Tag Archives: Toho

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

Posted on by
2

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack ~ 2001, Shûsuke Kaneko – Japan

gmk_1

Poor Godzilla seems to be in a constant state of reboot. That’s apparently how it’s gonna be here in the Millennium era, just reboots as far as the eye can see. In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Which shall henceforth forever be abbreviated as GMK because I never want to type that nightmare of a title again) we have again abandoned all previous Godzilla continuity save for the original 1954 film, with one surprising exception; the 1998 American made Roland Emmerich film. They keep that in cannon simply so that they can explicitly clarify that that fucking monster was NOT Godzilla. Awesome. Anyway.

The story is as follows: Godzilla hasn’t been seen since ’54, but Japan remains spooked. Apparently, they’re right to fear Godzilla’s return, because lo and behold- here he is, back, and hellbent on stomping Japan off the map for good. The fate of the country rests on three ancient guardian monsters who come to save the day; Baragon (who apparently wasn’t worth a spot in the title,) Mothra, and King Ghidorah. No idea where these asshole guardian monsters were in ’54, but in the end they can’t really get the job done this time either, so mankind is forced to step up to the plate at the eleventh hour with some sort of new super weapon and take out Big G forever, just like they did last time. You can’t rely on Guardian monsters for shit these days.

GMK carries along with it a reputation of being one of the better recent entries in the Godzilla franchise, and to a point, I agree. The production is mostly very competent, the monster effects are well done, especially Baragon, but occasionally Godzilla’s rubbery hide will fold in a way that seems too puppet like for the new millennium, and we should be doing better than that by now. If we had better costumes way back in The Labyrinth, then I really can’t pardon this today. Also, there are composite shots and CG effects all over the place that look like complete garbage, so as usual, Toho needs to put more of an investment in it’s digital effects department if they want to use them so friggin’ often.

Anyway. The tone is fairly consistent, and there is a clear attempt to recapture the grim menace Godzilla used to exude, which I can get into. Toho really seems interested in getting our big green boy back to his Atomic Bogeyman basics, so this time around they really make it a point to highlight human deaths as a result of Godzilla’s rowdiness. Unfortunately the tone is kept fairly light so these causalities don’t feel tragic enough to really get that point across. By and large, the Heisei era managed to communicate that particular message a lot more effectively, but GMK is still superior to those films by a wide margin.

What GMK does best, I think, is balance fun monster battles with grounding scenes of human drama and exposition, which is a phenomenal achievement. We spend just enough time with our humans on the ground to pull the narrative together, but not enough that we feel bored. In general, this balance is extremely difficult for kaiju films to strike, so I theorize that for this reason GMK stands out as being especially good, even amongst viewers who aren’t film savvy enough to recognize that this balance is what they’re responding to.

It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, however. GMK is a competent and enjoyable movie, but as a Godzilla film, it’s struggles in weird ways. It’s kinda like the Jason Goes To Hell of the Godzilla series, strong for casual viewers, but potentially difficult for longtime fans. We see in GMK new ideas that I would argue are playing too fast and loose with these characters, and Godzilla himself is stretched, conceptually, to the point of nearly coming apart at the seems. Essentially, this time around, all these monster are fueled with spirit energy, because from the looks of it, Toho has completely lost faith in science altogether. That’s fair enough, but while the Guardian Monsters are all gassed up on your run of the mill, ordinary Japanese spirits, Godzilla’s monster engine runs exclusively on pissed off Japanese World War II ghosts, who have possessed him with the intent of getting revenge on a modern day Japan which they feel has betrayed the values they fought for, and it totally has. I’m really not sure how I feel about any of that, especially since there is at least some evidence to suggest that Godzilla is, in effect, a zombie in this film, which I am absolutely not down with. Worst of all: (SPOILER ALERT) The film climaxes with Godzilla being blown up, and after victory is declared, we see a large, still beating Godzilla heart sitting at the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to like… Grow a new Godzilla, or something? I don’t know, but it’s very much reminiscent of Jason Goes To Hell’s most objectionable component, and also it sucks and I hate it.. (END SPOILER ALERT)

I think the worst thing about GMK, however, is the K. King Ghidorah, in this film, is like, the ultimate Earth Guardian Monster, the last champion for the human race, standing against Godzilla in a battle to save us all, and that, my friends, is horse shit. Maybe I’ve missed something, but I grew up with the Godzilla films, and in my day, there was no more sneaky, evil, treacherous asshole of a monster that King Ghidorah, alien dick head sent from Planet X to screw us all. Every time he shows up, he’s like, Godzilla’s ultimate nemesis, and he’s always the baddest of bad guys. Are you now, GMK, expecting me to do a complete 180 and root for this slimy, three headed douche bag? Oh, think again. I am not prepared to for that. I’d rather Godzilla kick his ass and then eat every human on Earth than flip flop on my staunch Anti-Ghidorah stance. That, in a nut shell, is the biggest problem with GMK, it’s just taking a lot of liberties with a pretty concrete and established universe, and not all of the ramifications are going to sit well with you.

That having been said, most fans seem to be pretty much fine with it, for whatever reason, so maybe these things don’t matter so much after all? What do I know, I guess. It’s still a pretty solid entry at the end of the day, and it beats the hell out of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla.

C+

GZ backGZ next

 

GODZILLA VS MEGAGUIRUS!

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla Vs Megaguirus– 2000, Masaaki Tezuka – Japan

megaguitus

Now, two movies into the third established era in Godzilla’s film history, Toho churns out Godzilla Vs Megaguirus, and in all honesty, this feels like one of the least noteworthy entries in Godzilla’s entire cannon. It doesn’t possess extreme highs or lows, I’d call this one Godzilla at his most monotone. Oh well… At least there aren’t any aliens. Here we go.

THE PLOT~ Toho again rewrites the history of it’s most beloved franchise with Godzilla VS Megaguirus; this time around the events of 1954’s Gojira played out a little differently. Apparently, the Oxygen Destroyer; the machine which was used to kill Big Green back in his first big screen appearance, was never invented, and so in this timeline, the original Godzilla is still around, stomping, smashing, and generally causing a ruckus. Luckily, his raids on Japan appear to be very few and far between, and are concentrated only on areas where nuclear, or other mass power operations, are being conducted. Japan is therefore able to minimize Godzilla’s rampaging by doing away with it’s more dangerous energy based projects, which it does begrudgingly. Anyway. Whatever. Moving on;

So, still not happy with the situation, Japan mounts numerous efforts to kill Godzilla; the most recent of which is the G-GRASPER unit. Yes, G-Grasper. It sounds, to me, somehow creepily sexual, but I’m not really sure why. No matter what, it’s a stupid name, although it might suck less in Japanese. Couldn’t tell you. Anyhow. So, these folks develop a new weapon meant to destroy Godzilla forever, essentially, they create a miniature black hole, into which Godzilla can be pulled, never to return, hooray. I guess the black hole then disappears? There’s conflicting information on that, so I’m not really sure, but it freaking better disapear, if the damn G-Graspers that it was totally cool to just have a friggin’ Black Hole in the middle of Tokyo then they all should be thrown in jail. But again, I digress;

Logically, the first time they test this new weapon, they instantly create a swarm of horrible, giant dragonflies completely by accident. Wonderful! many people are killed. These dragonflies are a huge problem, and they couldn’t have come at a worse time, because check it out, Godzilla’s active again! So, of course, the kaiju big bugs attack Godzilla and like, suck his radioactive dino blood or something, and then return to feed that blood into the gnarled carapace of their even more horrible monarch insect; which then mutates into Megaguirus, an even bigger, even worse dragonfly. I wonder where this is going?

