The Official Story (1985)

Between the Jew fros and the fashion, the 80's hit Argentina hard.

The Official Story Continues the trend of historical dramas on the 1001 Movies to See List, but, unlike our last movie based on history, this one flops. The movie requires a lot of context that the average American doesn't have. The only things I know about Argentina are that it's in South America, Madonna sang a song there and it was a dump for awhile. The Official Story comes out firing against something terrible that happened there, but honestly I didn't care enough to figure out what it was. The movie has it's bright spots, but, overall, it looks and feels more like a Lifetime movie than an Academy Award winner.

The Official Story is about a family. More specifically, it's about the barren matriarch of a family who starts to have doubts about the origins of her adopted daughter. These doubts turn into concerns and fears that her daughter was stolen from a political prisoner by her husband. These fears take her into the darkest parts of Argentinian history as these fears become an obsession. The movie garnered a lot of critical success for a movie that no one has seen. It won several major awards in America, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and it was praised for it's daring, seeing as it was made entirely in secrecy because of it's politically charged message. Personally, I am more surprised that the film won an Academy Award than that no one has seen it.

It's important that I praise The Official Story where it deserves credit. The performances, especially by the lead actress, are pretty decent and the subject matter is, at least as a whole, interesting. These keep the movie watchable even though it's really quite underwhelming. My biggest problem with the movie is that it felt like it was directed by a person with an 8th grade understanding of symbolism. There is some really lame use of symbolism here, the rocking chair thing for example, that just made me laugh to myself. I appreciate subtly in my movies, especially in the symbolism department and The Official Story didn't have it. Also, the movie felt way too much like a Lifetime movie for my taste. There's a dark secret about this women's home life, granted her's has some political stuff going on, but it ends up with her going too deep and her husband beating her awkwardly. Maybe I am oversimplifying here, but The Official Story does nothing but solicit a great big "meh" from me.

An easy place to start when making a list of 1001 Movies to See is taking winner of major Academy Awards and putting them on the list. You can't really go wrong by doing that, since winning major awards means that somewhere, at sometime, someone thought the movie was important or good, but this movie begs a simple question. Does winning an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film earn you "need to see" status? In the case of The Official Story, I think the answer is no. There are better movies about political strife, better movies about families dealing with the aftermath of political strife and, simply, better movies to put on the list. Next week we have another obscure, cultish movie from the 1990's, god I hope it's better than Naked Lunch, but until then just avoid The Official Story unless you have a boner for Argentinian history or something.

5/10

All the President's Men (1976)

So much beautiful hair.

I have kind of a history boner for Richard Nixon. I studied Watergate in college and I was really excited to explore the chapter of the saga that I knew the least about, which was the work that Bernstien and Woodward did to crack the case. All the President's Men is a fascinating look into one of the most important political events in U.S. history, but it is clearly tailored towards people who already know a lot about Watergate. The movie is well made, impeccably acted and generally interesting, but it doesn't create quite enough drama.

All the President's Men is the story of Watergate as experience from the perspective of journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The movie is based on their book by the same name, and it recounts how the two unknown journalists discovered the breadth of the Watergate scandal with simple persistence and beautiful feathered hair. The movie stars Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards and Hal Holbrook. It won four Academy Awards, it was nominated for another four, and it is widely considered to be one of the best movies of the 1970's. Time hasn't been terribly kind to the movie, it received massive critical praise when it was released, but it is still considered one of the best films of it's genre.

The thing most responsible for All the President's Men's slow decline in popularity is simple time. It's been 35 years since Watergate and this movie was released immediately after it. A lot of names and events are mentioned and most of them have little to know significance to the modern viewer unless they are extremely knowledgeable on the subject. When the movie was released, these names were still at the front of people's minds, but now, most of them are obscure trivia facts at best. This makes the film fairly difficult to follow. Aside from this problem, which didn't effect me too much since I have studied the scandal, the film really doesn't do much to increase the drama. It's not until the very end, when the journalists start to realize what they have discovered that things get heated, but the first half of the movie is basically a detective story with no threat. It's interesting to watch, but not always as compelling as I would like. The ending of the movie is, generally great, but it also feels a little bit off. Aesthetically, the ending is really neat. It captures the feeling of the event wonderfully and it makes a lot of sense. The problem is that it comes so suddenly. The movie is already long, but the ending comes just as the movie is beginning to get really suspenseful. While really well done, the ending just feels anti-climatic.

