The 25th Godzilla film reboots the series again. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack pretends the other films hadn't happened and Godzilla returns after 50 years. A nuclear sub goes missing. There's a strange earthquake with a moving epicenter. Other strange things are happening and Yuri, a pretty TV gal, is covering them. She has a strange encounter with an old man. He warns Godzilla will return and fills her in on the Guardian Monsters. Yuri's dad is high up in the military. He tells her about the first Godzilla visit back in 1954. He was there and saw the destruction first hand. He has always wanted to destroy Godzilla. Soon he'll get his chance. First Barugon, one of three Guardian Monsters, who wasn't good enough to get named int he title, makes an appearance just before the big guy makes a big smash when he comes ashore. Godzilla trashes some cityscape's and scares some people before killing them. His nuclear breath is very powerful and leaves a mushroom cloud over the blast site. It's flash is visible for miles. He's definately not the hero in this movie. I don't care for this Godzilla's costume very much especially around the head area. Barugon is the first giant beast to have a battle with Godzilla. They battle in a park near Hakone and the fight is pretty darn good. Baragon takes a beating before he falls. The other Guardian Monsters, Mothra and Ghidorah, make their first appearance soon after. The Japanese military is powerless as the monsters duke it out.There are some good battles with lots of monster on monster action. The Japanese defence force makes a brief appearance before they are toasted by G's atom breath. It's what takes Mothra down. Her spirit goes into Ghidorah unleashing the King inside. Their battles light up the night like the sun. Godzilla is knocked into the water but the fight continues. Sadly even King G is no match for the mighty mutant. When he falls the spirits of the Guardian Monsters are unleashed and they sink Godzilla into the water. Yuki's dad gets the chance to plant a bomb in Godzilla's wound and does so. That finally takes the big guy down. Yuri survives and so does her dad. They honor the fallen Guardian Monsters and as we pan down into the bay we see Godzilla's beating heart and know that he'll be back.I have the Columbian TriStar dvd and it's pretty nice. The uncut movie is widescreen and has a Japanese soundtrack and English subs. It's one of the better of the recent films and a lot of fun to watch.
The 26th Godzilla film looks back to other previous films in the series and cherry picks hooks from them to hang its story on. Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla starts in 1999 and Akane is the gunner on a mazer. The gun fails to kill Godzilla. Moving the maser in retreat she accidentally knocks a military car off the hill and the big guy steps on it. Akane is demoted to a desk job to suffer her guilt alone. Scientists use the original Godzilla's bones to build bio-robot and we all know how transplants go in movies and this is no different. Akane harbors her hatred of Godzilla down in the library. There's a little girl, the daughter of one of the scientists, who figures in the story. Akane gets to be the pilot of MechaGodzilla so she's happy to be able to get some revenge. Yuki meets the scientist and the little girl. The girl tries to get a hook up going. After all the human drama we finally see some monster action. During a test of the MechaGodzilla the real thing is spotted at sea. Big VTOL planes carry MechaG to the big guy who's come ashore to break things. The bio-bot goes out of control after the bones hear the Godzilla roar and trashes the city with missiles and laser blasts. Black eye for the military, huh. they fix that and there are more battles and a bit of human drama. I found it entertaining after having seen it several times. The Columbia TriStar dvd has a nice widescreen copy with Japanese language track and subtitles. There's an English dub track but it's not so good. I like the Godzilla costume in this one better than the last movie. It did well enough at the box office that the series continued. Check back next week for the last two in the series.
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