Why, to a giant monster battle, of course! Godzilla and Megaguirus meet up and slug it out, as is their custom, in the middle of the city, and the G-Graspers bumble about making almost no contribution to the situation at all, until the eleventh hour. You see, the damn G-Graspers still seem to think that a black hole launcher is a fine thing to use, even though the only time they have ever tested it they created a race of giant, man-killing dragonflies. “I’m sure that was a one time thing,” the G-Graspers think, as they race to kill Godzilla forever, by using this terrible weapon they have created, but first, they wait for him to save all of their assess by killing Megaguirus, who you may remember they stupidly created themselves by using that exact same weapon a few days ago. Honestly, the G-Graspers are all stupid dicks.

Godzilla VS Megaguirus continues the ‘Zilla tradition of wagging a stern finger at the folly of man’s arrogance by further criticizing our lust for power and violence. This message is not subtle, in fact, it’s painfully overt- the last time we created a monster, it was because we, as humans, dared to use atomic weapons, which were, at that time, the most powerful weapons on Earth. Now, we’ve created a weapon even more powerful than that to try and clean up our mess, and what happens? Boom, more monsters. The statement is pretty cut and dry; we can’t solve our problems by introducing more problems. No more horrible weapons. They further push this message with Godzilla’s zest for attacking Nuclear, and plasma energy reactors, making Godzilla VS Megaguirus a straightforward sermon on the evils of hubris, and that is literally the first lesson these movies ever tried to hammer through our skulls. I suppose that isn’t a problem, really, but Godzilla VS Megaguirus’ retreading of such well worn territory feels like a mark against it because it also fails to do it in a way that feels new or interesting, and it doesn’t really go anywhere else, thematically, either. There are other Godzilla films which are even less dimensional than this one, but most of the time they still managed to have more heart, and remain more likable. Godzilla Vs Megaguirus is hurting for likability. It’s hurting bad.

Firstly, the human characters in Megaguirus are nothing special. They bored me, they’ll bore you, and honestly, I don’t like them. The romance the film offers up feels unnecessary, and I absolutely don’t care about it. Most of the G-Grapsers remain underdeveloped, which is a missed opportunity and the bad guy is never really bad enough, he just kinda made a bad call. I really don’t think it’s fair for the G-Grapsers to hold that against him, considering the fact that this entire movie happened because the G-Graspers themselves are so incompetent that they accidentally created a species of giant, man eating dragonflies. That’s a real “He who without sin cast the first stone” type situation right there.  Also lame; Megaguirus himself. For sure, he’s nothing special, he comes off as sort of a B-Squad Battra, which, damn- a step DOWN from Battra? How undignified.This film is just so disappointingly lukewarm.

Easily, the worst problem with Godzilla Vs Megaguirus is the shittiness of the special effects. Most of the practical effects are fine, the suits look decent enough (Although I hate the Godzilla redesign- especially his purple-for-no-reason spikes) but there is a lot of unbelievably bad CG in this thing. Like, horrible CG. And there’s so much! It’s a real shame to see such inadequate, cheap effects used on what could be called Japan’s most cherished cinematic export. Godzilla deserves better, and the digital effects in this film are not worthy of any movie, let alone a Godzilla film that was made in the year 2000! It’s really disappointing to see him treated so poorly, and for me, this shitty CGI just kills the picture completely.

Of the things Megaguirus actually does well, perhaps its finest accomplishment is that it somehow manages to briefly recapture the spirit of Godzilla’s Showa days, albeit in sporadic, all-too-brief segments, and those scenes are genuinely enjoyable. I felt some of this when the dragonfly swarms made their first assault on Godzilla, but it’s felt nowhere more than during the final battle between Godzilla and Megaguirus. This final confrontation is both brutal, and at the same time, somewhat playful, and even humorous. To me, that felt very reminiscent of Godzilla’s Hero-Phase in the later Showa films, which is awesome. There are parts of the fight that lose me, but overall, it’s easiest to look at Godzilla during those sequences and imagine that this is the same monster you saw clobber Gigan decades ago, which is absolutely the best praise I can give to Godzilla VS Megaguirus. Even so, this is but one positive attribute, and it doesn’t save the picture.

The last thing I want to mention; I think MAYBE they were trying to be funny, but the end of this movie is amazing, in a bad way. It’s a freeze frame cut, and in my opinion, it’s tied with George Romero’s Bruiser for the title of “most lame and akward ending/last frame of a movie ever.” Go watch it, it is puzzling, and it sucks real, real bad. So, whoever directed this; don’t do that, dude. It’s bad. You did a bad job.

C-

GZ backGZ next

GODZILLA 2000

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla 2000 – 1999, Takao Okawara – Japan

Godzilla-2000-poster

The world of Godzilla 2000 is one where the debate over whether or not Godzilla exists is over. Here, he has become an accepted part of life. Researchers study Big Green the same way they might study earthquakes, tornadoes, or really any natural phenomena, and while there remains a strong urge to destroy him, there is at least some portion of the scientific community eager to contain Godzilla somehow, for scientific purposes. Neither side seems to get their way, however, as always, he remains unkillable, and uncontrollable.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, mankind has unwittingly awakened an ancient, extraterrestrial life form that had been snoozing at the bottom of the ocean for millennia, and when this advanced life-form gets hostile, we again find ourselves totally unable to fend off our would-be destroyer. We’re basically worthless, when you get down to it, so once again it falls on the rough, greenish shoulders of Godzilla to bail our asses out, even though we launched like, a thousand rockets at him just yesterday… And that’s the movie!

Up until about the halfway mark I was pretty convinced that I was watching the best Godzilla movie in a very long time. This one marks the beginning of the Millennium Era, the third recognized period in Godzilla film continuity, and It starts out very, very strong, with many of the regrettable traits brought into cannon during the Heisei absent completely. Which is awesome, I love Godzilla, and I want to like the Heisei era films, but they made it pretty difficult sometimes. This film, on the other hand, is much easier to get behind, it feels higher budget and more serious than what we saw out of Big G’s last several escapades, and I feel like the spirit of the Showa era is felt ever so briefly here and there, although that could have been the hysterical relief brought on by not having to deal with any more psychics or hard, shiny, plastic monsters.

G2000 opens with a pretty neat scene; we have some Godzilla tracking enthusiasts hoping to catch a sight of the big guy in their custom outfitted Kaiju jeep, and guess what; they totally do. The whole sequence is cool, and very well done, even if it does try to borrow a bit from Jurassic Park, and even Twister. It somehow feels so fresh and real, and the way this movie tries to sell you a world where there is an apparent attempt to adapt to and understand Godzilla is just so different from what we’ve seen before. This is one of G2000’s many positive qualities, however, it ain’t all waterslides and puppy dogs, this movie has some serious flaws that really begin to gang up on you over the course of the film. The single worst problem out of the whole batch is a debilitating lack of balance, which is probably the most common flaw in all of Kaiju Cinema; as is so often the case, we end up spending way too much time with characters that we just don’t care about, and even when we finally get to the good bits, it somehow feels boring because of how little we give a shit about this world to begin with. It’s just too little too late, and the giant alien monster that Godzilla has to fight is also decidedly lame. That doesn’t help.

