**** Here We Go Again!

Apparently lacking any original ideas, they decided to make another one, a "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla III" of sorts. As with the last one, Mechagodzilla is the "good guy", made by and fighting for Japan. This time around though, it’s actually a cyborg of sorts made from the bones of the original 1954 Godzilla. Now some would argue that this wasn’t a very smart idea, and some would argue that they are right. Still smart idea for a movie, though, because it makes for lovely entertainment!

Annoyingly they decided to muck up the continuity. Why they insist on doing this all the time is beyond me, and as a fan of continuity, I am quite annoyed. Still, at least they left some movies as part of cannon, directly mentioned in the movie as "Godzilla" (1954), "Mothra" (1961), and "The War of the Gargantuas" (1966). The story starts as a second Godzilla (of unknown origin) pops out of the water and is immediately attacked by resident defense forces, dubbed the "Anti-Megalosaurus Force", who specialize in destroying daikaiju. As usual modern weapons are ineffective, and while retreating a certain laser cannon truck driver accidentally knocks her friends off the road to fall down a cliff and get squashed by Godzilla. Obviously this traumatizes her for life, but she still manages to become a pilot for their next big project, Mechagodzilla. Nicknamed "Kiryu", which means "Mechanized Dragon" or something, this costly budget-sink becomes Japan first, last, and only defense for Godzilla. The story mainly focuses on the development and preparation of Kiryu, the physical training of the pilots (which seems kind of pointless seeing as they are basically just playing an elaborate video game), the tension between the traumatized laser cannon driver and the person who’s brother she killed, her nearly-romantic relationship with one of the scientists, and the relationship with the scientist’s daughter and her pet plant. After all is said and done over four years (1999-2003), they unleash Kiryu onto Godzilla. Unfortunately, since they used the bones and made a "DNA" computer with a Godzilla, when it meets the other Godzilla something triggers in it and it goes "Out of Control"! Like any Godzilla, all it wants to do is trash cities mindlessly, and that’s what it does. Luckily it runs out of batteries and they are able to get it back to work out the bugs in the system. They set it out towards Godzilla again, and this time they end up with a massive brawl. After much blasting, bashing, and smashing, they eventually decide to use their ultimate weapon, the über-powerfull absolute-zero cannon (which by the way is a violoation of physics, but hey that hasn’t stopped them before and it didn’t here either). After a few misses they eventually nail Godzilla with it, freezing a big chunk of ocean water in the process. Breaking through the ice are the two combatants, both very injured yet still alive, a tie of sorts for round 1.

At only 88 minutes in length, this is the shortest Godzilla movie since the original "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla". Apparently they finally learned that these movies work best at about an hour and a half. They’ve also learned that having light, breezy, basic human interactions for filler tends to work best when all you really want to do is have giant monsters stomp around. Finally they’ve learned that the audience wants a huge climatic battle at the end, and that’s what we get as well. A tried and true formula for a Godzilla movie with a tried and true opponent for Godzilla ends up with yet another good Godzilla movie. It doesn’t get much points for originality, except maybe the twist of the unwilling mechanical beast, but hey it’s entertaining throughout.

What we are really here for is the special effects. The model work is brilliant, the computer-generated stuff is good for once and not overdone, and there is plenty of cool stuff they do with the kaiju. There seems to be a slight obsession with laser cannons, but they are used with good effect along side tanks and jets to pointlessly blast Godzilla. Godzilla himself is well designed, based on the G2K design which I love, but might have a slightly unnerving look in his eyes. For the most part Godzilla acts like the mindless stomping machine seen in older Godzilla movies or the Heisei series, which is an unfortunate step down from "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus", where he was smart and had cool movies, because instead Mechagodzilla gets all the fun stuff. As usual he is a walking weapons platform that knows kung-fu, but the operators use what they have brilliantly the bash poor Godzilla in entertaining ways. Kiryu here one-upped the previous Mechagodzillas in terms of agility, able to move around and bash things better then ever. It might not have tough space titanium or diamond armor, but that actually makes the fights more desperate and intense. Kiryu has a rather huge inventory of weapons ranging from missiles to laser guns to the over-powered freezing cannon, and features new budget-saving methods including travel by air-lift and remote-control from fighter jets flying overhead. Overall it’s probably the most realistically done Mechagodzilla, and one of the most entertaining ones to watch. Poor Godzilla got outshined this time around.

Overall this is a quick yet entertaining Godzilla movie with all the good stuff included. A decent plot set-up, a terrific final battle, great special effects, and nice monster designs. Good old-fashioned Godzilla flick, but as such it’s not the most original. Mindless entertainment to be sure, but it leaves you wanting more. Thing is, you do get more, because they decided for once to make a sequel to this. "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S." takes off where this one left off.

Entertaining human plot that sets things up nicely

Great special effects overall

Good music, as one would expect by now

Typical mindless kaiju movie fun!

Great final battle between the two kaiju

Plot had little substance too it but had room for a little more

Special effects were good, but not always

The occasional overly-wacky science

Godzilla not acting very intelligent this time around, instead he was stiff and uninteresting

With all this talk about plants I’m surprised they didn’t make a giant plant monster... oh wait they already did that

Credits