I know most of you probably won't believe me, but I don't have some kind of vendetta against the Godzilla franchise that compels me to give all of the original film's sequels 6/10 scores. But...here we are again. Despite my score, I kinda liked Yoshimitsu Banno's Godzilla vs. Hedorah even though many things about it bugged the hell outta me. The eleventh film in the franchise, it was plain enough to see that at this point the Godzilla films were increasingly being envisioned, created, and sold as children's movies. In fact, one could be forgiven for mistaking it for a Gamera film: a deadly alien creature arrives on earth, terrorizes the masses, and is defeated by a Good Kaiju which, for some inexplicable reason, is connected with a young boy. Yes, Big G does certainly come off like The Friend of All Children this time around. But he also seems to be The Friend of All Teenagers, too. Many sections of the film are bizarrely devoted to rambunctious teenagers who just happen to show up whenever the monster du jour, this time an alien life-form named Hedorah who feeds off pollution, shows up and/or fights Godzilla. The Hedorah and pollution effects are top-notch and stand alongside Yoichi Manoda's eclectic cinematography as the film's ultimate highlights. One last thing about Godzilla vs. Hedorah that annoyed me: for a children's film (and we know it IS a children's film because of the child protagonist and animated segments), it is disturbingly violent. People die in every Godzilla movie. But here people just don't die, they are disintegrated into piles of goop and bones courtesy of deadly chemicals. It's a bit whiplash-inducing in terms of tone.
6/10
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