Regardless, the strength of the first half of the movie is enough to make this one stand out in my mind, and overall, I like the film. It’s a good enough start to a new era, and Godzilla fans will likely have a pretty good time with it.

C+

GZ backGZ next

Rebirth of Mothra III!!!!

Posted on by
Reply

Rebirth of Mothra III – 1998, Okihiro Yoneda – Japan

Mothra3poster

Alright, you guys… This is it. This is the tie breaker! This movie decides the fate of the Heisei Mothra trilogy… So far, we’ve got a kick ass first film and one sucky ass sequel. Rebirth of Mothra III is destined to tip the scales and be the deciding factor; will this trilogy will follow the Indianna Jones model (two rad films sandwiching a less than awesome middle movie) or if it will go the way of the Matrix franchise (one classic followed by two humiliating turds.)? There’s a lot riding on this film. What’s it gonna be, Toho? Can Rebirth of Mothra III salvage this series!?!

And the answer is: Well… Kinda. I guess.

The PLOT: Belvera, the villainous sister of our two tiny singing Mothra Maidens, hatches what must be her two billionth plan to rid the Earth of humans once and for all, and this time her evil scheme involves summoning King Ghidorah, here identified as the King of Terror, to come do her dirty work for her. Apparently, Ghidorah is actually the force which drove all dinosaur life to extinction way back before recorded history, so Belvera figures he’d be really good at doing the same thing to the human race. What she didn’t expect is that Ghidorah’s technique this time around would involve eating all the children of Japan on day one of his dragon occupation, which is pretty brutal. In order to do this, he first sucks them up into the sky using what appears to be magic and somehow transports them into a large, membranous dome, for safe keeping, kind of like a giant kaiju cookie jar. He also uses his evil psychic influence to possess Lora, one of the good little Mothra people, and turns her against her sister Mol. Some lines get crossed this time around that we haven’t seen crossed before, which really elevates the drama. Off to a good start!

Meanwhile, our principle human character is Shota Sonoda, a moody, sensitive boy who, I would approximate to be in the tween or early teen demographic… Can’t say for sure. Anyhow, Shota’s super mopey, and he has recently decided that he just isn’t going to go to school anymore, which, inexplicably, seems to be accepted as a decision he has the right to make by his parents and society. Can you do that in Japan? Just not go to school? Thank goodness you don’t have that option in America. The literacy rate would drop to zero within one generation’s time. Anyway, Shota’s aversion to school actually pays off when Ghidorah pays a little visit to the one place in town that promises the best crop of young’un’s for his giant dragon snack drawer, but his little brother and sister are not so lucky. They get sucked away into Ghidorah’s magical kid transportation device, and Shota decides he’s gotta do something about it.

Shota is also meant to hold together the narrative and provide a connection between the human world and the monster filled world of the Elias (that’s what the tiny women are actually called), which he does effectively. The Elias sisters really do have quite a lot going on in RoMIII, and it’s not inaccurate to suggest that they sort of occupy center stage for most of the film. After Lora has her brain invaded by the cold, menacing stare of Ghidorah and goes all stab happy on Mol, she and Belvera both wind up stuck inside Ghidorah’s Snack pod, destined to be munched up by a nigh impervious, three-headed hell dragon from space in the very near future. That shit ain’t good. Mol is, at this point, at her lowest, and isolated from her two sisters the same way that Shota is from his family, so the two of them happen upon one another and decide to join forces and summon Mothra to come save the day. This all sounds promising enough, but we’re coming up on a major hurdle that RoMIII doesn’t exactly clear, so heads up.

You see, other than some unforgivably bad CG, this movie has managed to to kick ass pretty reliably up until this point, but this is the moment where Rebirth of Mothra III really starts to push its luck. It kinda goes without saying that Mothra on his/her best day really is no match for Ghidorah, perhaps the most formidable of Godzilla’s scaley, giant rogues gallery, and understanding this to be true, Mol announces a plan to give Mothra an edge. This plan relies heavily upon…

…Time travel.

Fuck.

The last, and only other time Toho has attempted to work time travel into one of their ‘Zilla-Verse films was the horrible, jaw-droppingly stupid Godzilla VS King Ghidorah, which was released seven years prior. Godzilla VS King Ghidorah made no sense whatsoever, it was an unmitigated disaster, a direct insult to human intelligence, and the single worst time travel film I have ever seen in my life. For Toho to be halfway home with the best instalment of a better than average trilogy and then to borrow so heavily from one of its worst fumbles of all time is a decision I can’t possibly wrap my mind around. Who thought this was a good idea? If I was reading this script my heart would have stopped the first time I saw “back in time” printed on a page. Oh, hell no, not again…

But here we are, with our second Toho film of the 1990’s to include both time travel and King Ghidorah. So… How does Rebirth of Mothra III compare to the epic fart in an elevator that was Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah?

Much, much better, thankfully, but that’s saying almost nothing. Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah suffered from a terminally convoluted plot and time travel that was excruciatingly nonsensical. In this movie, they handle the basic concepts involved with traveling through time much better (as in, the movie doesn’t seem like it was written by a six year old), but the story is still plagued by strange and embarrassing lapses in basic logic. Truth time: Toho should just stay the fuck away from time travel. No good has ever come of it, they just don’t seem to understand it, and they sure as shit don’t know how to use it in a story. I love that studio, and I make this statement out of a desire to see them do well, but so far, these attempts at time travel movies have been shameful detours into a world of madness and stupidity, and I just think enough is enough.

Anyway… Mothra goes back in time to throw down with a slightly younger Ghidorah, who is, at that time, munching down on some super dumb looking dinosaur hand puppets. The two monsters start to kick one another’s ass, and we periodically cut back to present day, where we see Ghidorah thrashing about in pain, basically the time travel equivalent of “Oh, I remember when that moth dude fought me back in the Cretaceous era, I’m really upset about that now!” Amongst all of this commotion, fire, death, destruction, and kidnapped, hysterical Japanese children, Belevera suddenly has her moment of clarity. Apparently, when she worked tirelessly toward a species wide genocide for all those countless centuries, she just wasn’t really thinking it through. Now that it looks like she managed to actually pull it off, Belvera starts get’s cold feet and opts to pull the plug on the whole deal.

This is a major emotional beat in the movie, and it’s what basically justifies the argument that Belvera is our main character. Now totally a good guy after all, Belvera does a historic flip flop back to Team Mothra, thereby uniting all of our principle cast against the menace of King Ghidorah, who currently getting his ass kicked millions of years ago by Mothra, but only just now is reacting to it, apparently.

