Gojira (Japan, 1954)
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Starring Akira Takarada, Momoka Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura

Action movies are often criticised for being stupid. They are looked down upon by critics and blamed by social commentators for causing the perceived anti-intellectualism of today's youth. While there are many examples of this genre, or indeed any genre that would fit the bill, action movies are capable of being just as intelligent or insightful as their more artistic counterparts. Gojira is a classic case in point, retaining its relative intelligence in spite of its dramatic creakiness.The cultural influence that Gojira exerts is undeniable. Apart from generating a legion of sequels, crossover films and one god-awful American remake, it has become one of the most iconic Japanese artistic creations. But aside from its cemented status as a symbol of Western perceptions of Japan, its influence on cinema worldwide is just as marked. As well as directly inspiring works like Cloverfield and The Host, its imagery has influenced everyone from Matt Groening to Steven Spielberg, who dubbed the monster's death scream onto the end of Duel.For better or worse, Gojira either created or cemented many of the conventions of the modern monster movie. The groundwork may have been laid by King Kong and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but the conventions founded in Gojira are now so endemic that they deserve recognition. We have the central romance between two people who are destined to be together, set against the backdrop of their home being destroyed or, as with Jurassic Park, other people they care about being put in mortal danger. While most of the characters want to destroy the monster, one person wants to keep it alive to see what they can learn for it (a variation of King Kong, in which one character wants to make money from it). And there is a distant or geeky scientist who doesn't want to help, but ends up possessing the only thing that can stop the monster.Like many classic foreign-language films, Gojira had a rough time with the American distributors. Just as Metropolis was heavily butchered to reduce its running time, so Gojira was taken apart and restructured in such a way that the American version looked like a totally different film. This version, called Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, was dubbed into English with new footage of Raymond Burr playing a reporter called Steve Martin - which leaves everybody free to remark that the American version is a complete joke. The disrespect which Terry Morse showed for the original is plain to see: even with the reams of new footage, the new version was 10 minutes shorter than the original.Ironically, one of the big problems with Gojira is something which is characteristic of American action movies, particularly with more contemporary offerings. Like many recent CG-heavy action films, Gojira does end up being dominated by its special effects. Some of the set-pieces are incredible even now, such as the central 10-minute sequence of the monster breathing fire and laying waste to Tokyo. But like the American remake, the extent to which the set-pieces are emphasised prompts questions about the workings of the monster - chief amongst them being, why would it help a lizard to be fire-breathing if it lived underwater?This dominance of effects is solidified by Gojira's melodramatic plot. It's wrong to attack one of the definitive monster movies for falling into the clichés it created, just as it's wrong to criticise The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for having a twist ending. But you can still see all the plot points coming a mile off, and the characters are so clearly drawn from a visual point of view that you don't really have to second-guess. The moment you see the character with a scar and an eye-patch, you know there is something shifty about him.There is some dispute in critical circles over how good or original Gojira's effects are. Roger Ebert, who called it "a bad film, but with an undeniable urgency", argued that the effects in King Kong were much more state-of-the-art, describing Godzilla the monster as "awkward" and "crude". It's an argument that has never been properly settled, not even when the two monsters went head to head in King Kong vs. Godzilla eight years after this.In the end, the only way to judge the validity of