Premise: Japan is attacked by a giant dinosaur creature from the sea.
Rambo is the American Godzilla. Here me out. First Blood is a surprisingly thoughtful and restrained action movie. It has real commentary on recent history with John Rambo as a Vietnam veteran trying to cope with the darkness of that time. While it does turn into an action movie, it's all foregrounded with real thoughtfulness. Then, someone saw First Blood and took away from it "This Rambo guy is a real one-man-army." So, all the Rambo sequels have been about Rambo as a super soldier in extreme situations.
The Godzilla franchise is pretty similar. This first movie is a really thoughtful commentary on weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. dropping two atomic bombs on them had a profound effect on Japanese society, and Godzilla is evidence of them still trying to find a way to cope with it. Sure, there's some big action sequences of Godzilla destroying buildings, but that's not the point of the movie. Then, after this movie, the Godzilla franchise turned into "What other giant creature can Godzilla fight now". I haven't seen these sequels, but something tells me that Godzilla vs. Megalon doesn't spend as much time discussing the morality of man controlling weapons with great destructive power.
Anyway, Godzilla is pretty good. I like how restrained it was. It made the sequences with Godzilla unleashing even more satisfying. The movie was a little chatty, but I mostly liked the moral discussions they were having. I have no desire to track down any of the sequels, but I sure am glad I got around to seeing the original.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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