Back in the Dino-Days, Mothra manages to toss Baby Ghidorah into a volcano, a means of monster disposal with a less than stellar success rate, but we still pretend that this was a victory and that Ghidorah is totally dead. The cost was high, however; critically injured in the showdown, Mothra crashes into the Earth, essentially down for the count. He/She/It is soon saved by the mercifull cocoons of some wiggley little Mothra Larvae who happen upon him/her, and there Mothra waits, cloaked in the nourishing embrace of caterpillar silk. until present day, when he can explode out of the Earth like a shiny, winged Jack-In-The-Box.

So, things seem all good with our happy little characters back in modern day Japan, but everyone is a little confused about how they even know who Ghidorah is if he had been killed millions of years ago. I count this as a major victory, because it illustrates a much more advanced understanding of what going back in time would actually do than was ever evident in the aforementioned Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah, which was, again, the ramblings of a simpleton made celluloid, and I totally am willing to dismiss the fact that if King Ghidorah was the thing that killed off all the dinosaurs, then killing him back in the Cretaceous period would therefore result in a future still dominated by giant lizards and humans probably wouldn’t exist. That’s, like, the kind of stuff Toho will learn about in school next year, but at least they’re progressing.

Suddenly, and in an abuse of common sense which is mild in serverity, a firey, volcano charged King Ghidorah suddenly appears in the center of a floating ball of flame, and all the kids get zapped right back into his alternate universe dragon cookie jar or whatever. “Oh, shit, what now?!” Everyone says. Just then, a mountainside gives way, revealing Mothra’s ancient cocoon, and it cracks open to reveal a new, shiny, super Mothra, which kicks Ghidorah’s ass. This final Mothra redesign feels lame and over the top to me. If the four winged Mothra from the last movie is X-Wing Mothra, this is basically Jason X Mothra. Anyway. So, super metal future Mothra kills Ghidorah, oh boy, happy ending.

From an early point it’s obvious that this was a movie with a lot more talent behind it than Rebirth of Mothra II was, and you can really feel the jump in quality just pouring out of the screen from the very start of the picture. Without question, we’ve left that regrettable middle child of a film in the dust, and that’s excellent news. As for wether or not this beats the first film in the trilogy; I think the jury is still out, but it’s close. The foray into time travel is a hard blow to overcome, it’s not a mortal wound exactly, we can cope, but this thing would have been King of Mothra mountain and now it really can’t make that claim. As for how the rest of the film holds up, many of the effects are pretty lousy, which is par for the course from Toho’s post Showa output, but it’s shot really well and the plot feels much more dramatic, which is excellent. The time travel thing really is RoMIII greatest flaw, but beyond that, it’s one of Toho’s better films out of the 1990’s, and it’s certainly better than many of Godzilla’s more recent adventures.

The themes we see in Rebirth of Mothra III are, much like the first film, themes of unity, and the reconciliation of the family. Our humans, the Sonoda family, are a refreshing departure from the Gotoh family (our characters in the first movie), because they’re not in the least bit fractured by emotional issues or inter-personal drama. This is a family who is close emotionally, and so they are instead separated physically, by a damn dragon. Regarding our other characters, we get a much closer look into the family drama facing the three Elias sisters than we have in the past, and the film is very much about the redemption of Belvera and the healing of whatever rift tore the three of them apart to begin with, which is interesting. Oddly enough, RoMIII is much less interested in exploring environmental ethics than it’s two predecessors, which is a curious switch up. Up till this point it seemed like this was Toho’s Eco-concious fable trilogy, but those ideas have been pushed way off into the background here, for whatever reason. I don’t miss them, honestly.

It’s pretty strong, all in all, but Rebirth of Mothra III suffers from it’s time travel gaffs and would have been better off without the over-complication. Still recommended!

B-

GZ backGZ next

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA II!!

Posted on by
Reply

Rebirth of Mothra II – 1997, Kunio Miyoshi – Japan

tumblr_nej8jgdzbP1qgckmbo1_500

When Toho kicked off it’s brand new Mothra franchise, they really started off on the right foot. Rebirth of Mothra was an excellent kaiju adventure which was geared for kids, but remained entertaining for adults, and which managed to carry an effective message of environmental consciousness without coming across as too preachy or obnoxious. That’s a hard balance to strike, and they pulled it off; Rebirth of Mothra was a surprisingly solid effort which I really enjoyed. For Rebirth of Mothra II, we get the embarrassing dud we expected out of its prequel; and it sucks super, super hard. This thing fumbles at every turn, so strap yourself in for a rocket ride to dudsville, everybody.

THE PLOT~ Three school children Goonies their way into a grand adventure involving a lost, sunken temple, ancient cursed treasure, a big pollution monster, and magical furby pee. Then Mothra shows up and kills a boring sea dragon. Roll credits.

That’s about it. It feels slapped together, and the Mothra sequences feel tacked on. It’s so haphazard that it really could have been a non-Mothra script about a bunch of kids on some crazy adventure that just wasn’t panning out, so they slopped on a well known Kaiju and called it a sequel. The adventure angle makes this movie feel like a weird, sucky Atragon, but without the submarine, or really anything that made me love Atragon. It even references the Lost Continent of Mu, so clearly, the writers did have Atragon on their mind when they cobbled together this clown-party, but it’s not enough, and what we get is just a sham of a movie.

This time around, Mothra’s up against Dagahra, which is sort of a dragon/stingray combo type thing, but that sounds cooler than it is. He just doesn’t feel that special, or that well concepted. Apparently, his thing is that he eats up pollution (oh, that’s good, right?) and then poops out evil, murderous starfish creatures (there’s the catch, we don’t want those Starfish creatures around), so he totally needs to be stopped, obviously, but the movie does an extraordinarily poor job of establishing that the environment is even that polluted to begin with. This really needed to be conveyed SOMEHOW, and it just wasn’t. Not well. I don’t think it’s out of line to call this the single least effective environmental fable in the extended Zilla-Verse. Boo, Rebirth of Mothra II! Boo!

And then there is Mothra himself- that’s right HIMself. The Mothra in this film, I have learned, is Mothra Leo, the son of the Mothra we all know and love; making this the first mothra in Toho history which is expressly noted as being male. Honestly, this gender switch up sucks, Mothra being female was always a huge part of her charm, and this just feels like an unnecessary change that makes the character that much less unique. All these monsters are dudes, let’s leave at least ONE lady in the fray.

The worst part of the movie comes at the end, in the final showdown between Mothra and Dagahra. Mothra, like, morphs into what I call an X-Wing Mothra, and then splits off into countless tiny X-Wing Mothras, so he/they can fly into Dagahra’s mouth and zoom around until they reach the reactor core and target it with their photon torpedos. That may have been Return of the Jedi, actually, but the same exact thing happens in Rebirth of Mothra II, so what the fuck ever. Then, the squadron of X-Wing Mothras exit the exploding Death Star/Dragon/whatever, and rejoins to form normal X-Wing Mothra Leo, and then morphs back to non X-Wing Mothra, meaning that Mothra’s X Foils are not permanently locked in attack formation, he can apparently revert back and forth whenever the movie needs to get stupider. It’s fucking lame. Fun fact; people have liked Mothra since the 50’s, and we don’t need to have her transformed into a dude which is shaped like a spaceship. You ruined everything, Toho.

