Okay, so.... Godzilla vs Hedorah! It's been said that this is a Godzilla movie you either love or hate, so it's either a 10 or a 0. For me personally, this movie is a 5; right smack dab in the middle! It's not a shining gem or a smouldering turd, it's just kinda "eh" *gesture where you shake your hand with all the fingers flat out*

So, the premise; rampant water and air pollution has spawned Hedorah, a sentient monster made of pollution that is like a mix of the Blob and a garbage dump! Hedorah is able to melt people to bones! The only hope for humanity, as always, is GODZILLAAAAA~!!!!

Hedorah is a notable monster as he is the last monster of the Showa era that is acting on his own will, he isn't obeying anyone or under mind control, unlike Ghidorah, Gigan, Megalon, Mechagodzilla, and Titanosaurus of the succeeding Showa films.

This movie is different; there's bizarre animation, trippy montages, and drug innuendos a-plenty!!! Now, the animation shown isn't anime, it's just some bizarre animation straight out of Uncanny Valley. Hedorah is shown sucking on a smokestack from a factory and exhaling the smoke before showing his bloodshot eyes, a blatant reference to taking a bong hit.

As someone who has taken a few bong hits before, I found this to be a clever little thing. The drug innuendos can be excused because this movie was made in 1971; weed culture was still in it's very huge first run!

There are two or three POV shots from Hedorah's perspective.

Also, no review of Godzilla vs Hedorah would be complete without mentioning the bizarre scene where Godzilla FLIES. This was a total WTF moment.

All in all, if you watch this movie with a sober mind like I did, you'll either hate it or it'll just be "eh". If you watch it after smoking some weed or ingesting an edible, it'll be the best damn Godzilla movie you've ever seen!

This is a surreal experience and the strangest Godzilla film I've seen... I laughed so hard at this film out of pure enjoyment rather than mockery.

It serves as a warning to children (and, of course, everyone who watches it) of the dangers of long-term pollution. There are amazing scenes highlighting environmental problems that are served in a variety of creative ways.

Godzilla is hilarious in this film.

Do not make the same mistake I did and watch the film with the brightness on half, I actually watched it the first time thinking you weren't supposed to see anything in the night time scenes... turned the brightness up and realised!

This was the attempt of the Godzilla franchise to do a movie with an environmentally friendly message. For the most part, these messages don't go over too well as many people find them too sappy and clichéd. This movie itself is okay, mostly because it has a lot of strengths and weaknesses. For example, I actually did kind of get the feel of the original 1954 film when it talked about all the dead people. This film was apparently rated G. Wow, cities being destroyed in a G-rated film. Nowadays, given the exact same content, this would undoubtedly be rated PG-13. Anyway, the effects are pretty good.

The main weakness of the film comes in the final battle. Godzilla actually uses his radioactive breath to float. They would later reuse this sort of thing in "Godzilla Vs. Megalon", a far sillier film with a far sillier way of doing it. The humans build a machine to weaken Hedorah and while I do like the idea of them helping to defeat the monster, it does seem off place. I think it's at this point we can safely say that Godzilla became a good guy. It was first really established in "Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster". **1/2