Don't misunderstand my complaints. I really enjoyed All the President's Men. It's a top-notch political thriller with great performances and an awesome script. Hoffman and Redford are at their best and the supporting performances, two of which were nominated for Academy Awards, are even better. The attention to details is also phenomenal. Where some of the problems originate from how soon after the event the movie was made, the movie benefits from this in some ways. The production team was able to talk to most of the people involved and experience the newsroom at The Washington Post as it was during the event. These things help the movie feel extremely natural.

All the President's Men nearly created a genre all by itself. It's one of the first great political thrillers and it perfect example of how non-fiction can be successful on the big screen. The movie didn't quite hit on my favorite parts of the Watergate scandal, but it didn't need to. The film is a top-notch, piece of film-making. it may not have car chases, Mexican stand-offs or lots of yelling, but All the President's Men is still an exciting and intelligent thriller. It earns it's place on the list for a fistful of reasons and certainly qualifies as a must see film, even if it hasn't aged as gracefully as some movies.

7/10

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

That's where babies come from?

Few movies are as important to a genre of films as 2001: A Space Odyssey is to science fiction. It represents a leap forward from the movies of the 50's and 60's and the first step towards what we know as science fiction today. It is impossible to overstate the importance of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but being influential is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the film has to offer. While it moves a little too slowly at times, 2001: A Space Odyssey is an undisputed classic when it comes to science fiction because of it's daring style, obsessive attention to detail and it's unforgettable last half.

2001: A Space Odyssey is part science fiction epic, part complete history of the human race and part space thriller. The film is split into four segments and each has a distinct personality. The first is full of people in monkey suits, the second has normal suits, the third has space suits and the last has a giant space baby. The story, simply, revolves around a giant black cock from space. When modern man finds it on the moon, they send a team into space to try and solve the mystery. They also send the most often spoofed evil computer in movie history along for the ride. The last twenty minutes of the movie are just a Pink Floyd laser show. The movie is directed by the king of all things weird and awesome Stanley Kubrick and is based on several works of famed science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark. While the movie stars no one particularly famous, the trademarks of the director and writer are all over the movie. The film was nominated for a handful of Oscars, winning one for Best Visual Effects, and it widely considered, by critics and moviegoers, to be one of the best films ever made.

The one thing about 2001: A Space Odyssey that can't be debated is how insanely influential it was in the world of movie making. For it's own genre, the film redefines what a science fiction films should look like and it gave the world a whole new look at space. It's influence on movies as a whole is more a result of Kubrick's pacing style and attention to detail. Kubrick's films are always longer than they should be, but he somehow pulls it off. The way he shoots things is hypnotizing and even when a shot has gone on for twice as long as it should, I find myself staring intently at the screen, reveling in every moment. This style of film-making, longer than it should be with beautiful extended shots, has become extremely popular in Hollywood, directors like P.T. Anderson and Terrence Malick for example, and it seems to be gaining even more momentum. Kubrick's fingerprints are all over 2001: A Space Odyssey and it is his singular vision that makes the movie work. Without his obsessive nature, the film would falter. Instead of feeling too long, each extended sequence builds more and more suspense until Kubrick finally unleashes the last chapter of the film on the audience leaving everyone confused, breathless and scared.