Our three kids, meanwhile, are tasked with surviving the bumbling antics of two adult thieves, who have become Belvera’s newest henchmen, but their actual purpose is to illustrate to us the evils of human greed, and consequences thereof. None of that matters, because this message is lost due to how horribly disinteresting and poorly done the film is. You’ll be happy it’s over, and you’ll take nothing with you, Rebirth Of Mothra II is boring, ineffective, and overly childish to the point of being obnoxious, and frankly, it damages Mothra’s proud legacy.

Turdsville!
D

GZ backGZ next

Rebirth of Mothra!

Posted on by
Reply

Rebirth Of Mothra – 1996, Okihiro Yoneda – Japan

affiche-rebirth-of-mothra-1996-1

Everybody’s favorite giant ass, benevolent bug monster returns in this much-better-than-you’d-expect solo outing from the heart of the 1990’s, A.K.A.; The Heisei Period. It’s weird, by and large, Godzilla’s career in the this era hasn’t been all peaches and popsicles, in fact, some of those movies downright suck like crazy… but so far, based on the strength of this movie, Mothra is doing substantially better. I guess it’s too early to judge, though, this did end up being a trilogy, so we’ll see how well our big, furry bug buddy holds up three movies deep.

THE PLOT ~ Taiki and his sister Wakaba don’t get along. Neither do their parents, dad works long hours overseeing the logging/mindless destruction of precious natural sites, for the purpose of building parking lots, torture chambers, or slaughterhouses, presumably, and their mother stays home all day fabricating reasons to be angry at people, mostly their father, because fuck that guy. Then we have the two tiny, singing fairy ladies who live on Infant Island and serve as stewards to Mothra; their roles have been greatly expanded upon in this film, and in many ways drastically altered. In the past, these characters have been relatively singular in personality, lacking individual characteristics and instead operating in a more enigmatic, ethereal manner. In the case of Rebirth Of Mothra, they are now given individual personalities and names, Mona and Lora, respectively, and they no longer are of one mind on everything. In fact, they occasionally disagree. Additionally, these two decades old characters have also gained a third sister, Belvera, who is basically Rita Repulsa, but five inches tall. She’s the bad guy here, she rides on a little dragon. Full disclosure; I like Belvera.

So, one day, dad, who, again, works all the time, fuck that guy, right? He’s never home, he’s always off working really hard to pay for our groceries, the kids’ college fund, our mortgage, all our bills- What a dick! Anyway. He and his stalwart crew of Earth-murdering land developers happen upon a mysterious ancient site, which, unbeknownst to them, is the enchanted prison of a giant, gnarly dragon monster. Pops, again, thinking only of himself, pries a tiny, circular seal off of this archeological treasure with the intent of gifting it to his daughter Wakaba, but again, what a dick, in so doing, he weakens the prisons hold on Desghidorah, the aforementioned dragon, and it’s now only a matter of time before this beast busts loose. Desghhidorah is kind of cool, it basically looks like a grey, quadrapedal version of longtime Godzilla arch-villain King Ghidorah. They must be related.

So, dad returns home to the angry, frozen embrace of his eternally dissatisfied wife and gives the seal to his daughter as a necklace, which, unbeknownst to mom and dad, makes her the target of Belvera, who is super excited about setting Desghidorah free… For some reason. She hate people, I guess. Lora and Mona intervene, and they end up dogfighting with Belvera in a miniature moth/dragon aerial shootout that would be a lot cooler if the CG in ’96 wasn’t so PBS looking. Long story short, Belvera gets away with the seal, which is now a magical amulet, and sets Desighidorah loose. Lora and Mona summon Mothra, who is getting on in years, and she flaps her giant, furry groove thing on over to face an opponent that seems laughably more intimidating than she is. Mothra is, in turn, rewarded with a furious ass kicking, as she so often has been throughout her life.

In all the fury and dragon lasers, Mothra’s offspring, somehow sensing momma moth’s distress, busts forth from it’s egg prematurely, and wiggles it’s tiny larval form off to her rescue. Unrealistically, this infant caterpillar arrives at the scene of the battle more of less instantly, and attacks Desighidorah in a truly valiant fashion, only to then be deal a most savage beat-down in return which nearly kills it. Momma Mothra and her little Larva somehow escape with their lives, but as soon as they’re clear from the immediate threat of three-headed dragon attack, Mother Moth-Monster dies anyway, and sinks dramatically into the ocean. This is meant to be a a real emotional beat in the film, and it’s sort of embarrassing how effective that is. You really have to remind yourself that it’s a damn puppet in a swimming pool and not an actual guardian monster sacrificing her life for her offspring, but even so, you may get a little bummed out.

So, baby Mothra cocoons into a fully developed Moth monster, beats Desigidora’s ass, saves the day, and somewhere between fighting to save one another and baring witness to the glorious splendor of monster combat, the Goto family finds themselves closer than they have been in years, and all old grievances are forgotten, because, as I learned in couples counseling, “the family that survives a dragon attack together, stays together.”

So, there are a couple themes at play here, and none of them are subtle. The first, and most important (in the scheme of the film) is the importance of family, and the healing of strained familiar relationships. This is showcased most plainly in our central characters, the Goto family, and then repeated in the sisterhood of Lora, Mona and Belvera, and then again between Mothra and her offspring. The message of Rebirth of Mothra isn’t the least bit cynical, it is one of forgiveness and compassion, but the movie also has a three headed dragon that fights a caterpillar in it, so don’t be too turned off by its touchy-feeling nature.

The other theme is that of environmental conservation, which is secondary to the family unit theme, yet still extremely heavy handed and blatant. The movie is so Pro-Environmentalism that Al Gore keeps it in a secret drawer that his wife doesn’t know about, for night’s when he’s home alone and feeling frisky. Even so, if you aren’t especially into the whole “conservation thing,” it doesn’t go so over the top that it’s obnoxious, like Avatar does.. If you made it through that chore, you can make it through Rebirth of Mothra, piece of cake.

From a technical standpoint, Rebirth of Mothra is a mixed bag, but it’s still better than most of Godzilla’s recent pictures. What we have here are a bunch of practical effects which are mostly really good, and and a bunch of CGI that sucks really badly. There is one area where Rebirth of Mothra shines like the Arc of the Covenant, though; and that’s its pyrotechnics, holy shit, there are so, so, so many explosions in this movie, and they actually look super awesome. This is what I thought a Kiss concert was going to be like before I ever saw one. There are flames launching every direction, blasts of light exploding out of the Earth- I would normally discourage people from being all that charmed by what amounts to little more than a sophisticated fireworks display in a feature film, but whoever is responsible for these righteous fireball effects deserves a serious raise. Good job dude. How many moth puppets got scorched beyond usability during this shoot? It had to have been dozens.

There is also some pretty good photography, particularly in the third act, and for the most part, I was surprised how good Rebirth of Mothra ended up being. Really, the biggest issue you may have with the film is that, unlike the Heisei era Godzilla films, many of which took on a darker tone and more mature themes, this solo Mothra film is undeniably aimed at a younger audience. In fact, this is a kid’s movie- and that’s clear as day, my friend. For some of you, I expect that disqualifies it altogether- but if I was a kid I would love this thing. Even as an adult I really enjoyed it, I feel like it closely captured the spirit of Toho’s Showa era films, and the changes made to Mothra lore didn’t particularly turn me off- Toho has often shown little regard for continuity in the first place.

