Julian R. White
Well, if there's one thing I can respect this movie for, it's that it really cuts to the chase. Unlike many monster movies I've seen in the past, the monster is evident quite early in the film. I like the design of Gorgo, and he has a pretty underrated general view. I think he's wonderful. As for the game, it's quite evident that they were trying to make their own Godzilla. He reminds me a lot of an alligator, especially the hide on his back. Another thing that makes this film unique is the setting. The monster is caught off the coast of Ireland, which is a relief from the congested cities we're used to seeing. Oddly enough, it turned out not so bad, but I can't say it's one of my top favorites.
JoeB131
While Japan has led in this genre, and America has done a few good things in it, this is the British take. Which means everyone is totally calm no matter what is happening and no one gets terribly excited. I give it credit in that its monster has a motivation...it wants its baby back. As opposed to your average Japanese Kaiju who just attacks because, you know, Japan. The special effects aren't horrible, and Gorgo is a little more plausible than most of his Japanese kindred- he doesn't have lasers or fire breathe or something equally implausible. It's just big and it stomps things.
felixoteiza
Gorgo is the one flick I've seen in my life that impressed me so much when watching it in a theater that I couldn't wait to get home to put the whole plot down on paper. True, I was only 11 at the time but already, I think, with enough vision to realize that I had just seen a great movie. One more of those little masterpieces the U.K. was bringing out at the time as buns from a hot oven, and one more that has been widely ignored by the public for half a century, only because of the badmouthing they received when they came out.Gorgo has been derisively referred to as an unoriginal spin off of the Japanese monster flicks of the 50s--Godzilla with fish & chips--and lost and buried in this name calling is the fact that this is a movie that can perfectly stand by itself. And while inspired on Godzilla, even trying to capitalize on it, it is quite superior to it. For starters, the acting is appropriate, which is good considering that the star here is a mountain size monster coming from the depths of the sea. Nowhere you'll see in Gorgo the overacting that had become a staple of Nipon monster flicks of the era, as if their producers would have feared that they didn't have enough FX to scare the public and they needed on top of that the actors themselves infected them with their panic. Of course the final effect of all this hamming up was the opposite, as Western audiences disregarded them as unfit for mature audiences and classified them as simple camp with cheese special effects, more fit to have fun at their expenses than to be taken seriously. Gorgo on the other hand comes out as a pretty mature movie, one that I have no qualms recommending to adults; they may not like it as I did but one sure thing is that they won't come back at my criticizing me for making them lose 76 min. of their lives watching a kiddie flick. One movie also with a far deeper and more vast philosophical meaning than all other monster flicks of the time. As the closing words put it so well, the presence of Gorgo in one of the centers of global power, tearing it apart, should serve us as a stark reminder that we men are NOT the kings of Creation.Speaking of which, one other thing going for Gorgo is the nature and identity of what he destroys. All great disasters in History, like the Hindenburg, the Challenger, the Titanic, etc, have one thing in common which makes them so awesome and compelling: they contain an element of hubris. We feel, when watching them unfold, that there's something, a supreme force or will teaching the powerful of this Earth a stark lesson in humility. That' s why a monster destroying Tokyo will never have the same effect on us so Godzilla can't win: either we won't take the flick seriously, as most of us do, or if taken by it we'll feel sorry for the victims, because we are to much used to see the Japanese, specially the civilians, as victims more than oppressors because of all we know of their History, their natural disasters, so there is no joy in watching them suffer. On the other hand I felt myself some kind of mischievous joy watching Gorgo tearing apart The British Parliament, the Tower Bridge and other London landmarks—though he wisely stays clear out of Downing 10 and the Buckingham Palace!.Surprisingly enough, the most important "human factor" or emotion, or feeling in the movie doesn't come from any human, but from the monster itself. Which brings us to the plot: some volcanic activity in the Earth crust offshore Ireland opens up some ways in the depths of the ocean through which a 50 feet tall monster comes out and harasses a small fishing village until he is trapped. Some shady impresario comes up then and, instead of letting the two protagonists send the beast to be studied by scientists, convince them to take it to London to make money out of it. Everything seems to be gong OK for the show business until scientists realize that this beast is just a baby, the kid of a mom monster who must be looking for him right now and that must be about 300 feet tall. There is where the fun begins. Tightly directed, impeccably edited. Great cinematography and camera work, with abundant use of color--they really milked the scenery in that Irish fishing village. Superb use of backgrounds all along, of light and shadows, of mist, smoke, fire and every other visual element possible; this is a rare movie where I spent the time watching the background as much as I did the action in front of the camera. A pace that never lets up, not a slow moment in the entire film but that really picks up at the 50 min. mark and becomes frantic the last 20 minutes, in which so many things happen as in a 2 hrs. movie. A score and sound effects that complement the whole, down to the evocative piece of the end. So, never mind Gorgo is just a guy in a rubber suit destroying small scale sets, buildings, power towers, bridges.Just suspend your disbelief for a mere 76 min. of your life and you won't regret the experience. 8/10..
Matthew Wright
I think I was aged about eight when I went to the cinema with my cousins one Saturday morning, back in the days when you saw two films for your money - the B movie followed by the main feature. On this occasion I can't even remember what the main feature was because the first movie was Gorgo.It was my first exposure to giant scaly monster movies and I quickly became a big fan. Watching the movie recently on DVD I was impressed by the relatively high production values for a film of this type. The effects are not bad, certainly not laughable as in many monster movies. There is also a great happy ending for mama and baby Gorgo. Quite a rarity.This is pure escapism. If you've come home from a hard day at work you don't want to relax in front of the TV watching period drama or thought-provoking message movies. No, you want to see a giant prehistoric behemoth trashing the puny world of men, and Gorgo delivers!
