Kaiju Reviews #18 - Terror of Mechagodzilla

Alright, time for the final movie in the Showa series... and more title trivia! In this case, the movie was named Terror of GODZILLA in the US... even though the villain was obviously Mechagodzilla... what the hell was wrong with the people that were titling these things?! But anyway, about 90% of this movie focuses on the human perspective... this is gonna be other shortie, that's for sure. We start off with guys working on a thing that go to a place looking for a doctor because of the recent arrival of a creature known as Titanosaurus, which he supposedly discovered many years ago... but no one believed his theory (despite the fact that you can hardly walk for 2 mins. without seeing a giant monster in these movies), so he decided to become a mad scientist. But, instead of encountering the mad scientist guy, the two reporter people end up meeting his daughter. She's important, BTW... because her mind controls Mechagodzilla. Yeah, you read that right. The alien ape guys teamed up with mad scientist (who's manually controlling Titanosaurus) and put Mechagodzilla's controls in her brain or something. That be wacked up, yo. So yeah, at some point, mad scientist sends Titanosaurus to destroy Tokyo... Godzilla kicks his ass. He runs away. Then like a million years later (or atleast that's what it felt like to me), Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla team up to destroy the random abandoned country side... because model buildings are expensive to make. Fortunately, Godzilla comes along to save the day... except he didn't bring a partner along. O DAM. Due to being outmatched, Godzilla ends up not doing too well in the fight. Though in a morbid turn of events, mad scientist's daughter ends up killing herself so that Mechagodzilla could no longer function. So yeah, Godzilla ends up destroying him. He also defeats Titanosaurus shortly after, once the army figures out that Titanosaurus is weak against sonics. As a celebration of his victory, Godzilla then goes back to the ocean, taking a much deserved rest... which is fitting, considering that he'll be retired for atleast 10 more years.

Rating:
3-something maybe
I don't know; like Destroy All Monsters, most of this is human stuff... though this is more dramatic and well-written (though that still doesn't keep it from being kind of boring) and the monster scenes, while being pretty compelling, are few and far between. Not bad for what it is, but... yeahhh, he definitely needed that rest big time... and perhaps I deserve a rest from all of this Godzilla stuff, for now. The Heisei series can just wait; it's not going anywhere!

Kaiju Reviews #17 - Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

To start off on a randomly interesting tidbit, this movie had somewhat of an identity crisis in the US, as it was also titled as "Godzilla vs. The Bionic Monster" and "Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster". What's wrong with "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla"?! Oh well, we start this off as someone gets a [strangely accurate] fortune from something or other that says something like "If one sees a black mountain in the clouds, a monster will try to destroy the world... and two will rise to save the world" or something like that. I don't know if that's it exactly, but that's what happens... not that it matters since I usually only describe monster scenes most of the time, even when I say I'm not going to. So, on that note, our harbinger of death is none other than... GODZILLA?! ... Uh-huh... because surely you'd fall for that despite the title, right? So, shortly after "Godzilla" starts wreaking havoc, Anguirus comes along and battles him, only to leave with a broken jaw... but not before destroying some of Godzilla's "skin", revealing that he's really made of a material known as... Space Titanium... right... I guess the writers were feeling particularly lazy that day. Eventually, this fake Godzilla makes its way over to a populated city... only to encounter the REAL Godzilla! The fake Godzilla then gets rid of its disguise, revealing itself to be none other than Mechagodzilla, made by a race of aliens... yes, there's MORE aliens.
This time they're Gorilla-Men things! ... So yeah, Mechagodzilla was made so they could conquer the world (OFCOURSE!) or destroy it, if the prophecy is anything to go by. But anyway, Godzilla and Mechagodzilla do battle, which eventually ends in a tie (due to both of them being severely injured). But after much exposition (and quasi-ripoffs of James Bond sequences) the 2nd savior of the Earth is awakened: King Caesar, the lion/dog/god thing! So ya, King Caesar fights Mecha-G, gets his booty handed to him, Godzilla comes along and teams up with him (though Godzilla ends up doing most of the work anyway), and Mechagodzilla is defeated... until the sequel.

Rating:
3.5/5.0
I got very lazy on the plot description, but I thought that this was one of the better Showa movies... especially seeing as this one had [basically] no stock footage.