Highly recommended for younger audiences, especially those who dig on some of the Hero Godzilla films of the 60’s and 70’s, and actually, I would recommend this anyone who likes kaiju films at all. Lighten up, everybody, Rebirth Of Mothra is a good time!

A-

GZ backGZ next

Godzilla Vs Destroyah

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla Vs. Destroyah –1995, Takao Okawara – Japan

GodzillaVsDestroyah_B2_Japan_NoriyoshiOhrai-4

When Toho revived the Godzilla in 1984, they brought us a new era with shinier, more plastic looking monsters, who relied largely on laser based combat, as well as numerous psychics, soldiers, and also the single worst time travel movie of all time, Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah. Now, after seven films in eleven years, Toho wraps up the Heisei series with Godzilla Vs. Destroyah, and really, I’m kind of glad it’s over.

THE PLOT~ After Godzilla turns up in Hong Kong with some sort of crazy, fiery lizard rash, G-Force’s top minds conclude that Godzilla’s monster guts are reaching superheated levels, due to some sort of radioactive meltdown in his dragon belly. Apparently, Godzilla’s rumbly tum-tum will soon reach an unsustainable temperature, which will trigger an explosion large enough to annihilate the entire planet, which is clearly not a win/win scenario for him, or for us humans. Immediately, Japan busts out some Freeze ray technology they’ve been working on, and it’s actually more effective than you might think.

GODZILLA-VS-DESTOROYAH-1995

Meanwhile, some wayward Japanese scientist is sniffin’ around the old Oxygen Destroyer technology, which was the device they used to kill the original Godzilla in ’54, before it’s formula was lost with the death of it’s creator. As is the case 100% of the time that scientists try to do anything, this experimentation inadvertently resurrects and mutates a prehistoric monster, and the next thing you know, weird, bug like creatures are scurrying all over Tokyo killing the hell out of everyone. Science.

These monsters are basically just Toho ripping off the creatures from Aliens, right down to their extendable mini-mouth tongues, and we even get some soliders equiped with Ripley-esque flamethrowers running around trying to combat these creepy crawlies, so clearly, it’s uninspired, cut and dry plagiarism yet again from the Heisei series, which has become alarmingly routine lately. Honestly, it doesn’t help this movie’s case- Godzilla should be above shamelessly xeroxing other intellectual properties in this way, so for shame, Toho. Cut it the fuck out.

Anyhow, all these beasties merge together to create one giant, kaiju sized bug monster, which, apparently, is Destroyah, a creature which was absolutely named by Sylvester Stallone, without question. Confronted with this horrible crab/bug/dino looking abomination, Japan thinks; “Hey, this thing is a product of the original Oxygen Destroyer, right? Maybe it can solve our other giant monster related problem, if you know what I mean.” So, that brilliant idea is what we decide to go with, and in order to stage this confrontation, Godzilla Jr, now himself quite giant, is used as bait, since Miki (yep, she’s in this one too) has a special psychic connection to him and can kinda guide which way she wants him to go.

Miki totally dotes on Godzilla Jr as though he were a damned Labrador or something, but with some coaxing she is convinced to help direct GJ into the city, where he will most likely be slaughtered by a nightmarish insect monster before her very eyes. Godzilla Jr Shows up, probably thinking “Where are my human friends? I love humans!” and then he is immediately beaten to within an inch of his life by Destroyah, until Poppa G drops in, and shit goes to 11.

In the end, Godzilla defeats Destroyah, but not without going critical and literally melting like a giant, radioactive candle; however, the Earth is somehow spared from total destruction due to G-Force’s freeze lasers, or something. I’m not actually sure how these guys manage save the Earth, but they do somehow. I think maybe the idea is that the radiation that would have killed us got sponged up by Junior, which in turn transformed him into a full fledged Godzilla, but honestly, this bit is a little unclear for me.

Godzilla.jp_-_22_-_Godzilla_vs._Destoroyah

Other things happen in the movie, there are multiple characters and subplots,  but mostly these are just an attempt to further connect this film with the original ’54 Gojira, in hopes that our new movie will somehow seem more credible as a result of that connection, but honestly, who gives a shit? No one, that’s who. This movie is a little thin, like Jared from Subway, but it is fairly climactic, so I’ll give it that. Godzilla certainly looks formidable in his weird meltdown condition, and Godzilla VS Destroyah does feel tense and dramatic at times, but the movie remains burdened by problems typical to all Heisei era films; they just aren’t as fun, or as high quality as their Showa predecessors. In the end, Godzilla Vs Destroyah comes out somewhere in the middle of the list, if we were to rate the Heisei era films from best to worst, but on average, just about any Showa movie is head and shoulders above the films belonging to this second era. Onward; to the next book of the Godzilla trilogy; the Millennium Series.

C-

GZ backGZ next

Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla VS Spacegodzilla – 1994, Kensho Yamashita – Japan

Godzilla_vs_space_godzilla_poster_01

(ACTUAL CONVERSATION RECORDED INSIDE THE OFFICES OF TOHO)

“Dude…We’ve had Godzilla fight like… lots of stuff already.”
“Yeah, I know….”
“… What if we just had him fight… like… another Godzilla?”
“…You mean, like, Mechagodzilla?”
“…Yeah.”
“Uhhhhh…. I dunno, man. We just did that…”
“Okay, okay, not like, a Mecha one… What about, like… Like….Ummmmmm….. Oh, how ‘bout like, a space one?!”
“……..A spacegodzila?”
“…Yeah!”
“…Can it have like… A shit load of crystals all over it?”
“Hell yeah, it can.”
“….Okay. Sure, we can do that.”

AND…. it was underwhelming. Spacegodzilla, the character, is face-palmingly over the top. If you wanted an illustrative comparison between the shift in how the original Godzilla was designed in 1954, and the school of thought informing the creation of Spacegodzilla 40 years later, I offer forth this comparison; Consider that the original Godzilla from Gojira is like Japanese Kabuki theater; Strange, grim, and haunting, yet somehow beautiful and understated. Now, in terms of the energy that went into the conceptual design behind Spacegodzilla, on the other hand, consider every track ever recorded by the band Dragonforce playing simultaneously at a volume that would guarantee hearing loss. That’s what it would be like. Have you seen those crystal poking out of his damn sholders? Freaking ridiculous. And while we’re making comparisons, if you were looking for an appropriate forerunner for this film from the Showa era, Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is both the Godzilla Vs Gigan, and the Godzilla Vs Megalon of the Heisei series. That’s not great, guys. And you’re about to know it.

THE PLOT~ Japan has two plans now; and they’re gonna try them both. We’ve got Project T, and Project M. Breakin’ it down:

PROJECT T- Remember Mikki, the psychic girl who has been in every damn one of these movies but hasn’t really contributed in any solid way whatsoever? Well, they want to lodge a damn satelite dish in Godzilla’s neck and see if she can hijack his brain. Spoiler alert; She can’t.

