This is the second Godzilla film I've covered. The first being "King Kong vs Godzilla". I'm not a huge fan of the giant monster from Japan movies. I don't have a problem with them, they're just not my cup of tea. But if I had to pick a favorite monster, I would go with Godzilla. Godzilla movies (at least the small handful I seen) are a bit different than say a Gamera film. First off, not as many annoying kids. Yeah, some films do have annoying kids, but not all of them. But then Gamera is a "friend to all children" so I guess you'd have to load your film with young kids.
"Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla" I've now seen four times and each time is better than the last. My favorite viewing of it had to be at B-Fest in 2008. Whenever you get to watch a movie with a group of rowdy B-Movie fans, especially sleep deprived ones, it's always a good time.
So we start with a girl, Nami, doing some dance in front of some tourists. Nami suddenly stops, has a vision of some previous Godzilla films (I wanna say it was Ghidorah but don't quote me on that), then passes out. When she wakes up, she says some monsters are going to attack. Well, no shit. You live in Japan. Monsters attack every other week.
Meanwhile, Masahika (I'm calling him Masa for short) goes exploring in some caves and he finds some weird metal thing on the ground. It is rather shiny so I could understand how someone would be distracted by it. Meanwhile, Saeko shows up at the cave, taking pictures of everything. Written on the walls are some crude drawings that Saeko translate. Something about two suns, black mountains, and some monsters. Again with the monsters. Also in this cave is a small statue of King Caesar, some god worshiped by the Azumis, an ancient tribe. Also Nami is a decedent of this tribe.
Saeko takes the statue to her lab and of course she's all alone in this lab, so not one but two guys sneak behind her and watch her work on this statue. I guess both guys freaked each other out so they don't attack her right then and there.
Soon, she's on an airplane and she meets Shimizu (Shim for short) and they seem to hit it off, so quickly that they immediately talk about the statue and the Azumis prophecy about the monsters and shit. Meanwhile, one of the sneaky guys from earlier is now on the plane. He looks like a Japanese Johnny Cash, with the black coat and cool sunglasses. You never really learn what his deal is until the end of the movie. But his coolness is no match for what's happening outside the plane: a giant floating black mountain! GASP! IT'S 2012!!!!!! Oh wait...
Shim was one of the tourist at the beginning when Nami has her stupid vision and the way he flashbacks about this? Showing the same scene in multiple boxes on the screen. What, does he have the memory of a fly or some shit? The fuck.
Anyway.
Turns out Shim and Saeko are heading to the same place, Professor Miyajima (Miya). He's Shim's uncle. And Masa is Shim's brother. Or something. I don't wanna be accused of being racist by saying everyone in Japan is related to each other. Any event, they're studying the statue when one of the creepy guys from earlier breaks in with a gun, demanding the statue.
Shim gets the jump on him and a struggle ensues. I'll make a note here that the Professor did NOTHING during the struggle, even when the creepy guy, now gunless, was putting a pillow over Shim's face and almost suffocated him. I swear at B-Fest, we shouted "DO SOMETHING, ASSHOLE!" throughout that entire scene. Eventually, Shim overpowers creepy guy and he runs away, without the statue. NO THANKS TO THE PROFESSOR!! No wonder he's referred to as "and the rest".
So Nami's grandfather is hilarious in this movie. Anytime he's comes on screen, he's just stumbling around, screaming, looking like he's spazzing out over nothing. Here, he's freaking out about the statue being missing and him needed it to make King Caesar arise in case the prophecy does come true.
Meanwhile, Godzilla shows up. Just like that. He shows up and starts attacking Japan. He knocks building over, and he's just a major asshole all of a sudden. Everyone is confused by this and think he's just stoned or something. I call it the "Charlie Sheen Effect". (That's right, I'm keeping this review current!)
