Japan's answer to Planet of the Apes.
The word mediocre fails to describe some of the Godzilla movies made in the 1970's. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is another feeble attempt at making an entertaining movie out of really nothing good and it does a great job of summing up the problems the Godzilla movies of the era had. It's easy to see where the film goes wrong and watching Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla feels more like a chore than anything else.
As the original Godzilla series was beganing to wind down, long-time Godzilla director Jun Fukuda gives us his last entry in the series. This time around Godzilla must fight a giant robotic version of himself with the help of some sort of monster half lion, half dog creature named King Caesar. This time, the goal is to stop an evil race of monkeys from taking over the earth. The film was, technically, a success. It sold more tickets than the previous entry in the series and managed lukewarm reception from fans and the general public. Honestly it's hard to see why though.
Somewhere between it's lackluster plot and it's cheesy rip-off of planet of the apes aliens, I found myself dozing off during Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. In a pleasant change of pace, the monsters show up pretty early this time around, but that seems to prolong the wait for the final climax of the movie. The sooner you show the monsters, the more jaded you feel when they don't show up again until the last several minutes. Ultimately, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla has the same problem as nearly every movie in the original era. It lacks creativity and it focuses far to heavily on it's non-monster plot. You can't title a movie Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and only spend about fifteen minutes with them fighting. That's just disappointing. I'm nearly done with the original run of Godzilla films and I have to say that I'm looking forward to moving on in my viewing. I sincerely hope the 80's and 90's have better things in store for me.
3/10
1 comment:
October 27th marks the one year anniversay of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Club. Our gracious host and originator of this club, TheAnswerMVP2001, has put the club on Hiatus since July. Today, four months later, I am messaging you, as one of the original members of the club, to see if you are still interested in continuing the tradition of the 1001 Film club. Lets pick up where we left off, selecting films from the extensive 1001 Movies list for the club members to review, and also occasionally review the films that other members have selected.
Long ago, I decided to make 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die the main focus of my website, and this club was a great way of reading what others had to say on the subject, and I miss it. I would be honoured if you would agree to continue our year-old tradition in the same fashion as TheAnswerMVP2001 ran it. I would be happy to host our discussions on my site at Filmsquish.com.
Please let me know if this is something you'd like to continue. If we get enough people on board, I shall pick up the torch and keep it running.
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