Ask Movie Slate - Kaiju Month - Gorgo  
Today’s Movie Slate is brought to you thanks to ssjcharon
 
I won’t lie, I think this is my favourite entry on this themed month. I really like how the colours came out, and the Ursa Major feels appropriately huge, especially having the Flim Flam brothers as a frame of reference. Movie’s expression reminds me a lot of the comics I used to draw back in 2010, and the overall piece just feels nice to look at. I don’t know, I think with the way the rest of the month was planned this one feels like the highlight to me. Also drawing giant monsters attacking characters you don’t like is neat. I wish I could do that more often.
 
“Gorgo. Uff. I wouldn’t expect this one to be a rough movie to talk about, but there’s no other way around it. I am so angry at “Gorgo and it’s all because of a single reason, well…two reasons although one of them is a result of the other. I didn’t watch this movie once but twice, with the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 being the first and then on its own second. I was concerned that the riffing of Mike and the robots would’ve made things unfair on the movie, so I gave it a second chance and judge it on its own merits. And let me tell you I found a bunch! “Gorgo is actually a pretty damn well made movie. It’s got tons of very good special effects, the cinematography is quite competent, and even the production design is worth of praise. It’s not common that I see a movie and keep thinking and noticing the amount of work that goes into it. Hell I can even get behind the message, since it’s the exact same message that so many kaiju movies get behind. You know, don’t mess with nature, human beings being obstinate and pigheaded, ourselves creating our own monsters, and so and so on. None of these are a problem. However.
 
The biggest offender of this movie is the script, which is downright terrible. It’s the set up, the pacing, the dialogue. The dialogue in this movie is some of the worst dialogue I’ve seen in a movie in quite a while. It’s such a clash because everything around it is so good, but whenever the characters open their mouths the movie plunges right into the depths of Captain Obvious, head of the S.S. Evident. It’s difficult not to let your mind wander when characters go over a point so much it’s belittled into irrelevancy. If you took a pair of scissors and started chopping off bits of dialogue that we don’t need, the movie would be 20 minutes long. Which is why we result in such poor acting as the actors had no material to work with, left to wander aimlessly as their characters sink themselves into the realm of the unlikeable, a place reserved for the first victims of zombie apocalypse movies and James Cameron films. This is perhaps the worst thing about this movie. It’s a very nice wrapping that surrounds a core made out of crumpled wet newspapers. Not solid at all even thought you can read some good bits here and there.
 
Overall though I can’t say I’d recommend “Gorgo unless you feel like throwing it in the background while you’re doing something else, and direct your attention to it when the good stuff is on the screen. Otherwise I don’t see myself re-watching it anytime soon, nor would I call it an example of the genre. There’s way better kaiju movies out there.
 
I hope you guys enjoy the picture!
 
You can check Movie Slate’s post on Tumblr right here.
 
You can also check the Making of Post right here.
 
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