countchocula
11-29-2002, 04:14 PM
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00006FD9L.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
SPOILERS
Rubber suits, convincing (or not so convincing) miniatures, and vigorous scenes of utter annihilation usually make for an entertaining creature feature. That’s what I was hoping for going into Rodan, the first kaiju romp to be filmed in color, but I came out feeling empty and disappointed. ALL of the reviews I’ve read of this film hail it as one of the best monster movies ever created. Some even go as far as claiming that it’s better than Godzilla’s cinematic debut! My question is, what in the hell is wrong with me?????? Customarily, I find b-movies of this sort to be irresistible, so what was stopping me from digging this one? Right from the get go, I felt disconnected from the proceedings. It’s not because I was in a bad mood because I wasn’t. It’s not because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to simply enjoy this film for what it was...because I was! It’s almost as if my subconscious was clogged up or blindfolded. I was acknowledging and appreciating the cheese before me, but I wasn’t a part of it, if that makes any sense.
Rodan begins with painfully dubbed narration. Our narrator discusses a topic that is never touched on in vintage b-movies – atomic radiation! You see, America’s mindless bombing triggers bizarre deformations and inadvertently yields catastrophic side effects. One of those side effects terrorizes a village within the first fifteen minutes of the film. I do think highly of the fact that we aren’t subject to a droning exposition. Subplots can be exceptional, but with this type of film, you just want to see over-the-top battle sequences. Rodan doesn’t go to the trouble of delaying the carnage. The side effect that I mentioned earlier comes in the form of a few gargantuan caterpillars. Amusing creatures. The special effects aren’t exactly majestic, but they’ll do. I was shocked to witness minor occurrences of gore. Bloody cadavers are dispersed throughout the film. This is nothing phenomenal, but finding gore in a cheap “smash ‘em up” flick is a rarity. Later on, we’re taken into the caterpillars’ underground lair. The director takes a moody, inauspicious approach to these scenes, but it’s of no use. Everything else is so outrageously campy, that any attempts to darken the atmosphere come off as laughable.
Had I seen the subtitled Japanese version of Rodan, I might have enjoyed this a tad more. The running time is longer, the pace is allegedly balanced out (the American version is in too much of a hurry), and the editing is supposed to be sharper. With any foreign creature feature, you want subtitles. No, wait. With any foreign film period, you want subtitles. Dubbing, more often than not, taints a film’s potential to be effective. So when does Rodan come into play here? Well, eggs eventually hatch, and the infamous pterodactyl, along with a companion, wreaks havoc on Japan. None of the characters question the implausibility of two giant pterodactyls flying about. I guess Japan was immune to monsters at this point. If someone were to shout, “A monster is here!” all of the villagers would scream bloody murder and frantically run for their lives without even seeing the monster. By the way, that’s not a hypothetical situation. That actually happens during the movie. Ugh. The Rodan effects are well done. The “hatching” sequence, in particular, is a fun watch. The filmmakers managed to pull off a few neat stunts with their paltry budget. I dug the scene in which a jet pilot contends with Rodan. It was professionally executed and served up a couple of cool camera angles. The third act is nothing but explosions. Literally, I don’t recall much about the third act other than there was a hefty amount of explosions. Perhaps those final moments should have been the entire film. We wouldn’t have had to endure a maudlin, syrupy love story that adds nothing to the plotline, an overdose of useless narration, and a confused, schizophrenic pace that renders most of Rodan’s highlights meaningless.
My rating-2.5/5
SPOILERS
Rubber suits, convincing (or not so convincing) miniatures, and vigorous scenes of utter annihilation usually make for an entertaining creature feature. That’s what I was hoping for going into Rodan, the first kaiju romp to be filmed in color, but I came out feeling empty and disappointed. ALL of the reviews I’ve read of this film hail it as one of the best monster movies ever created. Some even go as far as claiming that it’s better than Godzilla’s cinematic debut! My question is, what in the hell is wrong with me?????? Customarily, I find b-movies of this sort to be irresistible, so what was stopping me from digging this one? Right from the get go, I felt disconnected from the proceedings. It’s not because I was in a bad mood because I wasn’t. It’s not because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to simply enjoy this film for what it was...because I was! It’s almost as if my subconscious was clogged up or blindfolded. I was acknowledging and appreciating the cheese before me, but I wasn’t a part of it, if that makes any sense.
Rodan begins with painfully dubbed narration. Our narrator discusses a topic that is never touched on in vintage b-movies – atomic radiation! You see, America’s mindless bombing triggers bizarre deformations and inadvertently yields catastrophic side effects. One of those side effects terrorizes a village within the first fifteen minutes of the film. I do think highly of the fact that we aren’t subject to a droning exposition. Subplots can be exceptional, but with this type of film, you just want to see over-the-top battle sequences. Rodan doesn’t go to the trouble of delaying the carnage. The side effect that I mentioned earlier comes in the form of a few gargantuan caterpillars. Amusing creatures. The special effects aren’t exactly majestic, but they’ll do. I was shocked to witness minor occurrences of gore. Bloody cadavers are dispersed throughout the film. This is nothing phenomenal, but finding gore in a cheap “smash ‘em up” flick is a rarity. Later on, we’re taken into the caterpillars’ underground lair. The director takes a moody, inauspicious approach to these scenes, but it’s of no use. Everything else is so outrageously campy, that any attempts to darken the atmosphere come off as laughable.
Had I seen the subtitled Japanese version of Rodan, I might have enjoyed this a tad more. The running time is longer, the pace is allegedly balanced out (the American version is in too much of a hurry), and the editing is supposed to be sharper. With any foreign creature feature, you want subtitles. No, wait. With any foreign film period, you want subtitles. Dubbing, more often than not, taints a film’s potential to be effective. So when does Rodan come into play here? Well, eggs eventually hatch, and the infamous pterodactyl, along with a companion, wreaks havoc on Japan. None of the characters question the implausibility of two giant pterodactyls flying about. I guess Japan was immune to monsters at this point. If someone were to shout, “A monster is here!” all of the villagers would scream bloody murder and frantically run for their lives without even seeing the monster. By the way, that’s not a hypothetical situation. That actually happens during the movie. Ugh. The Rodan effects are well done. The “hatching” sequence, in particular, is a fun watch. The filmmakers managed to pull off a few neat stunts with their paltry budget. I dug the scene in which a jet pilot contends with Rodan. It was professionally executed and served up a couple of cool camera angles. The third act is nothing but explosions. Literally, I don’t recall much about the third act other than there was a hefty amount of explosions. Perhaps those final moments should have been the entire film. We wouldn’t have had to endure a maudlin, syrupy love story that adds nothing to the plotline, an overdose of useless narration, and a confused, schizophrenic pace that renders most of Rodan’s highlights meaningless.
My rating-2.5/5