Rated: 3 / 5
Ok, so this film grew on me after previous viewings. This is one of the few emotionally charged Godzilla films out there, though you wouldn’t know it until the last quarter of the movie. And yes, the emotional factor of baby Godzilla with adult Godzilla got to me a bit on the last viewing.
This movie finally gets an origin story for Godzilla Jr., though who knows how the egg came to be in the first place. And honestly, for a newborn godzilla, he doesn’t look too bad. Especially compared to manila.
The dubs in this movie are great. By great, I mean hilarious at times. One outstanding moment is the kind of dubbing you would expect to hear in one of the early 60s Godzilla movies. “What? Godzilla is attacking the city?” You’d have to hear the line, the tone of the voice, to understand.
The storyline to this movie isn’t half bad. It took an element from one of the earlier films, the Mecha King Ghidorus, and really did a good job with it. The thing about the Heisei era films, they did a decent job building off the previous films. Vs. Biollante built off the Godzilla cells blown off Godzilla in his fight with the Super X. This built off Ghidorah. And the next film would build off the Biollante and Mothra films (both films for one of two possible plot explanations for Space Godzilla, and particularly Biollante with the psychic stuff; more on that in a later review). The Japanese military and scientists take the remains of that creature, the mecha remains from the future in particular, and use that technology to build mechagodzilla as a weapon against Godzilla. That’s not a half bad concept. It’s honestly the only good thing time-travel related that came out of that film (some don’t like how it changed Ghidorah’s origins).
Godzilla’s opponent in this one, Mechagodzilla, is probably the strongest opponent he’s had in any movie. This is one opponent where I wasn’t sure he could beat. He pretty much owns Godzilla in their first encounter, and Godzilla basically lucks out of the first fight. The second fight, it’s a little more even because Mechagodzilla is still recovering from the first, and had a fight with Rodan just before the fight with the Big G. Even then, Mechagodzilla whoops Godzilla’s ass, and pretty much kills him. Then Rodan somehow gives up it’s energy to revive Godzilla. For this viewing, I just decided to go with it (but the Giant Monsters All Out Attack movie, that took that whole “sacrifice one to resurrect another” concept way too fucking far).
And Miki, finally, is given an important role. In fact, the school of psychic children were even given a role to play. The children developed a way to communicate with baby godzilla, and learn of a song used to basically “power him up”, in a way. And Miki is used to help take down Godzilla, and communicate with baby godzilla at the end of the film. Finally, the psychics are put to a use outside of Godzilla vs Biollante. As nice as that is, there would only be one other film in the Heisei series that would utilize psychics to some extent.
So yeah, this film ended up being a pleasant surprise once I gave it another chance (my first viewing amounted to just “meh”). If you can deal with some resurrection BS, some overly sentimental moments, this film ends up being one of the best Heisei films alongside vs. Biollante. Unfortunately, this is followed up with what I consider to be the worst of the Heisei era films.
Rated: 2 / 5
For this review, I’ll be commenting while watching.
The movie starts out very promising. The psychic woman Miki is starting to get pressure from the higher ups that they want to use either her, or her trainees, to use their powers to control Godzilla. This many films after Biollante, and now they finally decide to try this technique, knowing that it’s had some successful results before.
Also, for a brief moment, Miki looks at a plant in the office, and there is a close-up shot of the plant. Biollante reference/symbolism?
Then it gets a little weird when we see Mothra flying through space, continuing its journey from 2 films prior, and a bunch of mini-moths spread away from it.
And, oh God, baby Godzilla has become an abomination again! Ok, so he doesn’t look as ugly as his 60s counterpart. But Christ, he looks more childlike than in the previous film. It’s like he looks more baby-like as he grows older and bigger. And I must not… succumb… to… it… being… adorable…. That’s not how it should look!
So for some so-bad-it’s-good moments, we see space footage (like found footage), from inside a NASA spaceship, as it gets destroyed by getting impaled by space crystals. And the first conclusion the people discussing the footage come to is that it must have been some space monster. Never mind that it could’ve just been lifeless space crystals that move around that space asteroids or space meteors that just so happened to collide with the space station by pure coincidence, in space.
Ah, so it turns out that the mini-moths Mothra sent out in space were basically messenger moths, which carried twin messenger fairies, who come back to earth and warn Miki that a space monster is coming to Earth with the sole purpose of killing Godzilla to leave the Earth defenseless, from God only knows what. This is where I assume this relates to that message about the asteroid in Godzilla vs. Mothra.