Gojira's effects is whether or not they succeed in giving the monster character. This is not simply a case of whether or not he/ she/ it looks like a man in a beanbag wandering around on a set; it is whether the physical form taken by Godzilla/Gojira conveys or achieves the desired emotional response. The short answer to this is yes, because we do believe that the monster has intelligence and a personality. We aren't necessarily in floods of tears when the oxygen destroyer kills him, but there is still the feeling that something physical and tangible has departed, something in which we invested and believed.Where Gojira differs from, and perhaps improves on King Kong is its political subtext. The film is an engrossing allegory for Japan's reaction to the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to the on-going US nuclear tests occurring in the Pacific. This was something which was not widely reported in the American press at the time, which coupled with political pressure might explain why the US version cut out most of the subtext.The parallels Gojira draws between real-life events and those of the characters would have been strikingly clear at the time, and are arguably more so to us nearly 60 years later. The underwater explosions which are reported when the first ships sink are an echo of the after-effects of Bikini Atoll: the Americans exploded a device two-and-a-half times larger than expected, leaving hundreds of people within the supposed safety zone with acute radiation poisoning. The harrowing shots showing the aftermath of Gojira's destruction of Tokyo could be lifted straight from The World at War. Considering that Japan was still recovering from the long-term effects of the war, including these kinds of scenes was decidedly brave.There is also a direct parallel between the real-life and fictitious characters. Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, played by Akihiko Hirata, is a convincing reflection of Professor Robert Oppenheimer, one of the chief scientists at the Manhattan Project which created the first bombs. When we are taken inside his lab, there is a mention of his "German friends", a sly nod to the fact that German and Austrian scientists pioneered many of the components of the atomic bomb. Serizawa refuses to use the device because he knows how devastating it can be on a small scale, a possible nod to Oppenheimer's mixed feelings following the Trinity test. While Oppenheimer remarked that he had "become death, a destroyer of worlds", Serizawa dies alongside his invention, lest it ever be used again.Gojira, like King Kong before it, uses the monster to physicalize a deep-rooted or pertinent fear within humanity. It explores the fears surrounding nuclear war, or more general fears about a seemingly unbeatable weapon. Gojira is characterised as an ancient monster, somewhere between Jules Verne and H. P. Lovecraft, rudely awakened from its long slumber by the nuclear tests. It is simultaneously a symbol of nuclear war itself, the unforeseen consequences or fallout (in both senses), and a physicalisation of the dark, self-preserving aggression at the heart of every human being.It is rare that you get a monster movie, then or now, with such thoroughly intelligent subtext. But the film does have a couple of dramatic shortcomings which hamper its ability to convey these ideas. Because the film is constructed like a melodrama, complete with screaming heroines and muscular heroes, there isn't much in the way of tension in the scenes between Gojira's attacks. Whereas The War of the Worlds had moments of real threat, where it seemed like the aliens would win, Gojira always has a feeling of certainty about its outcome which is only partially mitigated by the old man's warnings at the end. Character development is in rather short supply, something which even Akira Ifukube's great soundtrack can't make up for.Considering its budget and the development of special effects, Gojira holds up surprisingly well. It is more thought-provoking and emotionally involving than The War of the Worlds, if nothing else because it holds its nerve and gets the ending right. Its dramatic shortcomings are more or less made up for by the emotional impact of the more harrowing scenes, and the monster itself is pretty convincing. As a film in and of itself it's flawed and ropey in places, and while it can't hold a candle to King Kong (in either version), it is essential viewing.