While I would say that all four chapters of 2001: A Space Odyssey are good, there is one that truly stands out from the rest. The third chapter of the film, which follows the Jupiter mission astronauts and their super computer HAL, is one of the best segments ever put on film. The segment doesn't stand alone, it benefits greatly from the mystery and suspense that is built over the first chunk of the movie, but this section of the movie gives the audience most of the memorable moments in the film. In the thirty or so minutes that we spend with the astronauts and HAL, we get some of the most thought-provoking material in the entire movie. HAL turns out to be one of the best villains in movie history, his calm, calculated betrayal is utterly terrifying, and the questions that are raised about artificial intelligence are still relevant today. The first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey, this was the only section of the film I actually enjoyed. On a second viewing, everything worked a lot better for me, but this thirty minutes of film is probably the single biggest reason the movie succeeds.

While 2001: A Space Odyssey is certainly a modern classic, it isn't for everyone. The pacing of the film is hard for a lot of people to handle and it's certainly not a tune-out and enjoy kind of movie. The film demands that you pay attention, and more importantly, that you think. While not everyone will enjoy 2001: A Space Odyssey, it passes all the tests for a must see movie. It's highly influential, beautifully detailed and one of the defining films for an entire genre. It's a personal favorite because it passes my highest test of all which is that is solicits an emotional reaction out of me. The entire film puts me on edge and, no matter how long it is, I would enjoy every minutes of it.

10/10

Son of Godzilla (1967)

Babies are stupid and ugly.

Son of Godzilla is the culmination of a major shift in tone for the Godzilla series. The Godzilla movies in the later 1960's were slowly but surely becoming less scary and sillier in an attempt to appeal to children. Son of Godzilla is one of the flagship movies for Godzilla as a kid's franchise. The lighter tone, the silly looking Godzilla, and his even sillier looking "son" Manilla, and the simplistic story all work to make the movie a lighthearted, enjoyable adventure, even if it isn't up to par with the rest of the series.

I'm not sure why I bother giving plot details for Godzilla movies, but it's a habit now. Let's see if you can guess what happens here. Godzilla shows up on an island to protect his son from giant praying mantids, yes mantids is the plural of mantis, and a big ass spider. All the while, the creatures on the island are interfering with some people trying to master climate control for the good of the world. If you want to know why this is a bad idea, look into the several snowstorms China has accidentally caused. Godzilla shows his son the basics of being a monster, but fails all along because his son clearly has down syndrome. Son of Godzilla is the second movie in the series directed by Jun Fukuda and a major step up from the abomination that is Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. There were a few members of the routine Godzilla cast and crew involved here, but what makes the movie work is that it took a different route from most of the previous films.

Son of Godzilla is, for all intents and purposes, a family comedy with fire-breathing monsters in it. Manilla, Godzilla's son, is ugly and clumsy but one of the most oddly lovable creatures ever. Everything in Son of Godzilla is just so goofy and off-the-wall that it's hard not to smile most of the time. There is still a little too much character development for the people in the movie and the science is worse than ever, but what really shines through about Son of Godzilla is that it doesn't totally suck. It's fun to watch, in the same goofy way that King Kong vs. Godzilla is fun to watch, and it ends on a surprisingly touching note. The last scene of the movie is actually pretty great. I can't believe I just said that about Son of Godzilla, but it's certainly a better flick than I initially gave it credit for. Don't let my praise for it fool you, the movie is still only enjoyable for die-hard Godzilla fans. It would make a great introduction for young viewers and it is certainly enjoyable for adults too.

The highest praise I can give for Son of Godzilla is that I wouldn't dread watching it again. There are some fun fights, some really silly situations and a surprisingly touching element that makes the movie enjoyable. After the soul crushing Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, I was worried that I would loose interest in watching the whole series. Thank you Son of Godzilla for not sucking. Next is the very awesome, from what I remember, Destroy All Monsters, and I am thrilled to be back on the horse. If you have kids, Son of Godzilla would be a nice way to introduce Godzilla. If not, you're better off sticking to some of the other movies.

4/10

The Jerk (1979)

Steve Martin makes such a nice colored fellow.

