S02E13 - Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster

Plot

When a ship is lost at sea during a storm, one of the passengers' brother refuses to believe he is dead and steals a yacht with two of his friends and a bank robber to search for him. On the way, the ship is destroyed and finds itself on an island controlled by a renegade military outfit that is enslaving a local tribe to manufacture heavy water. The island is also guarded by a giant shrimp monster that prowls its waters. As the stranded group plots to save the islanders and destroy the army, they also discover a familiar face sleeping on the island: Godzilla.


Movie Review

Finally, after so many anti-nuclear screed films, we get a movie that, while involving nuclear weapons in some way, isn't trying to hit us over the head with how terrible nuclear weapons are. The downside? Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster is an absolute garbage of a film with none of the charm of the previous MST3K'd Godzilla flick.

I've said for many previous MST3K films that the plot is a convoluted mess, but this film really tries to push that idea to new heights. Sure, the film isn't entirely incomprehensible, but it has no idea what it wants to be. Is it a Godzilla movie, or is it a movie about four schmucks rescuing islanders from an enslaving evil army? The contrast between the two plot threads is jarring, and the lack of any coherency makes this movie a chore to sit through.

The film isn't even much of a Godzilla movie, really. I mean, sure, it stars the big guy and all, but he plays a bit part compared to the dull island rescue plot involving a secret evil army and tribal natives that worship the giant moth Mothra. Unlike Godzilla vs. Megalon, where the whole point of the story was for Godzilla to save the world from Megalon's destruction, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster really only lets Godzilla fight a giant shrimp monster whose presence is superfluous at best. Oh, and he does end up fighting the evil army, but the focus remains firmly on the four mainlanders and their mission to rescue the islanders. Godzilla just happened to be in the neighborhood. As a result, Godzilla's fights are meh at best, with none of the enjoyable goofiness of the previous film's major monster brawl. Oh, it was satisfying to see Godzilla rip the claws off the giant shrimp, but outside of that it was a bunch of close camera shots and flailing arms that make for a pretty unexciting fight.

As for the human characters, the one pro that can be stated is that there are no annoying children, unlike the wretchedly dubbed boy in the previous film. Still, that doesn't mean the adults in this flick fare that much better. Too many "main" characters appear in this movie, and they're given very little time to actually act or grow as characters. This wouldn't be too much of a problem in a Godzilla flick if, you know, Godzilla was actually the focus of the movie, but since the big guy isn't, then our protagonists are screwed from the get-go. And adding additional protagonists along the way only muddles matters even more.

And the story itself is a garbled piece of throat phlegm, filled with dozens of ideas that would likely make awesome plots by themselves but make a rotten soup when forced together like in this movie. Everything from the missing brother subplot to the evil army making heavy water to the giant shrimp patrolling the island waters to the tribe that happens to worship Mothra just falls together into an unsatisfying stew of a story. Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster was, apparently, originally meant as a vehicle for King Kong rather than Godzilla (which certainly explains the tacky scene of the great lizard becoming smitten with one of the tribal women), which explains the level of quality they were shooting for in this movie if they were that disinterested in adjusting the plot.

In all, a completely unsatisfying Godzilla movie and a terrible movie in general. It's not completely unwatchable, but it's not memorable, either.


MST3K Review

It seems that having two Godzilla movies back to back was not a good idea, because Joel and the bots sounded drained of wittiness in this flick. All of the awesome lines in the previous movie were missing from this one, resulting in a few lull stretches and not as many great riffs. Definitely not the worst episode in the series, but not a memorable one, either.


Stinger Review

And to punctuate the blandness of this episode, we get the series' worst stinger so far. A bunch of islanders suddenly kneeling down and bowing? How is this supposed to be bizarre? Granted, there don't appear to be that many stinger-esque moments in this flick, but surely they could've picked something better than this one. Terrible, terrible choice to end the second season.