A Walk Amongst Monsters #67

“He’s just having a hard time… being born sixty-five million years to late.”

Easily my favorite film about adoption!

That’s right, the crux of this film is that Godzilla trashes the city searching for a newly hatched Godzillasaurus to adopt and raise on his own. It’s a heartwarming film full of explosions and Kaiju gore!

See, it’s not just Godzilla who’s after this little guy, Rodan makes his grand reappearance after a long twenty-five years to try and protect this freshly born Zilla. Add in a new and improved Mechagodzilla and you’ve got a three-way collision you can’t stop.

Rodan’s more detailed face is a good improvement but his stiff wings are quite terrible. Whenever he’s flying it looks fine, but any other time it’s pretty damn bad. They’re so rigid and just remain fully extended at all times. Later he gets a power up when some psychic children sing for some reason. He gets a red makeover and can now fire a laser. It’s the Heisei era, everyone gets a laser.

Mechagodzilla is a force to be reckoned with. His new design is shiny and sleek, with a cod piece and a massive throat, he’s even coated in fucking diamonds. That’s right, his outer layer of armor is literally diamonds. It completely reflects Godzilla’s atomic ray which causes Godzilla to give a Kaiju-sized double take. He’s packed full of multiple rays and lasers and other goodies and he fucks Godzilla up.

It’s a complete beat down when they first face off, even their final duel is rough. This version of Mechagodzilla is so powerful it takes two separate instances of pure luck for Godzilla to survive his encounter. He’s puking up blood in the first fight and is literally crippled by Mechagodzilla in the second! What an absolute powerhouse.

That’s not even mentioning the Garuda, the previous robot built before Mechagodzilla. It’s pretty much a super jet but it combines with Mechagodzilla to give him two massive shoulder cannons!

Mechagodzilla’s creation is due to the newly formed G-force, a task force that should’ve been created after Godzilla’s first attack years ago but oh well. They’re pretty much the United Nations if they were cool. They constantly study Godzilla and his attacks, build new weapons to face him, and train themselves to use them. They created Mechagodzilla by reverse engineering the remains of Mecha-King Ghidorah and its futuristic technology. I really enjoy the use of continuity in the Heisei era and stuff like this is why.

Little Godzilla is an adorable inclusion to the film. He’s a tiny Godzilla but super cute! His big puppy dog eyes, his sparse teeth, his playfulnesses, it warms my heart. There’s a charming scene where he bugs the scientist caring for him to feed him burgers, with a scene like that how can anyone hate him? Also his eyes glow red when he’s scared and that’s just cool.

Miki the psychic finally does something in the series, she’s been in the previous films but it’s only now where her presence really matters. It starts her love for Little Godzilla and her desires to protect him. Hell she helped hatch his egg… by complete accident. She and some psychic kids use telepathy on an ancient plant, turn it into music and record it, then play it near the egg which hatches it. That’s not a normal sentence but it’s Godzilla so it fits.

I actually like the human story in this, it’s a good mix of quirky and serious. I mainly enjoy the main character. He’s a super pteranodon dork that just wants to work on the Garuda but gets stuck with piloting Mechagodzilla. He’s just too likable. The plot line with the scientist and Little Godzilla is undeniably charming too.

Anyone who complains about there not being enough monster action in these should give this one a try. It’s chock full of Kaijus from almost the get go. Godzilla spends a lot of the film obliterating everyone and everything around him as does Rodan. Mechagodzilla tears both of them apart any time they meet and the climax is a thirty minute throw down between all of them.

The first fight between Rodan and Godzilla is great. Godzilla doesn’t even wait to surface before he blasts Rodan with his ray. Rodan gets a lot of good hits in too, even knocking him to the ground. But Godzilla just grabs him by the throat with both hands and throttles the hell out of him. I mean, Rodan is spitting up blood as his windpipe is demolished. Fucking brutal.

The massive finale is sheer, scorched earth destruction. The setpiece is full of skyscrapers and other buildings and by the time the dust settles it’s all burning rubble. These Kaiju rip each other to pieces. Blood, fire, crumbling skyscrapers, and exploding brains. Oh yeah, Godzilla apparently has a second brain in his spine or something.

This also has my favorite title theme of all the Heisei films.

I think I’ve made my point, I really love this film. It’s no shock I watched it so many times as a kid. This shit rules.