Rating:
Verdict: A flawed but memorable monster movie

Logan's Run (USA, 1976)
Directed by Michael Anderson
Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov

Ever since Star Trek first arrived on our screens, it's been almost fashionable to dismiss science fiction as little more than enjoyable pantomime hogwash. Whatever interesting ideas the series tried to raise, more often than not the ideas would take a back seat to silly fighting, hammy acting and increasingly bizarre costumes. Coming a year before Star Wars rewrote the sci-fi rulebook, Logan's Run is a kindred spirit to the original Star Trek: campy, silly and utterly escapist, yet still passingly entertaining.One of the initial disappointments of Logan's Run is how little of the original novel survives in the screenplay. The novel, written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, used the counter-culture and youth movements of the mid-1960s as a platform for a story about eugenics and social engineering, predicting a society where the power of youth was so great that ageing beyond 21 was forbidden. But in the screenplay for Logan's Run, written by Straw Dogs scribe David Zelag Goodman, this fascinating premise is compressed into an old-fashioned action-adventure story, with most of the political undercurrents being taken out.

Logan's Run still has an interesting premise in spite of this - people can only live to 30 before they are elaborately executed - but in both its execution and its place within the sci-fi canon, it is much more old-fashioned than its source material. The film is directed by Michael Anderson, who had reached his peak in the 1950s with The Dambusters and the Oscar-winning Around the World in Eighty Days. He approaches Logan's Run in the same way as his classic work: as a star vehicle with a lot of locations and fun-packed action, and not much room for the darker, more political aspects of science fiction.Logan's Run contains many references to other sci-fi works, some classic, some contemporary. The idea of a totalitarian society in which people live only for pleasure can be traced back to Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's extraordinary novel which predicted (amongst other things) anti-depressants, test tube babies, and interactive media with the 'feelies', where you could see, hear and touch what was happening on screen. The Carrousel scenes are like more elaborate versions of the funeral from Soylent Green, while the general camp tone nods towards Planet of the Apes and its sequels.In light of Anderson's track record, the film to which Logan's Run most closely aspires is The Time Machine, directed by The War of the Worlds producer George Pal. The whole of Logan's Run is comparable to the final act of The Time Machine, in which a docile, hedonistic and ignorant society are held captive by evil forces - respectively morlocks and time itself. But in its overly frequent use of model shots and strange collection of weapons, Logan's Run is much less George Pal than Gerry Anderson. The wide shots of the domed city are closely reminiscent of Thunderbirds or Stingray, while the costumes are akin to Anderson's contemporary venture, Space: 1999.Logan's Run is clearly a product of its time, particularly where sets and costumes are concerned. While the men get to wear full-length uniforms or jumpsuits, the women are paraded around in a series of dresses and skirts which leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. When we first meet Jenny Agutter, she doesn't appear to be wearing any underwear - something which is confirmed on no less than two separate occasions. Despite having a budget of $9m (around the same as Star Wars), the film looks like it was made on the cheap and in a hurry. Whole sections of the domed city look like the inside of a shopping mall (which it is), with seemingly little time being spent on set-dressing.For most of its running time, Logan's Run is a very silly film. We quickly forget that Logan 5 is infiltrating the runners with the intention of finding and destroying Sanctuary - we forget, in other words, that he is a government puppet whose lifeclock has been artificially accelerated. After Logan initially defeats Francis, the plot descends into a series of set-pieces in increasingly elaborate sets until Peter Ustinov turns up to help us get a grip.The tone of these set-pieces is generally light-hearted, with our heroes surviving seemingly implausible scenarios while managing to maintain their perfect hair and make-up. But in the midst of this frivolity there are little pockets of creepiness, such as their encounter with Box. He trundles into shot like a bargain basement Dalek and starts spouting off about plankton and sea greens, all of which seems completely harmless. But then he leads Logan and Jessica to a corridor of runners frozen in ice: Box implies that they are now being used for food, pulls out two guns and laughs wickedly. While still silly at heart, it's as though we had accidentally wandered into Soylent Green.The silly, campy tone of Logan's Run is consolidated by the acting. Michael York manages to keep his dignity for the most part: his unique voice gives him an air of authority while keeping his more sensitive moments believable. Jenny Agutter makes the very best of a duff role: she spends a lot of her opening scenes wandering around open-mouthed in next to nothing, but she eventually gets into her stride. But aside from the leads the acting is very wooden, and while no-one comes close to the 'quality' of Charlton Heston or William Shatner, it's difficult not to snigger at how straight-laced everything is. The film lacks the knowing deftness of Flash Gordon, with only a small fraction of the cast being in on the joke.But in spite of its copious flaws, Logan's Run eventually emerges as a passingly enjoyable slice of science fiction. The irony is that once we have given up trying to take it seriously, the film begins to get off the ground and say the things that it really wants to say. The later sections of the film, while still a little ridiculous, make up for the loose, baggy opening act and do raise a couple of interesting issues around the central theme.A big part of this transition is down to Peter Ustinov. Gene Siskel, who once called this the worst film he'd ever seen, wrote that Ustinov's cameo was unduly extended because he was the only decent thing in the whole film. While few would share Siskel's view, his performance is by far and away the best, and his character is the most interesting. He plays a seemingly senile old man who is found by Logan and Jessica wandering around the ruined House of Representatives. The film never states exactly why he is still alive; perhaps, like J. F. Sebastian in Blade Runner, he was too old to leave the old ways behind.Like Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov has immense screen presence. He is able to take the most ridiculous or stupid line, and deliver it in such a way that it gains great weight or feels deeply important. He might be rambling on about cats having three different names, but his mannerisms feel more developed than the other characters, and his dithering manner works as a means of reaction to Logan and Jessica, who have no concept of age or decay.In its later sections, Logan's Run also takes on a Biblical quality, with undertones emerging in the attitude and development of the characters. Logan and Jessica's escape from the domed city is akin to the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden - although, in line with the conspiracy element of the film, Eden is too good to be true in the first place. The ending of the film is also rooted in the Old Testament, with Ustinov emerging like a nervous Moses, ready (unexpectedly) to lead his people out of Egypt.