PROJECT M– Remember how we just did the whole Mechagodzilla thing, and it failed? Well, how about sinking another couple billion tax yen into a second giant, metal robot to fight Godzilla? “Thought you’d never ask,” Says G-Force. What we end up with is Moguera, and yes, it’s another giant, vaugley monster shaped robot, but Moguera is different. What’s strange about Mogera is that he sort of seems like whoever designed him had weird priorities. Like, yeah, he’s got some weaponary on him, but he really seems like he was intended for 50% monster combat and 50% digging hella tunnels. I’m not sure why he would ever need to dig hella tunnels, but hey, who knows? Maybe if they had outfitted Mechagodzilla with the ability to just burrow like a mother fucker we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. And anyway, Moguera represents progress, because it’s a sign that G-Force is finally starting to understand that you don’t necessarily have to design your weapon to look exactly like your target for it to be effective. I mean, a gun isn’t shaped like a human, but it sure can put one down real good. Just food for thought, G-Force.

Anyway.

So, in hopes of getting things under control and eliminating the need to deploy an enormous mechanized war machine on a highly populated city, Project T kicks off their Godzilla brain hijacking mission first by sending a small group of G-Force personnel off to Birth Island, where Godzilla kinda sorta lives. Among this group we have:

Miki – Who cares? (Actually, Miki sucks a lot less in this movie than she does in any other Heisei film.)
Shinjo and Sato – Two knucklehead soldiers who are sorta like the Merry and Pippin of the Godzilla cannon. These two are actually kinda fun, and I like them quite a bit.
Dr. Gondo – This lady is the sister of Lieutenant Goro Gondo, who got Godzilla’d to death back in Return of Godzilla. Naturally, she hates Big Green, and she wants his scaly ass six feet under… Or, I guess, six miles under?
Other people– who cares?

When our rag tag team of G-Force bozos hits the beach on Birth Island, they encounter it’s two full time residents. They are:

Little Godzilla– “Baby” has grown up a little, which oddly enough has made him look drastically more infantile. Whatever, it’s an improvement, when he first appeared in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II, he looked both stupid, and hideous. This redesign has him looking a little bit more like the baby from the Dinosaurs sitcom, but also a little more like Minilla, which I think is a plus, somehow. That being said, he still looks cartoonish, and not very believable. Really, Toho did a better job pulling off Minillia way back in Son Of Godzilla, and in general the special effects in Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla feel shabby as shit.

Major Yuki– This character is the real star of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla in my mind. Yuki is a grizzled, angry old bad ass/maverick who has been camped out on Birth Island with the intent of murdering Godzilla single handedly, because Godzilla killed his best friend, the previously mentioned Lieutenant Gondo. Damn, Gondo was apparently just the wrong dude for Godzilla to kill, I guess.

Anyway, the failure of Project T (Yeah, it fails) really just serves to bring this group of people closer together, and they form our core characters throughout the rest of the movie.

Actually, it’s maybe worth mentioning that when our team gets to Birth Island, there are also these giant, moving, jagged crystal protrusions that shoot green lightning into the sky in the middle of the island, but none of our characters really seem to think they’re anything special. I would have been alarmed, but I guess what do I know? Except that I was right, these would have been worth investigating, because pretty soon Spacegodzilla turns up and this formation is apparently his space dragon landing pad. Birth Island really isn’t big enough to support two skyscraper sized battle-monsters, so pretty much immediately Godzilla comes face to face with Spacegodzilla, and he does not fare well in the confrontation- it ends with Spacegodzilla depositing Little Godzilla inside one of his weird, crystal chambers, which seems like a bad thing since Godzilla definitely did not want him to do that. These two are now enemies.

So, just what in the fuck is Spacegodzilla? Well, I’ll tell you; he is, theoretically, some sort of weird, galactic anomaly formed from wayward Godzilla DNA carried into space via Mothra or Biolante (Even though Biolante never happened at this point, as it was undone in the events depicted in the utterly stupid Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah) which mixed with like, space gasses, or crystals, or slime, or something. Some kind of space stuff. So, he’s genetically similar to Godzilla, but spacier. This is bad for our decidedly less-spacey Earth Godzilla, who ends up slugging it out with Spacegodzilla again on mainland Japan. Godzilla may not have stood a chance against his interplanetary sibling, but luckily control of Mogera had at this point been handed over to Shinjo, Sato and Yuki, and the three manage to work with Godzilla to kick the shit out of Spacegodzilla until he freaking dies. Awesome, actually. I can’t believe how cool Moguera ends up being in this movie, and it even gets to dig some tunnels, which is useful to our team, believe it or not.

So, what’s good, and what’s bad? This movie has a healthy portion of both, so we need to sift through it before he iron out an assessment.

THE GOOD:

Moguera! More accuratley, Shinjo, Sato, and Yuki, the three soliders tasked with the job of piloting Moguera in his attack on Spacegodzilla. When Mechagodzilla frumped on out to throw-down on Big G in Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II, it had several pilots, and we only really knew and gave a shit about one of them. Hell, even he wasn’t that likable, to be honest. This time around, we keep our crew small, and we’ve already spent a bit of time getting to know each of them before they suit up and hop behind the wheel, so in this way the fate of Moguera feels like something we’re much more invested in. And Moguera doesn’t come out unscathed, this confrontation feels desperate and dirty in a way that I haven’t seen done this effectively since Destroy All Monsters, and we actually care about the outcome.

Also remarkable is how much better Miki is in this film than she has ever been before. She plays into the plot in a way that doesn’t feel nearly as unnecessary or tacked on as it has in the past, plus she ends up with an emotional investment in another human character, and contributes to the outcome of events in a way that felt warranted, and valuable. So, that’s one out of six, Miki… Still a failing grade… But this is your movie.

The bad, on the other hand, mostly comes down to production value… And it’s sort of a long list. Here we go.

THE BAD:

Number one; Spacegodzilla… You suck. Spacegodzilla is both super, super over the top, and surprisingly boring. It’s like the whole “X-TREME!” thing from the tail end of the 90’s, just being “X-TREME” really isn’t enough, you also have to not suck ass. That’s the lesson of Spacegodzilla, who feels neither original, nor well developed enough to hold our interest. The one hope you have of giving a shit is if you somehow have a weird, psychological malfunction that makes you just fucking gaga for Space Crystals, because that’s one thing Spacegodzilla does do, he brings the Space Crystals like no one else. Beyond that, this is a snooze fest- population: Spacegodzilla. You’re garbage,

Secondly, the effects…. Holy shit, they’re terrible. This movie feels cheapier, shoddier, and more like an episode of Power Rangers than any Godzilla movie ever before or since. This really is the relative low water mark for special effects in a Godzilla movie. Firstly, the composite shots- wow. Maybe the technology just wasn’t there in the 90’s, but these stand out as being fails unworthy of the franchise, without question. Next, all of the outer space sequences in this film are unforgivably hokey and dated. Spacegodzilla’s assault on the Nasa spacestation, and Moguera’s subsequent outer space battle with Spacegodzilla are both embarrassing and look like they belong in the non-theater sequences of Mystery Science Theater 3000– the black sheet background with dangling planets and monsters on strings just can’t be pardoned. This is an example of an effect that has been obsolete since the 70’s, and I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that we see them here in a film from the 90’s. It’s just pitiful how badly these sequences were done, given the quality we expect from Toho at this point.

