A princess disappears in a plane explosion, and she returns claiming to be a Venusian (a Martian in the U.S. cut) with the ability to see the future. A man goes after someone's lost hat in an inactive volcano, and Rodan pops out. A large, magnetic meteorite-like object has crashed, and a three-headed dragon mystically rises from it. Godzilla arrives. So does Mothra. Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster apparently tried to provide entertainment by overloading with exciting elements. Unfortunately, while each of these things is fairly entertaining on its own, the elements do not work together to form a cohesive whole.

Director Ishirô Honda seems to be trying to do what he did so successfully with Gojira (1954) and Rodan: hold off on the monster action in order to build suspense. Then let loose. He spends most of the film's first hour developing the subplots of the mystery of the princess-Venusian and some assassins' attempts to kill her. Both of these are entirely inconsequential, however. The film spends no time developing her character, so we don't have any emotional investment in her, and the shootouts that ensue during their assassination attempts are nothing if not generic. Also, the identity mystery is solved in a ridiculous manner: she returns to herself by being shot. And that's the end of the subplot. Yeah.

In another attempt to build suspense, the script has the Venusian prophet warning the people about future events periodically during the movie. She starts by saying strange things will happen and eventually tells them outright that Ghidorah is on Earth and is going to attack. Unfortunately, this effort to build suspense was misdirected as well because this is a fundamentally different film from those aforementioned. Whereas the former are aimed at instilling horror, this one is purely for fun. When Rodan first attacks Godzilla, for instance, he just pecks at his head incessantly. And how can you take seriously a film that has two miniature humans singing a song -- one that incorporates the lines "Happiness, why are you sad? / Riding on the breeze and crowd, / Let's look for happiness" -- to a giant larva as a plea for help? This film does have its entertaining moments, but none of them have anything to do with suspense. This turns the attempts to build suspense into wasted screen time and dilutes the overall enjoyability of the film.

When the monsters are taking part in their two favorite pastimes -- demolishing cities and fighting each other -- the movie is fun and campy. There is a boulder badminton battle between Rodan and Godzilla, an exchange that would be copied in a number of Godzilla films down the line (such as Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster). There is also a scene where Mothra rides on Rodan's back and shoots silk at King Ghidorah. On a more fundamental level, though, watching King Ghidorah destroy cities is somehow satisfying on its own. I firmly believe there is some sort of entrenched psychological-anarchistic allure, perhaps a Jungian one, to watching enormous monsters destroy civilization. The fact that King Ghidorah is such a mythical-looking monster magnifies that effect greatly. It's like an expression of the subconscious.

On a lighter note, one of the things I find most odd and amusing about this movie is that every monster is cursed with unruly neck muscles, except for Mothra, who has no neck. This is understandable for Ghidorah, who has three very long necks, but Godzilla and Rodan have necks of roughly normal proportions yet no better muscle control. When Rodan is in attack mode, he can't seem to help himself from throwing his head around. This comes in handy, I guess, when he goes to peck at Godzilla's head, but he often continues the motion when simply standing and facing his opponent. The problem seems usually to affect Godzilla when he's upset about Rodan attacking him; he bobs his head uncontrollably while walking around in the midst of his fights against the winged creature. At one point the two stand facing each other and just bob their heads around. It seems meant to be some sort of taunt, but it looks more like a stand-in-place dance-off. Ghidorah, of course, is the worst. Whether he's flying around breathing what appears to be lightning or standing in place doing the same, his heads thrash wildly, often banging into each other. It makes you wonder how he shoots with such accuracy.

It's not just bad special effects work, though, that makes the film entertaining. There are numerous other instances of camp, but for me, the highlight of them all (and of the film) is when Mothra tries convincing Godzilla and Rodan that the three of them should work together to defeat King Ghidorah. The discussion is translated to the main characters through the mini-twins, and what ensues during the talk is an argument between Godzilla and Rodan over which one of them should apologize to the other (for the record, it was Rodan who hit first), and their bickering ends in a shoving match! Also amusing is Godzilla's statement that he does not want to save the humans because, in his words, "They are always bullying me." Aw, poor Godzilla. I love this kind of stuff. It's too bad there is not more of it.

I have no problems with silliness in a Godzilla movie. In fact, it can be very entertaining. But when you have such a film, you cannot spend half the time trying to build suspense. What results is essentially a, "Well, nevermind, let's just have fun." Either one of these plots could have been just fine if fully developed on its own. Unfortunately, this finished product contains two good halves of two different movies.