Kaiju Reviews #16 - Godzilla vs. Megalon

Uh-oh! Be prepared for some crazy-ass shit, because THIS IS GODZILLA VS. MEGALON, BITCH! We start off with two male lovers--erm... I mean scientists, who are developing a robot known only as JET JAGUAR. Oh yeah, you know that this is gonna be balls-to-the-walls. Elsewhere, however, there lives an underground race of Z-Grade Actors known as the Seatopians. They're pissed about the testing of nuclear bombs that's slowly destroying their home. As such, they end up summoning Megalon and naturally sends him to attack Japan... even though nukes aren't even allowed there... yeah... Anyway, Megalon flies throughout the skies of Tokyo (I'm assuming) and uses stock footage of King Ghidorah's lightning bolts to destroy the city... And then he has the nerve to destroy a dam! THE FIEND... Jet Jaguar knows that mindless actions such as this cannot be tolerated, so he overrides his own programming, grows in size, and flies over to Megalon, ready to do battle... Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Megalon is a really STUPID monster? So yeah, Jet Jaguar actually has the upper hand. The Seatopians then start to panic and politely ask the Cockroach Aliens (who are SUPPOSED to be dead, if I remember correctly...) if they can borrow Gigan (who's SUPPOSED to be out of the Aliens' control, if I remember correctly...) for a minute or two. The Cockroaches agree and Gigan ends up arriving after a little while, teaming up with Megalon. Given that this is a 2-on-1 battle, they naturally make quick work of Jet Jaguar, who ends up flying to Monster Island. He then ends up using the power of charades to communicate with Godzilla, who agrees to team up with our hydraulic hero, IN ORDER TO SAVE THE... well... random abandoned country side. Godzilla & Jets end up making their way over there and encounter Megalon and Gigan once more, beginning their battle of epic proportions... and stock footage. With so much stock footage in the movie, I bet you could even believe that this movie was shot in only 3 weeks... which it was. But ANYHOO, seeing as the rest of the movie is pretty much just the monsters battling, I'm going to mention several highlights, such as:
THE RING OF FIRE THAT GODZILLA SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF BUT CAN'T FOR SOME REASON!
& (everyone's favorite)
THE SLIDING KICK! HOO-WAAAAA (There's even an instant replay!)

Somewhere along the line, however, Gigan ends up retreating first (again) and Megalon follows suit shortly after, tunneling back to his underground home. As a way to celebrate their victory, Godzilla ends up inviting Jet Jaguar over to his place for some champagne (not RLY), but he declines, opting to sing The Jet Jaguar Song intead (YA RLY). Goddamn, this is awesome.

Score:
A score wouldn't do this movie justice. It must be seen to be believed... I mean, yeah, it's bad (and I mean BAD) but it's a so-bad-it's-good kind of bad. It's the kind of thing to watch with a friend and make fun of it the whole time... which I guess is why it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Kaiju Reviews #15 - Godzilla vs. Gigan

Time for yet another alien-centric movie! You're not getting tired of that yet, are you? I hope not, because there's still several more of these. Anyway, OUR STORY BEGINS... with a comic book artist. He's hired to do something for a new theme park that's being constructed, based off of the giant monsters and once it's completed, the owners will go to Monster Island and... destroy the real monsters... okay, shouldn't this at least a TAD bit suspicious?
1. Anything the humans tried have (more often than not) no effect whatsoever other than just pissing them off... and that's the army; scientists, even! So, how would these "amusement park owners" suddenly be able to kill all (let alone any) of them?
2. Why would everyone be okay with this? Sure, they often cost the city thousands of dollars, but they're good guys, who's going to save Japan when an evil monster suddenly comes strolling along?
So yeah, anyway, Mr. Comic Book Artist Guy manages to find some random tape player that was lying around and decides to play the tape for shiz and gigglez. When he does this, however, Godzilla and Anguirus manage to hear the tape from Monster Island... somehow... and it gives them the ability to talk... Um... okay...? Not much can really top Godzilla dancing and flying, so I guess I can go with this... Anyhow, Godzilla (being the lazy bastard he is) decides to send Anguirus to Tokyo to figure out what in the hell is going on. That doesn't seem to work out to well, as the JSDF blasts the hell out of Angy, making him go back with his tail between his legs. Meanwhile, Comic Book Artist Guy recruits some allies, who I shall hereby dub "Love Interest" and "Hippie-Dude". After a lot of snooping, our intrepid trio discovers that the themepark owners are infact ALIENS! What a shock! They are from the Nebula M-17 quadrant (maybe they know our good friend Ultraman?) and are actually Cockroaches... okay, what a shock! They also happen to hold control over our titular monster Gigan, as well as our ever-recurring antagonist, King Ghidorah! This bodes well for Japanese contractors, as the aliens end up having to send their monster menagerie down to Tokyo earlier than planned. As such, Gigan and Ghidorah happily oblige and spread carnage and mayhem throughout the strangely empty city (I guess everyone's so used to giant monster attacks that they evacuate before they even need to). Eventually, after the monsters destroy most of the city anyway, Godzilla and Anguirus arrive to save the day! ... Though they don't do too good of a job at first. Gigan beats the living hell out of our two heroes (which, if you can't already tell from his weapons, causes the first instances of bloodshed in the series), while Ghidorah kind of just watches and occasionally uses the power of stock footage. After about half an hour of getting his arse kicked, Godzilla ends up losing the strength to fight... at least until he smashes a tower resembling his likeness... which just so happens to be where the aliens are, as well as the devices that are controlling Gigan and King Ghidorah! So now they'll leave everyone alone, right? Erm... no such luck. Turns out that it didn't particularly matter whether they were controlled or not, because they're already evil anyway. Oh well. Though eventually, after MOAR battling, Gigan ends up flying back into space, leaving his friend in the dust... atleast until Godzilla and Anguirus stopped beating the crap out of him, anyway. Ofcourse, Ghidorah immediately takes this chance and follows Gigan back into the cold depths of space (though they must have gotten separated somewhere along the way...). Godzilla and Anguirus then celebrate their victory by heading off into the sunset with a weirdass Japanese song... just to make this movie even more weird, I guess.

