, doomy aura... Fierce anti-nuke messages blaring from the panic klaxons, what emerges is a serious monster movie with a strong sense of mass hysteria. Plus a bloke in an uncomfortable-looking suit swatting at missiles like a pucker-arsed T-Rex doing the YMCA.