Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)

“Only Godzilla has a chance..."

Time for another Godzilla film, and it's not as though this one isn't pretty much the greatest hits. Again, aliens that look like humans and act secretly (these ones are cockroaches from a world environmentally despoiled and, in a nice touch, we see their shadows). Again, we spend the first half of the film un layering a mystery while the second half is all monster set pieces.

But there's no getting away from how much fun this is, especially with the nicely metatextual theme of comic books (the hero is a comic book artist) and heroic Godzilla and Angilas talking via speech bubble(!) as they swim from Monster Island to save the world. Just let's not dwell on how they're suddenly able to escape its waters.

The baddies are a suspiciously depowered King Ghidorah and a new partly metal monster, who has a cool chainsaw but, surprisingly, isn't really all that prominent for much of the film. The set pieces are awesome, but go on a little too long, and I love the blatant use not only of models but of toy dolls.

Yes, it's derivative and no, it's not the best film in the franchise, but there's no denying how much fun it is. It's also nice to see an environmentalist message, although I suspect we shouldn't look too hard to find a subtext in the people behind a fashionable '70s kids' adventure playground being evil aliens. This is, well, another Godzilla film. But we know what we're getting, stock footage and all, and it doesn't disappoint.