Score:
3.0/5.0:
The fact that almost all of Ghidorah's screen-time is made up of stock footage is kind of annoying and the set-up is... a bit long, but otherwise it's pretty good. And despite the prescense of giant cockroach aliens disguised as humans, this movie (along with the previous one) has a darker tone than alot of the previous movies... So, you would think that this is the start of a trend, right? UM... We'll see about that...

Kaiju Reviews #14 - Godzilla vs. Hedorah

After these last few movies, this one is an... improvement... and unlike Destroy All Monsters, this one actually takes place back during the time it was made (same goes for the movies made after this... GROOVY). But anyway, we start off with some giant tadpole-looking thing terrorizing anyone who is stupid enough to get near it. I guess there's more stupid people in Japan than I thought, because Hedorah ends up taking a lot of victims. As the movie goes on, though, it turns out he ISN'T a tadpole, as he has the ability to turn into different forms (the "tadpole" being one of them). His other forms are his standard one (on the poster, genius) and a flying form, which curiously looks like a UFO. Foreshadowing, anyone? ... Probably not, but I guess I should tell you about his origins anyway, since I'm blabbering on. From what I gather after watching the movie, Hedorah is some sort of extraterrestrial life form that somehow made its way to Earth and ended up getting mutated by pollution. As such, he feeds off of it (regularly strolling over to the nearest factory and inhaling some nice, nutritious smog). Hedorah can also cause/secrete pollution, but it's fatal to humans (it just seems to be an inconvenience to others, such as Godzilla... and kittens). Meanwhile though, after Hedorah makes several rounds of genocide, Godzilla arrives to save the day! ... And gets his ass handed to him. After Godzilla receives his royal smackdown, Hedorah ends up spraying his eye with sludge, which ends up partially blinding him for the rest of the movie (I still think that Godzilla should have taken advantage of this and wear an eyepatch). Sometime later, a bunch of people start to party hardy on Mt. Fuji. Though apparently, Hedorah didn't get an invite, as he came along to crash the party and tries to kill MOAR people, this time in a more powerful form. Thankfully for the partygoers, Godzilla arrives to save the day just in time and fights Hedorah once more. Unfortunately, Godzilla ends up losing again, but that's remedied as the people already retreated before the battle was over. Eventually, after some serious contemplation and surreal montages, the humans finally find a way to defeat Hedorah... by frying the hell out of him with electrodes! BOO-YAH. So, when they lure him to the completed electrode macine thingies... they don't work. CRAP. Thankfully, the King of the Monsters steps in once again, using his atomic breath to power the machines. This ends up sending Hedorah into a shit-fit and he flies away. But ofcourse, this doesn't phase Godzilla one bit, who just simply defies the laws of physics and flies after him LIKE A BOSS! After that show of silly badassery, Godzilla manages to catch Hedorah and hold him down, letting the machines fry him to death. He even just rips some of his guts out just because he f*cking feels like it. AWWWWWW YEAH... Oh yeah and there's a cliffhanger ending that says there's another Hedorah somewhere but Godzilla simply can't be bothered with that.

Score:
3.0/5.0

Kaiju Reviews #13 - Godzilla's Revenge

OH GOD, NOT THIS ONE... ANYTHING BUT THIS ONE! ... Oh well, I might as well get it over with...