And it’s far from isolated just to those sequences, all of Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is just sorta shitty looking all over. This film is so much closer to a 1960’s B-movie than any ACTUAL Toho 1960’s B-movie ever was, and it doesn’t feel like this was done deliberately at all, there is an element of crappiness that just permeates this film’s production value completely and cheapens it beyond redemption, which is a total shame, because Godzilla deserves better.

That being said, there is one arena where this film shines, and that is in it’s tail puppetry. Godzilla’s tail is like, freaking miles long, and it wiggles about like a live trout, stranded on a rock. Toho did not let the quality of their tail puppetry droop with the rest of the production value, and it has to be acknowledged, they are the absolute unrivaled masters of tail puppetry on this planet. All hail the true Tail Puppetmasters.

So, GvSG sucks in all the areas you’d expect it to excel, but somehow manages to kind of break even in the least predictable way; by giving us human characters we like and care about, including one who has been around a while now without much to show for it before this film (that would be Miki, of course.) Additionally, Moguera, who sucked like crazy in The Mysterians, is kinda cool in this, so Godzilla Vs Spacegodzilla is a real curveball. In the end, it’s still one more nail in the coffin for the underperforming Heisei series, which honestly, I wanted to enjoy a lot more than I do.

C-

GZ backGZ next

Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II!!!!

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla II ~ 1993, Takao Okawara – Japan

godzilla_vs_mechagodzilla_1993_poster_01

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.

Decapi

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-

GZ backGZ next

Godzilla Vs Mothra AKA Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth!

Posted on by
Reply

Godzilla Vs Mothra AKA Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth– 1992, Takao Okawara – Japan

godzilla_vs_mothra_1992_poster_02

So… If “MOTHra” is a MOTH… Then “BATtra” is a bat?

Nope! Battra is also a damn moth. Sorry, suckers. That would have been cool, though.

Anyway…

After the painfully convoluted Godzilla VS King Ghidorah, a time travel movie that doesn’t understand time travel, we have Godzilla VS Mothra– a much more streamlined, point A to point B story, with no time travel and no frumpy ginger androids. Hooray!

Godzilla VS Mothra is another environmental fable style Godzilla flick, and this time they really play up the spiritual aspects of Mothra that have been touched on and/or implied in past movies. In this film, Mothra’s role has been redefined as a quasi ethereal guardian monster, one of the tools the Earth uses to maintain balance. Mothra and Co. become representations of Nature, and are presented as above our subjective concepts of morality, instead serving as mechanisms for a more universal, inarguable form of natural justice. As such, even when they make the hard choices that seem difficult to we feeble humans, they are still framed as being “The good guys,” because that’s just how it has to be. Therefore, Godzilla, by default, slides into his role as “the bad guy,” and represents science, hubris, and the tragically meddlesome nature of the human race. It’s sort of funny, at this point in the franchise, Toho has really turned on science in general. It’s hard to imagine the same Futurist attitude seen in Son Of Godzilla or Destroy All Monsters belonging to the same franchise as GVM; and by this point the series appears to advocate an almost neopaganist return to nature and spiritualism, something eerily in step with the Neopaganist movement in Europe at that time. Those same sentiments exist today, so if anything Godzilla VS Mothra is more meaningful now than it ever was.

Gvm

THE PLOT- Meet Taukya Fujita- the Japanese Indianna Jones! As a rugged, “Devil May Care” tomb raider/scoundrel, Takuya’s adventurer’s spirit gives him the wherewithal to survive inhospitable jungles and dodge ancient booby traps, as well as child support payments! That’s right, Takuya has totally and completely skipped out on raising his daughter, a fact brought to our attention when he is sprung out of jail by his babymomma Masako, as well as by a sniveling, spineless yes-man called Kenji. The two represent some giant Japanese land developing corporation, and they need Takuya’s help investigating an island owned by their employers. Although Masako resents Takuya for his failures as a parent, she knows him to be a capable jungle adventurer, and she bites the bullet and puts her feelings aside for the near-term. Taykua, however, is predictably scoundrel-like in his behavior, yet he eventually agrees to help, and so the three set out to Infant Island, who fans of the Showa Godzilla films will remember as the island where Mothra lives. I think the plan was that both parents should leave for this dangerous island, so that that way if anything happened, their child would be left orphaned. It’s a “put all your eggs in one basket and then ship that basket to a dangerous island” strategy. SPEAKING OF EGGS; that’s what they discover on infant island, Mothra’s egg. It seems that a recent meteorite impact along a fault line in the ocean triggered landslides and Earthquakes which had uncovered Mothra’s egg, as well as the egg of Battra; an evil, spikier, cooler moth monster. Although Infant Island is uninhabited (or is it?), ancient cave paintings are discovered by our team, and from these they learn about Mothra and Battra, two sides of the same monster coin, destined to bring balance to the force, or the Earth, or whatever. They also encounter the two tiny women of Infant Island, Mothra staples from past Toho films.

The tiny ladies tell us a little bit more about the situation at hand. Apparently, they are called “Cosmos,” and are actually ancient creatures from space. Sounds about right. Also, the Earth is hurting and we’re mean to it or whatever. Whatever, Cosmos- Hey, you guys, I know; let’s yank this giant egg out the Earth and see if we can make money off it somehow! So, that’s what they do.

Mothra’s egg never makes it to Japan, however. That same meteorite that shook up Infant Island also woke up and pissed off Godzilla, and he’s eager to let everyone know how giant and angry he is. From here, we have a three way monster confrontation stretched out over the rest of the film. Battra shows up, and he/she/it is pretty darn cool. Initially, Mothra and Battra are at each others throats, until Godzilla intervenes and appears poised to slay Battra. Mothra saves Battra’s life, and after some weird, tender kaiju moth exchanges which we can never hope to understand and probably wouldn’t want to if we could, Battra and Mothra reconcile, accepting one another’s role as being crucial to the survival of the Earth. They then team up and kick Godzilla’s ass. This metaphor is repeated, and solidified, through the reconciliation of Takuya and Masako, who patch things up and accept that their duties as parents to their daughter supersede their own selfish ambitions. Following this metaphor through to finish, this makes the daughter a representation of the Earth, and at the end of Godzilla Versus Mothra, mankind pledges to be less of a shit head in our role as stewards of our planet. I’m sure that lasted like, a week, then we steam rolled Tibet to make way for a parking structure.

So, the central metaphor for Godzilla VS Mothra is fairly well pronounced, and the composition is solid. Beyond this, we have a mixed bag of ups and downs, but over all the film is pretty good. I think I’m going to list this.

THE GOOD

  • Battra is a cool, interesting new character. He might seem more original than he actually is, given that he’s just an evil Mothra doppelgänger, but he still feels like an expansion of the Mothra universe, and not just a retred.
  • Our human characters are enjoyable, especially Takuya.
  • The more spiritual/cosmic angle on Mothra feels appropriate, and it solidifies Mothra as being distinct and unique next to her kaiju colleagues.
  • This is the first time Mothra looked like she could actually put up a decent fight against Godzilla.

THE BAD

  • The monsters don’t really look very good. Godzilla’s once rubbery hyde now looks too shiny and plastic, as do the other monsters. They look more like something your kid would play on in a McDonald’s Playplace, and their motions look jerky and robotic.
  • The movie could stand to have a little more monster action.

Over all, a pretty good entry for the Heisei series.

B+

GZ backGZ next