And some guy made a special bullet that contains blood coagulant that can supposedly kill Godzilla. I was willing to go along with this, until he mentioned where they should shoot Godzilla at with the bullet. In the place where he says Godzilla is the most vulnerable and the most weak, his chest. I shit you not, his chest, the spot where he has taken incalculable amounts of punishment many times before, from bullets, missiles, rockets, energy beams, and other things that I can’t recall off the top of my head. Sure, that’s his weak spot. You could’ve tried the eyes.
Also, I love the scene where the guy takes a look at the new mech Japan has made to battle Godzilla, and he says, “The ultimate Godzilla counter weapon.” He pauses, and then he laughs, as if he’s self-aware of how ridiculous this thing looks. And I’m laughing with him, because it looks like a mecha Woody Woodpecker. But the first monster they send it up against is Space Godzilla, and of course Woodpecker gets his ass handed to him on a crystal platter, while they fly around styrofoam asteroids. I’m just surprised the mech went into space.
Back on Earth, they successfully attach the psychic amplifier onto Godzilla by shooting it onto the back of his head, and it works. Miki is able to control Godzilla’s movements. That is until some dumbshit fucks with the controls and fries the device.
After Godzilla and Space Godzilla first fight, and pretty much leave on a draw after Godzilla Jr. gets imprisoned in a crystal cell in the ground. And it kills me that no one tried to help it. Throughout the rest of the movie, baby godzilla isn’t mentioned again until the very last scene of the movie. For all I know, he stayed imprisoned in the crystal cell throughout the entire movie, which is freaking hilarious.
The human bystanders gather godzilla and space godzilla cells that fell from their first clash, and compare them. They find that the cells are a near identical match to each other, and conclude that space godzilla was created by godzilla cells that went into space either by mothra who supposedly had godzilla cells attached to it after its confrontation with the big-g, or from biollante cells, which also went into space. And that’s the simple version, the complex scientific reasoning beyond that is so out there, you just gotta laugh at it. Let’s just say it involves the cells going through a black hole and coming out through a white hole.
Miki is starting to get on my nerves with her emotional attachment to Godzilla. “Godzilla shouldn’t be killed, he has feelings too!” Why don’t you just go get laid by the thing and get it over with. Well at least she gets kidnapped by some guys who’ve probably heard enough of her shit too.
Well as it turns out, one of the higher ups in charge of the T operation (telekinesis to control godzilla) wants to control godzilla to have power and control over the world or something, so he downloads Miki’s psychic frequencies from her head into a computer, and plans on using the data to control Godzilla without the need for a psychic. Now why didn’t a plot like this happen right after the Biollante movie?
Well anyway, it ends up being mostly pointless since she gets rescued only minutes later, and the place she was being held captive at, along with all the psychic computer equipment, gets destroyed. And she utilizes some telekinesis on top of psychic powers. Because why the hell not?
Now spacegodzilla flies to Japan, starts setting up a crystal city, and Godzilla heads right for it. Meanwhile the military starts fighting godzilla with their battleships, and I’m wondering why the fuck the military still even bothers. Then they send Woody Woodpecker robot after Godzilla, and again, I’m wondering what the point is, especially when they have bigger problems, such as, I don’t know, the monster that is already in the middle of Japan destroying everything!
They eventually come to their senses, send the mech after space godzilla, and shoot 2 missiles at it. After the missiles hit, they pause and celebrate, as if hitting a giant monster with a couple of missiles is something special to celebrate. Then the mech drills space godzilla with its pecker. That was the point, the very first time I watched this movie, that I fell on the floor and laughed my ass off for 5 whole minutes. After that it gets its butt kicked, Godzilla shows up, and a long battle occurs. A battle that is way too long. It’s an effort for me not to fall asleep watching this last half hour.
Well anyway, long story short, space godzilla dies, godzilla and jr lives, and they go off to make 1 more movie.
The final fight, while it does have some interesting things happen in it, such as the flying crystals, eventually gets way too boring. They could’ve easily cut out 10 minutes of this fight. The last fight takes some points away.
Also, a lot of the things that happen end up being pointless. The mini-mothra messages, pointless. They ended up doing absolutely nothing, and could’ve been left out of the story and have no affect on the plot whatsoever.
The psychics were playing a more important role than ever during the first half of the film, but then all that stuff built up before about controlling Godzilla gets brushed aside too quickly, and gets substituted with the crap we’re familiar with. The psychic amplifier device, pretty much pointless. It only existed so that Miki could make a choice and use her telekinesis to remove the device from Godzilla at the end of the movie, because Godzilla shouldn’t be controlled, because she loves Godzilla, and would get laid by him if she was able to. The psychic amplifier did little to nothing during the whole movie, and it had a huge amount of potential to be a great plot device, and they squander it. That also takes point away.
At least the last movie in the Heisei series will more than make up for this one.
The Anomalous Host 