Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

It is a time of great calamity.  An Azumi Priestess has a vision of the destruction of a city.  At the same time, Godzilla seemingly attacks his allies in brutal fashion.  A team of scientists and archeologists begin looking into the matter only to discover a new threat to the planet.  Godzilla himself finds his true equal in a robotic duplicate that might just surpass him in everyway.  Together with the Guaridan kaiju King Caeser, Godzilla must summon all of his powers and more to stop this mechanical terror before it destroys the world.

We come to the end of Godzilla Month with the debut of yet another of Godzilla’s most recognizable foes.  Yeah, it would seem kind of easy and obvious to do a robotic replica of the King of the Monsters (particularly when you think about how it would no doubt inspire Power Rangers down the road).  Thankfully, while most of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla still retains the usual negatives that drag down a Godzilla movie, the debut of Mechagodzilla himself isn’t one of them.  In fact he’s a highlight, along with another monster debut that sadly should have happened in its own film.
 
The build up to the arrival of Mechagodzilla is amazing.  From the moment he appears, looking like the original Godzilla at first, you know something is wrong.  His iconic roar is pure static, his atomic breath is a different color.  Heck even one of his closest allies, Angirus, senses something is wrong and outright attacks.  It all leads to a great reveal when Mecha G and the OG Godzilla have their first stand off.  In short, this is how you properly introduce a good clone foe for Godzilla.  As you’d expect, their throwdown is as epic as any Godzilla bout usually is, with Godzilla’s atomic fire vs. Mecha G’s assortment of energy beams and missiles fired from its fingers and toes.  But there’s two other contenders in the ring as well.  There’s the aforementioned Amgirus, who is sadly just around to get the crap kicked out of him to prove how powerful Mecha G is.  And then there’s the true hero of the MonsterVerse…KING CAESAR!!!  Who sadly should have been saved for another film altogether but I’ll get back to that point in a second.  Needless to say, King Casear’s wild design and wild card attack style made him an instant favorite with me, even if he only shows up in the last ten minutes of the movie but that’s kind of par for the course with most Kaiju moments in a Godzilla film.
 
Of course, the Human element tends to drag any Godzilla movie down and here it’s no exception.  I’d actually argue it’s a bit worse because Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla feels like two Godzilla films merged into one when they should have been two.  You have an assortment of scientists and archoelogiest trying to solve the mystery of Mechagodzilla and King Caesar simultaneously; a prophecy about King Caesar and Godzilla, or something akin to Godzilla; and, because its now a popular Godzilla trope, Aliens from another world, in this case Aliens from Black Hole Planet 3…oh and there’s a glasses sporting Interpol agent who’s around to look bad ass in action scenes…ok he was kind of cool.  The Black Hole Aliens don’t really have anything on the Xiliens from Invasion of the Astro Monster, though their true form makes them look like mutated Apes from the Planet of the Apes series, that’s neat.  But they are packed into a movie that really either needed to be about them or King Caesar, this movie cant work for both in my opinion.
 
While it is overstuffed, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla isn’t the worst Godzilla movie I’ve seen.  The action, continuing the increasing level of bloody violence seen in Godzilla vs. Gaigan, is a lot of fun and King Caeser and the titular Mecha G are great additions to the Kaiju pantheon.  But a boring human element and an even lamer Alien plot to take over the world slows things down as per usual.   That’s not to say that a human element shouldn’t be left out of a Godzilla movie, Invasion of the Astro Monster just had more memorable humans for once, and don’t forget the powerful original Gojira focusing on the people themselves.  It’s just that when the Humans tend to dominate a movie with a boring story and leave all the epic action to the last ten minutes (after a five minute warm up song for King Caesar, yep that happens), you tend to forget the real reason you want to watch these movies…so we can watch Giant Monsters kick ass.
 
7/10
 
And with that, Godzilla Month ends.  Next week, the biggest Christmas of the Gundam Anime Corner begins with our return to the Gundam Multiverse.  The Gauntlet is reborn as GUNDAM MONTH MARK V-THE GAUNTLET PART II kicks off the with series premiere of franchise legend, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.  Happy Holidays and see ya then.