Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II ~ 1993, Takao Okawara – Japan

Slumping in a mere 19 years after the original Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla, to which this film is actually not a sequel, Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II is, more than anything else, a sad, sobering declaration to Kaiju fans everywhere that the Heisei series actually just isn’t going to recaprture that old Showa magic after all. At least, not on a regular basis. The best thing Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II has going for it is that it features popular characters, like Rodan and Mechagodzilla, but they aren’t necessarily handled that well by the film.

THE PLOT- Kazuma is just a good old fashioned guy who loves Pteredactyals and insubordination. He joins on with the United Nations new Anti-Godzilla task force, and imediatley disobeys pretty much every order he is ever given. As a result, he’s promoted about 50% of the time.

This new International Anti-Monster Defense League has a cool weapon they’re super proud of; Mechagodzilla, which in this continuity has been built out of pieces from the now apparently dead Mecha-Ghidorah, whom I hope you don’t remember from Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah, which was for sure the dumbest time travel movie I’ve ever seen. Anyway, after ripping the useful pieces off of Ghidorah’s worthless corpse and clumping them together, our guys were able to reverse engineer themselves a big, Godzilla shaped killing machine, and they aparently had enough left over to also build the Garuda, a little Snowspeeder type craft, to assist in monster blasting. The Garuda can also Voltron onto Mechagodzillas back, adding to it’s altready bountiful fire power. As for why it was important for this flying fortress/weapon of mass destruction be actually shaped like Godzilla, I couldn’t say.

So, while investigating a desolate island which had been ravaged by nuclear testing, a team of Japanese scientists discover a giant, still intact egg, alongside another already hatched egg, the occupant of which turns out to be Rodan, the awesome, giant, and horribly under-used pterosaur from numerous Showa films. Just when the gang is really getting freaked out by one giant monster, Godzilla shows up to beat the hell out of Rodan. “Oh, no, two?!” The team takes this opportunity to bounce, still intact egg in tow, and they return to Japan. Kazuma, himself a big pterosaur enthusiast (how is anyone a pterosaur enthusiast?) with no qualms about abandoning his post to go gawk at an egg, abandons his post to go gawk at the egg, where he meets the egg’s current steward, Asuza, a female scientist who would serve as Kazuma’s romantic interest throughout the rest of the film. (Fun fact; the romantic subplot in this movie sucks so hard.) When the egg hatches, they discover that instead of another pterosaur like Rodan, this hatchling appears to be a baby Godzillasaurus, whom they prompty name Baby. Baby also really sucks; he looks cartoonish and stupid.

So, basically from here, it’s all about Baby. Baby sends some pshycic mindlink distress signals out to Papa G, and also Rodan, because aparently, since his egg spent some real quality nest time next to Rodan’s, Baby’s psychic mind link can also log onto Rodan’s brain/wifi network, or however that works.The two come running to the rescue, which means city stomping. Humans get pissed.

Speaking of psychic mumbo jumbo, Miki is back. I’ve really disregarded so far that she’s a reoccurring character throughout the Heisei series… And that’s because I don’t particularly like her. But, she is here.

Anyway. So, it’s Godzilla and Rodan versus Mechagodzilla and Garuda, and that’s about it. In reality, it feels a little lackluster. Most of the combat is laser based, and sometimes it’s quite extreme just how much blasting is going on.

The monsters look okay, but as with the last few Heisei films, they looks plastic, too hard and shiny, and their movements don’t look natural enough. Of all the monsters in this movie, however, Baby looks the worst, and that’s because Baby looks unforgivably bad.

For me, this one came in significantly short of what I would like to have seen. Thus far, Heisei isn’t really pulling it off.

C-