Any movie that starts with Steve Martin saying "I was born a poor black child" has to be good and The Jerk makes good on this promise. The Jerk isn't the first movie people think about when listing the best comedies ever made, somehow the movie continues to stay under a lot of peoples radar, but it offers a handful of the funniest scenes and quotes ever put on film. The Jerk mixes high and low comedy masterfully and it lives on the enthusiasm of it's leading man. These things make the movie an absolute blast to watch and it has, arguably, some of the funniest moments ever put on film.

The Jerk is the story of Navin Johnson, Steve Martin who also wrote the film, a poor black child from rural Mississippi. He is a happy boy, even though he has absolutely no rhythm, but he doesn't quite fit in with his family. He sets off from home, ready to make something of himself. On his journey he encounters the dangers of the world including Jews, snipers and motorcycle riding women. Directed by Carl Reiner, the movie also features Bernadette Peters as the love of Navin's life. The movie was relatively successful and is generally well liked to this day. Even with the warm critical and fan reception, the movie has only accrued a decent cult following rather than the recognition it deserves as a comedy classic.

When looking at The Jerk, everything boils down to Steve Martin. Comedy is all about commitment, energy and personality and Martin has tons of all three. The movie is full of low-brow physical humor, but most of the jokes in the movie are actually pretty sophisticated and well written. You just have to pay attention to notice that there is a lot more going on here than simple physical comedy. Martin is the king of this kind of comedy. He has the uncanny ability to be a total goof-ball and to be exceptionally witty at the same time. He is the star of the show and the number one reason to see the movie. I could go on and on about the movie and all the reasons it is funny. The film has some amazing one liners and some scenes that are downright classic, but you'll find that out when you watch it.

The Jerk is, hands-down, a comedy classic. This is Steve Martin at his best and one of those movies that needs to be seen by more people. This movie is the origin of a lot of modern comedies, movies like Anchorman owe their existence to The Jerk. The film stands as both influential and extremely enjoyable and it's definitely deserving of it's place on the 1000 movies to see list.

8/10

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

That girl really loves dicks.

Sometimes, when I'm watching a movie, I stop and ask myself the most important question of all. Why am I watching this? Usually the answer is apparent. Sometimes it's entertainment, sometimes it's art, but every so often the question goes without an answer. While The Asphalt Jungle isn't a total abomination, I found it hard to care an ounce about the movie. While the film earns points for looking and feeling honest and natural, it is far from enlightening, entertaining or interesting.

There's nothing really interesting about the story here. Some crooks pull off a huge jewelry heist, but things don't go as planned. After a few double-crosses and some shootings, the movie ends. That may sound like an oversimplification, but it really isn't. If you've seen a heist movie in your life, you know what happens here. The film is directed by John Huston and stars a cast of relative unknowns, except that the girl doing the bad Marilyn Monroe impersonation is actually Marilyn Monroe. The film was nominated for a few Academy Awards, winning none of them, and has endured quite well in the minds of critics. The movie may have been daring for it's time, but I have a hard time understanding the praise it receives to this day.

It's easy to point out a few positive things about the film. The performances, script and direction are all striving for naturalism and they succeed impressively. Very little is embellished here, there is almost no score, and things go the way they feel like they should. This naturalism is certainly pleasing, but, generally speaking, the more natural a movie looks and feels, the more boring it is. One of the things that makes movies exciting to watch is the embellishment. I have a perfectly fine, natural life going on every minute of every day. I watch movies to see something different. This doesn't mean that I don't like realism, in fact I love it, but your realism needs to be, first and foremost, interesting or thought provoking. We could talk about Huston's message here, the cycle of crime, the relationship between law and criminal, but none of it is really that thought provoking. You root for the crooks here because they are slightly more charismatic than the cops, but, in the end, you don't feel bad for them when they get busted or shot. The performances are half-way decent, although Sterling Hayden comes off as a cross between Keanu Reeves and Dwight from Sin City, but most of the characters seem poorly formed. We learn little to nothing about the people in the movie, except for Dix, and the movie suffers. There is a lot of history between these characters, you can feel it while watching the film, but to just gloss over it is a big mistake and the biggest reason why I didn't care what happened to the people in the movie.

