Rodan -- Ishiro Honda
I didn't start out the afternoon intending to watch Rodan. I selected The Call of Cthulhu, a silent film made in 2005 that is only 45 minutes long. It only took me a few minutes to realize I was going to hate the crappy digital photography made to look like an old silent film with fake scratches and shutters and other post-effects. Not for me, friends. Not for me.
Instead, I watched the American version of Rodan with the crappy, racist-ish dubbing where many of the voices sound the same even though it's different people talking. As a result, I don't feel completely qualified to talk about Rodan. It's a shame that the powers-that-be think so little of Americans that they can't trust them to read subtitles (it's equally a shame when Americans prove them right). I don't know which I hate more, crappy dubbing or crappy, unnecessary remakes. At least the former is thrifty.
Released two years after Gojira (also directed by Honda), Rodan has little of the magic (again, American version). At 75 minutes, it still feels like it takes to long to get to the monster and without a compelling human element, the monsters are all we have. When Rodan(s) finally show up, they'd be better suited teaming up with Captain Planet as they only have the power of wind with destruction taking the form of building blowing over with little monster smashing. There are lots of explosions in the finale, but it's all one-sided with the army bombing the shit out of a mountain side. I did enjoy that the bug monsters early in the movie turn out to be mere food for Rodan. It was an unexpected turn. I'll still probably give the Japanese version a shot, but this was a pretty big disappointment.
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