Like the last movie, this one has a lot of monsters too! ... But that's just to fool people skimming the back of the DVD. Most of them only appear for a second or two... but even when some of them are more prominent, the majority of the monster scenes are just stock footage anyway. Yeah, that's right, this is pretty much just one big clip show, with a sub-plot involving a Kenny (see my Gamera review for info regarding the original Kenny). It starts out with the Kenny (Ichiro) getting his ass handed to him by some bullies, the leader of which is named Gabara. I bet you're wondering why I thought this important enough to share with you, eh? ... Well stop interrupting me for once, I'm getting there. Anyway, he wanders over to some guy's house and goes off to bed, soon drifting into dreamland... (No, not THAT Dreamland! ... Or this one.) Now, the movie introduces us to Monster Island... in a non-canonical film, but I'll roll with it. Generally the only difference between Monster Island and Monsterland is that Monster Island seems to have more monsters on it... and no way to keep them from getting off the island... yeah, good idea there, guys. Anyway, while in his dream, Ichiro soon meets Minilla, who now seems to be the after-product of watching WAY too much Barney the Dinosaur... or maybe drugs. It's hard to tell the difference. So, yeah, Minilla's newfound abilities in this dream include changing size at will (ya, RLY) and... the capability of speech. Yes, he can talk. So, after Ichiro and Minilla bullshit around for a little bit, they encounter stock footage of other monsters, including the Big G himself fighting various other creatures (Ebirah, Kamacuras, and Kumongoa). During all of this though, they eventually encounter a new (!) monster named... Gabara... you can see where this going, right? So, yeah, after various stuff happens in the real world that I don't particularly care about, Minilla fights Gabara several times until Godzilla finally decides to step in and kick some ass... only to find out that it wouldn't be quite as easy as he thought (Gabara has electrical powers, ya' see!).
After the lengthy battle, Minilla ends up using the power of deus ex machina to drive Gabara away once and for all, forever ending his reign of terror... which I'm assuming due to the fact that he never appears in any more movies. After these [strangely inter-connected] series of dreams, Ichiro uses the wisdom and experience gained from them and gets rid of the bullies once and for all... by beating the crap out of them. What a great moral!

Score:
This was made for very young children... so the score that I would most likely give it wouldn't be very fair... though I suppose you could just look at my scores for "Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster" and "Son of Godzilla", seeing as most of the stock footage came from those movies anyway. I'll admit that I did enjoy this when I was younger (around 9 or 10) when I didn't have these movies, so I guess it technically hit its mark. It gets a pass.

Kaiju Reviews #12 - Destroy All Monsters

Holy crap! This thing has at least 11 monsters in it! This is gonna be a balls-to-the-walls all-out monster jamboree, right?! ... Right...?

We now flash forward to the distant future of 1999 (which still looks more like the 60's than anything else), where they introduce us to Monsterland, an island paradise that houses most of the world's monsters... and a rocket that some guys built, BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT WHEN THERE'S ALL OF THESE MONSTERS?! Apparently the movie somewhat agrees with me, as an alien race known as the Kilaaks (who curiously all look like women dressed in sparkly clothing) quickly take control of the monsters and set them loose on major metropolitan areas, such as New York (Godzilla), Paris (Gorosaurus), and Singapore (Manda). So, I bet you think that the bulk of the movie is going to be the monsters' rampages around the world, right? ... Well, to put it bluntly, no. No, it's not. Instead, the majority of the film revolves around the humans and their attempt to stop the aliens, so instead of describing all of that boring crap, I'm just going to say that they eventually do... by pursuing them to an inaccurately-depicted Moon. So, yeah, once the humans break the monsters out of the Kilaaks' control, Godzilla & Co. band together to stop the alien menace... and speaking of alien menaces, the Kilaaks end up summoning King Ghidorah as a last resort! And... erm... no one else... so... yeah, given that he's fighting at least 7 monsters at once... he's kinda screwed. He does manage to hold his own for several minutes, and I'll give him that, but the battle is concluded with our heroes vanquishing King Ghidorah once and for all... atleast until the next movie, anyway. So after that, the Kilaaks unleash their Last-Last Resort, the Fire Dragon... which is really just a UFO with fire around it. So after the pointless scene goes on for awhile, the UFO is destroyed and Godzilla manages to find the Kilaaks' base... that gets destroyed too, if you're not noticing the pattern. So, yeah, Godzilla and his happy bunch that I'm too lazy to mention individually by name then go back to Monsterland and live happily ever after... and that's about it. By the way, a new DVD/Blu-Ray release (WITH SPECIAL FEATURES OMG) of this is going to be released next month, by Media Blasters. I didn't intend this post to happen around that time, it just turned out that way. So... yeah.

Score:
3.0/5.0 - The [few] scenes with monsters are really good and that alone raises it up a point. Oh well, at least the aforementioned video release is going to have an Audio Commentary...