The annoying thing about a movie like The Asphalt Jungle is that it's forgettable. I know that a 1000 movies is a lot of movies to put on a list, but how movies this average make the list is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with it's influence on the heist movie genre, but just because a movie is influential doesn't mean it must be watched. There are better heist movies, better noirs and better films directed by John Huston that you should watch long before you get to The Asphalt Jungle.

5/10

Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (1966)

Godzilla fights a giant lobster, seriously.

I don't know if it was the dubbing, the poor VHS tape recording or the movie itself, but Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is just plain bad. Somewhere between the 45 minutes of monster-less story and the fact that Godzilla fights a giant lobster lies the reason why this movie sucks so hard, but I don't think I want to dig that deep to find it. Suffice to say, this is, without a doubt, the worst film in the series so far.

Let's see if I can remember what happens in Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Some dude gets lost at sea, his brother tries to find him, but he's attacked by a sea monster and ends up on a weird island where some shady people are making some shady stuff. About an hour later Godzilla fights a giant lobster and Mothra shows up to rescue everyone before the island explodes. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is directed by newcomer, Jun Fukuda and he certainly doesn't prove his qualifications here. I'm worried that he went on to direct four more films in the series, one of which I know is almost as bad as this one. The film has some familiar faces, it uses a lot of the same actors that were featured in previous films, and it brings back Mothra, for the last time until 1992. None of this matters though because the movie is truly awful.

Like all of the Godzilla movies, this one has a few great campy moments. Godzilla's game of tennis with the Sea Monster and the part where he rips off the monsters claw and claps it at him were moments that made me chuckle out loud, but those moments make up such a small portion of the film that you forget them amidst the sea of crap. Like many of the movies, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster focuses way too hard on the human characters in the movie. This is always an issue, but unlike the last few movies, the characters here are just plain boring. Nothing about their lives or relationships is remotely interesting and you're left with an hour of plot development that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and is entirely boring. The other issue is that the movie just doesn't feel like a Godzilla movie. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster was originally supposed to be a King Kong movie, but the filmmakers couldn't secure the rights. Rather than do some rewriting, they just replaced all instances of Kong in the script with Godzilla. What you end up with is a bunch of King Kong motifs and ideas, like Godzilla having a crush on a human girl, and a disjointed movie. The combination of these elements makes for a film that isn't even laughably bad.

This is a time to be very blunt about a movie. Don't ever watch Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster. Unless you have some silly ambition, like me, to watch every Godzilla movie out there, this is an easy one to avoid. While I would never watch Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster again, it is one of the few Godzilla films to get a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode and I would suggest watching that instead.

2/10

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Release the Kraken!

Before this weekend, I had heard a lot of bad things about Clash of the Titans. While I'm not in a position to say if those opinions are true, I am in a position to say that Clash of the Titans is a blast. Nothing about the movie is going to truly impress you, but the action is solid, the effects are pretty good and the cheesiness factor is through the roof.

Clash of the Titans is a surprisingly faithful remake of the 1981 film by the same name. Perseus, one of Zeus' many bastard sons played by Sam Worthington, is charged with saving the city of Argos from total destruction by the Kraken. There's lots of emotional stuff in between, but what's really important is that Perseus fights giant scorpions, Medusa and rides a Pegasus. He is accompanied by a group of rag-tag adventurers that includes all of the genre's most popular archetypes; including the gruff, aging solider, the bright eyed youth, the goofy comic relief duo and the token black guy. All this occurs at the same time as Hades, perpetual villain Ralph Finnes, attempts to overthrow Zeus, Liam Neeson, for control of Olympus. Directed by relative newcomer, Louis Leterrier, the movie packs a surprisingly capable cast and it sticks close enough to the source material to invoke feelings of nostalgia from fans of the original movie.