At one point one of Godzilla's friends Anguirus shows up. After admitting I don't watch many Godzilla films, I'm gonna come out and say I'm not familiar with Anguirus. I know he's mentioned on the back of the DVD case, and Shim thinks it's odd that Godzilla is attacking him. Well, Godzilla and Anguirus fight for a few minutes, with Godzilla kicking his fucking ass. Anguirus gets all emo-y, runs back home, and puts on The Smith's "How Soon Is Now" to get over the pain.
So Godzilla spends most of the day just stomping on Japan. If I was a Japanese person and this happened every other week, I would've just moved by now. Eventually, ANOTHER Godzilla shows up! WHA????? Yeah, people are confused but things become clear when the new Godzilla starts kicking some ass and it's revealed the first Godzilla....is a Cyborg!
To prove this, we go to a scene of some guys who are aliens, living in a swank underground bachelor pad. I kept expecting Quagmire to be sitting in the corner. Giggity. Anyway, the head alien, who has some burn mark around his left eye so I called him Left Eye, is proud of his MechaGodzilla. Oh so here's something I wanna talk about.
When Godzilla reveals the robot Godzilla, the "and the rest" is like "Oh of course. He's a robot. A MechaGodzilla if you will", but it turns out the aliens ACTUALLY named him MechaGodzilla! WOW! Good guess Professor! Anyway, just a quick aside. MechaGodzilla and Godzilla are fighting and MechaGodzilla is somewhat winning. Godzilla gets one good lick in, which damages MechaGodzilla. Left Eye calls MechaGodzilla back home while Godzilla goes off to lick his wounds.
The Professor notices a silver brick and realizes it came from MechaGodzilla. So I guess did shit bricks when the real Godzilla showed up. This looks like the piece of metal Masa found and the major conclusion: SPACEMEN!! While talking about this, Shim notices the Professors pipe. Yes, I want to talk about this.
The DVD I was watching puts as default the original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. I set it up so the dialogue was in English along with the subtitles and not only did I get the following awesome lines of dialogue:
The Professor is like "well I made this pipe out of-" some long metal name. But hilariously, the person typing the subtitles didn't know what the fuck he was saying so he did the following:
Moving on, MechaGodzilla is damaged so Left Eye wants it repaired. The only person, and I mean THE ONLY PERSON who can fix it: The Professor. AH! Maybe The Professor is an alien and that's how he knew MechaGodzilla's name!!
The Professor wants to check out the cave Masa found the first piece of metal. Shim and Saeko meanwhile take a Carnival Cruise. Why? I don't know. But they have the King Caesar statue. I guess they're gonna return the statue to Nami and her hilarious grandfather? I dunno. But on the boat is Japanese Johnny Cash and the creepy robber!
The creepy robber breaks into Saeko's room, looking for the statue. Pfft, like she'll keep that in her bright plaid suitcase, covered by a sweater! Only a moron would-oh, that's exactly what she did. Hm. I think the Japanese don't like women a whole lot.
Meanwhile, Godzilla is somewhere and it's raining. Man, even Godzilla can't get away from the cliche of having it rain on you while you're upset or down. Anyway, he's standing and soon he's struck by several bolts of lighting. Just like all things made in Japan, he needs to be recharged before using.
The creepy robber sneaks away with the statue but Shim finds him and fights him again. Shim shoots the guy and something shocking happens. The robber....turns into a Ape from Planet of the Apes!! I have no idea why this happens!! But he does! Shim is shocked by this, while the robber ape runs away with the statue.
Shim chases the ape, who in true ape fashion, flings stuff at him. Finally, the ape corners Shim and is about to kill him when a gun comes out of nowhere, kills the ape and he falls overboard with the statue. Saeko wakes up and learns her brilliant plan of hiding the statue didn't work.
But none of that is important because Shim hid the REAL statue in the captain's safe! HAHAHA!! So what was the point of chasing the robber ape? Especially after turning into an ape? Whatever, they've landed on the island of Azumis I'm assuming.