The film is also prophetic in predicting the increased social role for cosmetic surgery. In an age where breast implants, tummy tucks and facelifts have become both cheap and fashionable, it isn't too far-fetched to believe that, in the near-future, you could change your entire appearance through just a few quick flicks of a laser. The fight between Logan and the doctor (played by Michael Anderson Jr.) is one of the better action scenes, taking the laser sequence in Goldfinger to its natural conclusion.There is much about Logan's Run which would be good cause to dismiss it. Its production values have dated badly, the ideas are compromised by a generic adventure story, and both its plot and execution are preposterous. But it just about manages to pass muster in the end, being consistently entertaining and getting a grip on things in the final act. It succeeds where so many of the Star Trek movies failed, and while it never reaches the heights of Flash Gordon, it passes the time rather nicely.

Rating:
Verdict: Preposterous but perfectly passable

The War of the Worlds (USA, 1953)
Directed by Byron Haskin
Starring Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Cedric Hardwicke

It's a common complaint that American adaptations of British novels lose the quintessential nature of their source in favour of something more glossy and marketable. That's certainly true of The War of the Worlds, the first attempt to put H. G. Wells' iconic novel up on screen, and the first to come in the shadow of Orson Welles' ground-breaking radio play. It's not as tense as Welles' version, or as enjoyable as Steven Spielberg's take, but it is a perfectly passable adaptation with a number of strong points.The film starts off with our narrator (played by English character actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke) guiding us on a whistle-stop tour through the solar system. He explains the hostile nature of other planets' atmospheres, concluding that if the Martians should invade anywhere, it would have to be Earth. The Martians are presented as an intelligent race, and we are to some extent shown the build-up to the invasion from their point of view.

Having started promisingly, it isn't long before some of the film's budgetary constraints become apparent. Like a lot of B-movies, the film is heavily reliant on stock footage during its bigger, more action-packed moments. Its re-use of the same shots of cannons firing and tanks rolling into battle make it seem like an ad campaign for the American army. In the middle of the film there is also a montage of destruction and chaos intercut with footage of the actors, a technique which would later be used to perfection in the opening sequence of Mad Max 2.On the other hand, we have the special effects of the aliens. This is the element which Byron Haskin and his team had to get right, and generally speaking, they did. The swan-shaped copper aliens were specifically designed not to resemble flying saucers, and in the wide shots especially they are pretty threatening. They are not, however, tripods as detailed in the book; rather than walking (which is difficult to replicate mechanically), the war machines float via beams of blue light, which at the very least distract us from the wire work.But while the war machine designs are truly out of this world, the Martians themselves are disappointing human. The faces of the Martians, which are replicated in their periscopes, are made up of red, blue and green panels, which are arranged to vaguely resemble the outline of a human face - the red panel is at the bottom to denote a mouth, and the blue and green panels above it could easily be eyes. As is so often the case, the aliens in The War of the Worlds look most sinister from a distance - when a Martian touches our heroine on the shoulder, it's a bit pathetic.This version of The War of the Worlds deviates sharply from the novel in a number of ways, some interesting and successful, others less so. Most obviously, the action is relocated from 1890s Woking to 1950s California, and in doing so a lot of the substance of Wells' novel is lost. So much of the original story is about turning the accepted British political and social attitudes on their heads by portraying a war in which the British are the victims of an invasion rather than the conquerors. British imperialism, Herbert Spencer's natural selection and the 'English way of life' are all held under the microscope and shown to be ruthless and unjust.By transferring the story to America, as Welles had done, The War of the Worlds becomes more about the Cold War and American fears of 'Reds under the beds'. Some of this substance fits quite nicely around the original plot: the Martians, who come from 'the Red planet', are demonstrated to be highly organised and efficient, and working collectively towards a single goal. But even as bald allegory goes, it's not as satisfying an examination of Communist threat as Invasion of the Body-Snatchers (which itself is trumped by the 1970s version by Philip Kaufman).