While it certainly has things going for it, Clash of the Titans is still, simply, B-movie fare. That is not a problem for me though. The movie isn't going to wow you with it's acting, or make you sit and think about your life, but it will make you laugh and smile at the pure outlandishness of it. It should go without saying that the effects and action here are on par with just about every other big action blockbuster out there, but where it really shines is actually length and pacing. I can't describe how excited I was to walk out of the theater and notice that the movie was under two hours in length. Sure, there are some down moments full of pointless character development, but they aren't distracting or too long.  As far as big-screen, popcorn movies go, Clash of the Titans is really fantastic.

The last time I came out of a movie smiling and giggling like this was 2012. Both Clash of the Titans and 2012 are movies that, while certainly bad, will make you smile. The 3-D here is kind of sub-par, it is still effective at times, but the movie was clearly not shot in 3-D and it suffers because of it. If you like mindless action with a twist of mythology, or if you are a fan of the original film, I suggest you go see Clash of the Titans. It's a totally enjoyable way to spend two hours.

5/10

The Third Man (1949)

Leave it to the American to mess everything up.

A movie with the amount of acclaim that The Third Man has always sets me on edge. The more I hear about how good a movie is, the more I worry that it won't meet my expectations. Luckily, this time, The Third Man didn't entirely disappoint. Like most of the films from this era, I enjoyed and appreciated The Third Man, but it didn't effect me in the way it effects so many viewers. The film is an entirely enjoyable, well put together piece of cinema that simply failed to, entirely, blow me away.

The film starts with Holly Martins, played by Joseph Cotton, showing up in post-World War II Vienna. When he arrives he discovers that the reason he came in the first place, a job offered by his friend Harry Lime, Orson Welles, has dried up on account of Lime being, well, dead. From there, Martin's does what American's do best. He spends the next hour or so screwing everything up, meddling in dangerous people's business and getting attacked by domesticated birds while trying to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Lime's death. At that point, things get turned on their head and the movie finally starts to get interesting. Directed by Brittish filmmaker Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene, The Third Man is a critics, and a film buffs, darling. It commonly tops lists of the best Brittish films, best mysteries and sits quite high on the IMDB Top 250. The film won an Academy Award for Cinematography, which it totally deserved, and was nominated for two more awards. The question is, does The Third Man deserve all the acclaim? The answer is harder to decide.

There is one place where The Third Man unquestionably succeeds. That place is in the cinematography. Everything about how The Third Man looks is brilliant. You can compliment just about everything that went into the visual style of the film including the use of light and shadows, the placement of the camera, slightly ajar in some scenes, and the beautiful shots of Vienna's empty streets at night. In particular, the scene with Lime's finger's reaching out from the sewer grate as he tries to escape, and the entire final chase through the sewers, are some of the most astounding pieces of visual film making I have ever seen. The visuals alone make the movie worth seeing, but there are some other elements working for it as well. The film's dialog is well written, injecting wonderful, dry humor at just the right moments, and the characters are, generally, well motivated and formed. Even more important than the characters was the use of setting in The Third Man. One of the biggest problems with most movies is that the setting serves as little more than a backdrop for the action. In this film, the setting is an active plot piece. It weighs on and effects the vast majority of the actions that occur in the film and it is one of the best uses of setting I have ever seen. There is also the incredibly, for the time, ballsy ending that impresses on a visual and emotional level. While these things alone make the movie memorable and worth seeing, I found myself growing less and less impressed with the movie the longer I thought about it.