Back at the cave, the professor, Masa, and Ikako, the professors daughter (maybe Masa's sister?) are rooting around when the aliens find them. They take them to Left Eye and he tells the professor he has to fix MechaGodzilla or else!! I love that Left Eye has the balls to ask an Earthling to help him fix a monster that's going to be used to take over Earth. Granted, he's threatening him but still. Monster sized balls on this guy.
By the way, this is the huge downtime where Godzilla isn't seen again until the climax of the movie.
The Professor fixes MechaGodzilla and wants Left Eye to let them of. Of course he'll let them go...go to DEATH!!! Left Eye shoves the Professor into the same room as Ikako and Masa and soon the sauna room from Hell is turned on.
Shim and Saeko learn the Professor is missing so Shim goes to the caves to look for them while Saeko does girly things. At the caves, some aliens find Shim and before they can kill him, Japanese Johnny Cash shows up and kills one alien and disarms the other. He reveals himself to be an Interpol agent and that he's gotten wind of this whole alien thing for awhile. When Shim and his gang inserted themselves into this whole mess, he's been following them. So...where was HE when creepy ape guy attacked earlier?
Agent Japanese Johnny Cash makes the surviving alien take them to their headquarters. He sneaks them in and soon they start kicking ass. They find The Professor and the other two sweating to death in the room and let them out. They leave the headquarters and go to Shim's car, but the Agent notices something's wrong and realizes the car is set to explode. Damn.
The Professor wants to go back and stop MechaGodzilla cause he's feeling guilty. Masa and the Agent go with him, while Shim and the two girls go to Nami and her Grandfather to get King Caesar to wake up. Shim and the girls (Shim and the Girls first album King Caesar coming this Spring) arrive and place the statue on an altar but King Caesar is still passed out. Nami knows what she must do: SING! The Grandfather explains that only a direct descendant of the Azumis can wake King Caesar. So she's basically an alarm clock. Too bad he didn't press snooze.
Ok, seriously, the song wasn't bad. It sounded like a Frank Sinatra song. I don't know where the jazz combo band was at but it was a nice touch. Meanwhile, The Professor and his team is too late to stop MechaGodzilla cause he left the headquarters to go fight King Caesar. So they go to the main room where Left Eye is but they get themselves caught like idiots. Maybe think before you rush into a room next time guys?
So MechaGodzilla shows up. King Caesar is like "OK OK OK I'M UP! STOP SINGING!!" and wakes up and immediately does battle with MechaGodzilla. While watching the fight, the Agent reveals his ring can transform into a lock pick. Don't ask how that's possible. Meanwhile the Professor unscrews his handy pipe.
The battle royale starts when Godzilla returns and gets in on the action. MechaGodzilla is kicking both their asses. Godzilla says "I've had enough of this shit" and reveals to have magnetic powers. Ok, to anybody who follows Godzilla a lot more closely than I do, I gotta ask: is this something he always could do? If so, when did that start? Granted, this is probably the first time his foe is made of metal, but still.
Anyway, he magnetizes MechaGodzilla and when he gets close enough, Godzilla holds him while King Caesar punches him in the stomach. If you're a geek like me, you know this move cause you were often in MechaGodzilla's spot. Oh college...
The Agent gets loose, he grabs the Professor's pipe and it breaks MechaGodzilla's controls. The agent manages to kill all the aliens and they run out of the headquarters. With no one controlling him, Godzilla fucking destroys MechaGodzilla until he explodes.
King Caesar high fives Godzilla and goes back to sleep. Godzilla goes back into the ocean until he's needed again in two weeks. Everybody reunites, Nami puts the statue away until they need it in a future sequel and everything has a happy ending. Except Tokyo, which needs to be rebuilt again.
It's stupid as shit but fuck, I love this movie, especially the DVD. I can't recommend this movie high enough. I'm sure someone is going to tell me there are better Godzilla films, but until I come across it, this will forever be my favorite one. You know, there's only one word I can use to describe this movie and that word is ????
-Jason
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