The Hall of Geekdom: 2013

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Spoose Gorsht Epishudes

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Kaiju Reviews #26 - Godzilla 2000

After the disaster that was the 1998 remake, Toho decided to wipe that movie clean from everyone's minds by starting off fresh with a new series just a year later (nicknamed the "Millennium Series" by fans). For the most part, this series was an anthology, with most movies only following the continuity of the original film... however, this is one of the exceptions, being completely standalone, as the origin for this Godzilla is never explained. Interestingly enough, both this movie and the next one are the only movies to depict Godzilla as being green; despite being advertised as such, he was never green in any of the previous movies; he was more of a black-ish color... ironically, he happens to be black on this poster. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Anyhow, let's get on with the plot. We follow a group of people associated with the "Godzilla Prediction Network", which basically consists of predicting when and where Godzilla will come out of the ocean, so people can evacuate seriously. Right away, we get some Godzilla action as the Big-G wanders through a small city in order to absorb energy from a small power plant. Meanwhile, in the middle of the ocean, a strange asteroid is discovered... and Godzilla just so happens to be in the middle of the area. The meteorite ends up being a flying saucer, which defeats Godzilla quite easily and quickly makes its way to the top of one of Tokyo's many buildings, deciding that it should rest for a spell. Eventually, the alien inside the saucer reveals that it intends to take over the world and plans to use Godzilla's regenerative cells in order to grow more powerful and survive in Earth's atmosphere. Eventually, Godzilla makes his bad self over to Tokyo, with full intentions on taking down the UFO. Unfortunately, it manages to absorb some of his DNA and the alien emerges as a giant squid-like creature... however Godzilla's DNA appears to be unstable, as this quickly goes wrong, turning him into the grotesque creature Orga (whose name is never uttered on-film). As always, Godzilla and Orga have a climactic fight, Godzilla prevails in the end, and the world is saved... only for the Big-G to blow up the city in the credits. Because nobody fucks with Godzilla.

Score:
3.5/5.0

It may not be the BEST Godzilla movie, but it's still a pretty good watch, especially if you've watched G'98 beforehand. And even though Godzilla disappears for about 40 minutes straight, the last half-hour is pretty much all Godzilla, which more than makes up for it.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Kaiju Reviews #25 - Gamera vs. Zigra

I'm back, baby! Now, after looking at some of my older reviews and [as-of-this-post] being in the process of watching all of the Godzilla movies in order, I decided that I'd tackle these Kaiju flicks after fresh viewings from now on, rather than basing them off of memory. As such, I won't be covering Godzilla 2000 quite yet, but I got one of Shout Factory's Gamera DVDs recently and decided that I'd go ahead and review the last true Showa film in the Gamera series: Gamera vs. Zigra. Now, let's get on to the plot synopsis, shall we...?

We start off with an alien spaceship attacking a Japanese moon base, quickly heading towards Earth... But then we focus a little bit on animal shows in a Japanese Sea World (I have a bad feeling about this already). After that, we focus on two kids who live near the Sea World, named Helen and... Kenny... couldn't they have named him something else? Anyhow, instead of going to school, the kids sneak onto their fathers' boat. They're soon found out by the dads after Helen whines about wanting a Coke (oh yeah, I forgot to mention she's an American... an American who whines about Coke every five minutes). While the kids are being scolded by their dads, they point out a spaceship that crashes into the ocean nearby. Everyone goes over to the ship to investigate, only to be teleported inside; boat and all. Inside the ship is a woman claiming to be from Planet Zigra. The Zigrans [assuming that's what you call them] live deep in the ocean and have contaminated their world with vast amounts of pollution. Given that over 70% of the Earth is covered with oceans, this was the most natural place to go. However, on their planet, they eat any creature that lives on land... which is strange given that they live deep in the ocean, but whatever. The Zigran woman threatens to level Tokyo with a Magnitude 18 earthquake unless the humans give in to their demands, essentially becoming their cattle. Fortunately our plucky heroes manage to escape and inform the military of the Zigrans' plan. Meanwhile, it turns out that this woman is being hypnotized by our titular monster, Zigra; which, if you can gather from the poster, is a giant shark-looking thing (interestingly, he resembles the real-life Goblin Shark, which is very common around the waters of Japan). He orders her to kill the children, or else his plans will be ruined. As such, she ends up pursuing the children at Sea World. Meanwhile AGAIN, the military tries to take down Zigra with some fighter jets, but his spaceship manages to shoot them all down with barely any effort. Fortunately, Gamera arrives to save the day (who before this, only made brief appearances earlier in the movie; which mostly consisted of him flying around and looking down at the kids with those weirdass eyes of his). He then attacks the spaceship underwater and causes it to explode by breathing fire on it... even though he's underwater... yeah... Anyway, this releases Zigra, who ends up growing larger to the differences in Earth's water pressure... alright... However, after a somewhat brief battle, Zigra manages to defeat Gamera, giving him total paralysis. Thankfully, as far as the human side is concerned, the Zigran woman ends up being caught and her hypnosis disabled; however she still has all memory of her experience with Zigra. The fathers (with the kids stowing away, of course) then go into the ocean inside of a bathyscaphe [strangely pronounced as "bathyscope" in the dub] , in an attempt to wake up Gamera. However, they come across Zigra, who immediately attacks them and commands the government to attack them, or else he'll destroy the bathyscaphe. The UN reluctantly agrees, but a bolt of lightning ends up reviving Gamera, who manages to retrieve the bathyscaphe from Zigra and return it to the surface. He then goes back to take down Zigra, who has superior mobility underwater; as such, Gamera ends up taking the fight to the surface, where he quickly has an advantage over his opponent, jamming a rock into his beak, which pins him to the ground. After showing off his awesome musical talents, he roasts Zigra with fire breath (which honestly would've been the first thing I tried; but I guess I shouldn't question the almighty Gamera). Now that he flame-broiled that felonious fish, he flies off after a job well done.

Score:
3.3/5.0

Even though it had a lot of lapses in logic, I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. Thankfully, the kids aren't TOO annoying and Zigra [being one of the only kaiju who's able to talk] is fairly intimidating (both in demeanor and design), being given a lot of screen time. However, similar to the Godzilla movies at the time, there are bits of humor in the monster scenes in order to lighten the mood, such as the xylophone moment above. Overall, it's a fun movie and I recommend for those Kaiju fans out there who can enjoy more lighthearted fare.

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