More frustratingly, the film makes big concessions to melodrama. We are required, for instance, to believe that Gene Barry is a famous and highly intelligent scientist, despite the fact that he looks every bit as chisel-jawed and rugged as Charlton Heston. When Ann Robinson's character questions him about this, he says that he shaved his beard off before coming to town and so no longer resembles his photo on the cover of Time. As laughable excuses go, it's up there with the line in The Hunt for Red October in which Sean Connery's unique accent is explained away by saying he is Lithuanian.Being an old Hollywood film, the role of women is, shall we say, restricted. Robinson is required to scream and be hysterical on cue, while all the men around here can be noble, restrained and carry out a plan of action. While the male leads dash around the bunker, planning their attack on the Martians, she is left to hand up cups of coffee; and after the couple have sheltered in a tumbledown house, she makes Barry his breakfast first thing in the morning. The film may not be as sexist as The Snows of Kilimanjaro, but it's hardly pushing the envelope when it comes to female roles.

Despite these contrivances, however, we find ourselves bonding to these characters and staying with them for the course of the film. Although their introduction might be slightly silly, they are generally well-drawn and sympathetic. We certainly care about them enough to worry that they might get separated and never see each other again, as happens in the last twenty minutes when the film really girds its loins and shows human society on the verge of collapse. Critics of The War of the Worlds have written the story off as people running away for 90 minutes, but these scenes are both visually spectacular and emotionally engrossing.The film is at its most interesting when it taps into the characters trying to cope with the invasion and depicting the surrounding chaos. Aside from the street scenes in which men are turning on men and money has become worthless, there are a number of moments of genuine panic or alarm which stick in one's mind. The scene of the vicar wandering out to meet the Martians while reciting Psalm 23 will have you on edge, as will the feeling of desperation after the aliens survive an atomic bomb.

As with all productions of The War of the Worlds, we eventually have to face one of the anticlimactic endings in literature. Having the aliens being killed by bacteria is a classic deus ex machina, drawing the action to a convenient close through a plot device which is deeply unsatisfying. But rather than go the way of The Blob or Invasion of the Body-Snatchers and leave us on a daring cliff-hanger, this adaptation takes the original ending and manages to fudge it further.Wells was a scientific socialist who believed in rational progress towards a better society. In the book, our narrator takes shelter with a priest who loses his mind and meets a sticky end: the rational survive, the irrational do not. But Haskin and his screenwriter Barré Lyndon (an obvious but witty pseudonym) fudge this by inserting religious themes. Just before the Martians start falling out of the sky, the survivors are gathered in a church praying for a miracle. The narrator explains that "humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this earth.". Suggesting after such carnage that God was involved all the time simply doesn't cut the mustard in this context.The War of the Worlds is perfectly passable tosh. It doesn't have the political balls or ambition of Orson Welles' version, and it deviates from its source so wildly that purists will be annoyed. But there is enough schlocky B-movie charm in it to entertain for its short running time, and those who are not fans of Spielberg's version will probably enjoy this more. It's nothing to write home about, but as 1950s B-movies go it has lasted and dated surprisingly well.

Rating: 3/5
Verdict: Perfectly passable B-movie tosh