My biggest gripe with The Third Man is that the film didn't create an appropriate feeling of tension through the first, large chunk of the movie. I really enjoyed the music that played throughout the film, I thought it was an interesting change of pace, but it wrecked any sense of drama or tension that the film was attempting to build. Even though Holly was in danger of being killed, arrested or worse, the music made his whole crusade to find the truth seem like nothing more than the fancy of a bumbling fool. Maybe that was the intention, but it didn't work for me. This lack of tension and drama early on leads to the other major problem with the film. That problem was pacing. The Third Man may have been the longest hour and forty five minutes of my life. Even though I enjoyed most of it, I couldn't help but wondering why it took so long to get exciting. In the end, I think my expectations of the movie weighed in heavily on what I was looking for and my enjoyment of the film suffered as a result. As a mystery, I was focused in heavily on plot details, the who, what, when and where, but that resulted in my dissatisfaction when the mystery didn't pay off in a traditional way. Little character details that I expected to be important, such as Holly being a writer, never payed off in a meaningful way. These details were still relevant to the story, but not in the way I was expecting.

In the end, I think another viewing of The Third Man is in my distant future. If that viewing only yields a second round of enjoyment of the films beautiful visuals than so be it, but I expect that, with a different focus, I may find the movie more worthy of all the acclaim it receives. At the very least, I can say that I enjoyed The Third Man and that it deserves it's spot on the 1001 movies list.

7/10

Monster Zero (1965)

Trusting aliens is always a bad idea.

At some point in the mid-1960's something horrible started to happen to Godzilla movies. The started to get really bad. Before watching Monster Zero, I could never pinpoint what happened. I could never explain why Godzilla vs. Mothra was pretty good, but the movies from the late 60's and early 70's were really bad. The reason, simply put, is aliens. Not monsters from space, but actual, intelligent, humanoid aliens with the goal of conquering earth for their own purposes. While those aliens make their first on screen appearance here they don't immediately doom the series. Monster Zero, while little more than a B-rate science fiction film on the surface, is still an enjoyable member of the Godzilla franchise.

When last we left our fire-breathing hero, he had just defeated King Ghidorah with the help of Mothra and Rodan. We pick up an unspecified amount of time later, literally the year is 196X so your guess is as good as mine, and things are boring, without monsters and relatively pointless. An Asian dude and a Cracker go to space, meet some weird aliens on Planet X, not actually a planet, but a moon of Jupiter, and discover that King Ghidorah is there, blowing up rocks with his lightning breath. In return for a cure for cancer, the people of Earth agree to let the aliens borrow Godzilla and Rodan to fight King Ghidorah again. After they are victorious, and Godzilla does the greatest victory dancer ever, the monsters are nabbed by mind control and brought back to earth to conquer it for the water crazed aliens. In their time of need, man falls back on the questionable science of the Godzilla universe to defeat the aliens and break their mind control over the monsters. Monster Zero is the only film in the series to feature an American lead actor, Nick Adams, but that doesn't seem to change much since he's dubbed in Japanese and treated like a Japanese character. By this point, the Godzilla films were still popular with segments of the population, but the film is neither a critical or a major financial success. It remains one of the lesser known film in the series even though it's significantly better than some of the other movies.

In a lot of ways, Monster Zero has a lot in common with Godzilla vs. Mothra. Both films are action light, featuring less monster violence and destruction than I would like, but both movies are surprisingly fun to watch. Monster Zero takes the series into full on science fiction mode and it works fairly well this time. Even though the science fiction here is pretty bland and generic, the uniqueness of Godzilla and the other monsters prevents it from seeming too cookie-cutter. The film is paced briskly and has enough drama to keep it from getting boring. The monster fights, when we get them, are fun to watch, Godzilla's victory dance is one of the best moments in the series so far, and there are some surprisingly effective jokes. The problem with Monster Zero, and why it is not as good as Godzilla vs. Mothra, is that we spend far too much time with our characters here. We have painfully lame love stories, including the American falling for an alien woman, and several bits of character drama that serve no meaningful purpose. The last few movies had veered away from pigeonholing character drama into the movies, because the movies didn't need it, but Monster Zero is a step back in this respect.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the next few Godzilla movies will hold some surprises for me, but with the next film being Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, which is in fact a giant lobster, my prospects don't look very good. Monster Zero is, at least, a solid entry in the series and one that I wouldn't mind seeing again. At least it features some great destruction and the greatest victory dance of all time.

5/10