Vids I Dig 669: Filmento: ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’: How to Succeed at ‘Batman v Superman’

Film Review: Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Release Date: March 24th, 2021 (Asian markets)
Directed by: Adam Wingard
Written by: Eric Pearson, Max Borenstein, Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields
Based on: Godzilla by Toho, King Kong by Edgar Wallace, Merian C. Cooper
Music by: Tom Holkenberg
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza González, Julian Dennison, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Lance Reddick, Zhang Ziyi (scenes cut), Jessica Henwick (scenes cut)

Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Toho, 113 Minutes

Review:

“The myths are real. There was a war. And they’re the last ones standing.” – Ilene Andrews

*There be spoilers here! No, seriously, I spoil the shit out of stuff in this one.

My review of the previous film in the MonsterVerse series ended with:

The moral of the story review is:
Monsters punching monsters: Good!
Human family drama and storytelling: Bad!

That still holds true for this movie but one half of the human story was really good and the best use of human characters, thus far, in this series, which has now made it four films deep.

This is also the best film out of the four, as it found a really good balance between action and storytelling and seemed to have fixed some of the biggest criticisms of the series. Well, except for the human characters but it did get that half right, as I already stated.

Looking at the human stories first, I’ll start with the bad.

This brings back the daughter and father of the family with all the drama from Godzilla: King of the Monsters. With that, it primarily focuses on Millie Bobby Brown’s character and just uses Kyle Chandler pretty sparingly. Honestly, it felt like Chandler probably filmed all of his scenes in a day or two. Also, this isn’t a knock against these actors, it’s just a knock against how they’re used, especially Brown.

In this movie, Brown’s Madison teams up with Julian Dennison, the fat kid from Deadpool 2, and Brian Tyree Henry, who plays a really annoying conspiracy theory podcaster that I can only describe as a male Leslie Jones. Basically, he’s loud, awkward and unfunny while trying so hard to be the comedic relief in a movie that doesn’t need any.

Anyway, this odd trio easily break into high tech, high security facilities and somehow end up in Hong Kong and just accidentally stumble upon MechaGodzilla. When it comes to them stepping up to the plate to save the day, they more or less fail, but then somehow short out an evil supercomputer with booze from a mini flask.

Needless to say, everything that happens around these characters is stupid, convenient and if they were completely edited out, it wouldn’t disrupt the main story and it’d actually be a much better movie.

Now on the flipside, we get the second group of human characters, who were f’n excellent! It’s almost like their scenes were written by someone else than the other group. The stark contrast between the quality of these two different human plot threads is kind of astounding and baffling.

This other group consists of Alexander Skarsgård, a guy I’ve always liked, as well as Rebecca Hall and the orphaned deaf girl she cares for, played by Kaylee Hottle, who ended up giving the best performance out of any human being in these movies.

Hottle’s Jia is a native of Skull Island and she’s the only person that Kong trusts, as they’ve developed a way of communicating with each other, secret from the adults on the island. Jia is the voice of Kong throughout the film and she is also his conscience at times. Frankly, it’s a really beautiful relationship that was crafted exceptionally well. It’s impossible not to get wrapped up in the emotion of their bond and the pain and love they share throughout the picture.

Additionally, Skarsgård and Hall are absolutely perfect in this and if any characters come back for future films again, I sincerely hope its these three.

Now on to the monsters!

As should be expected, both Godzilla and Kong were great in this. Every single battle was visually incredible and it far exceeds what has been done in the previous movies. Plus, we get to see MechaGodzilla show up to the fight in the last twenty minutes of the film.

The special effects in this are just superb. There were even moments where I almost thought that the CGI was a practical effect, that’s how good some shots were. The big final battle in Hong Kong is, hands down, the best action sequence that this film series has given us, thus far. Granted, I hope that now that they’ve really found their footing, it’s just a taste of what could come.

Something I wasn’t expecting and was thoroughly impressed by was the Hollow Earth stuff. Kong and the humans I like in the movie return to Kong’s true home and Kong even sits on the throne of his long dead ancestors. This part of the film also shows us a lot of cool creatures and we see Kong mix it up with some of them.

As far as the story goes, it’s simple, pretty easy to follow but I felt like it left me with a lot of questions that I hope are Easter eggs to be answered in the future. Especially, in regards to the Hollow Earth stuff and the mythos around Kong’s ancestors and their seemingly advanced kingdom.

I honestly feel like this would’ve deserved an 8 out of 10 or possibly higher but that bad human subplot really takes you out of the film when it pops up. I honestly wish all that crap would’ve been wiped from the script and freed up more pages to develop the story and the good characters more. But I think that Brown and Chandler had contracts that had to be honored, regardless of what that meant for the total package of this motion picture.

Still, everything else is so good that I really, really enjoyed this movie. I just hope someone does an edit, removing the bad parts at some point because I’d like to see it and I think it’d make the plot flow better and wouldn’t detract from the movie’s strengths.

I know that nothing is currently announced, following this film, but Warner Bros. needs to get moving on a follow up. Honestly, this is really the only good thing the studio has going for them after they’ve squandered the DC film universe.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: the Legendary Pictures’ King Kong and Godzilla films before this, as well as the original Japanese films King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes.

Film Review: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)

Also known as: Gojira tai Mosura tai Mekagojira: Tôkyô S.O.S. (original Japanese title), Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Battle for Tokyo (US complete title)
Release Date: November 3rd, 2003 (Tokyo International Film Festival)
Directed by: Masaaki Tezuka
Written by: Masaaki Tezuka, Masahiro Yokotani
Music by: Michiru Oshima
Cast: Noboru Kaneko, Miho Yoshioka, Mitsuki Koga, Masami Nagasawa, Chihiro Otsuka, Kou Takasugi, Hiroshi Koizumi, Akira Nakao

Toho Co. Ltd., 91 Minutes

Review:

This is actually the last Godzilla film I had left to review. Sadly, it kind of sucks that I saved this one for last because it’s from the Millennium era and is kind of drab.

I think the big reason for this one not being that enjoyable is that it’s the umpteenth time we’ve seen Mothra and it’s about the sixth time we’ve had a version of Mechagodzilla.

Also, this picks up where the previous film left off but it’s more of the same and done about half as well.

I watched it just to complete my mission of reviewing every Godzilla film ever made. That mission is accomplished and I can rest now.

Honestly, though, this just reinforced my opinion on the Millennium era being the worst series of Japanese Godzilla movies.

It has the worst the effects, the worst soundtracks and plots that feel like they should’ve been thrown in the shredder.

This was hard to sit through and it just made me wish that I had closed out this kaiju-sized task by saving something from the Shōwa era for the grand finale.

I guess this era does have its fans but there are also people that think jenkem is a good time.

Rating: 5.25/10
Pairs well with: other Godzilla films of the Millennium era.

Film Review: Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla (2002)

Also known as: Gojira X Mekagojira (original Japanese title), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 3 (alternative English title)
Release Date: November 2nd, 2002 (Tokyo International Film Festival)
Directed by: Masaaki Tezuka
Written by: Wataru Mimura
Music by: Michiru Oshima
Cast: Yumiko Shaku, Shin Takuma, Kou Takasugi, Yuusuke Tomoi, Kumi Mizuno, Akira Nakao

Toho Co. Ltd., 88 Minutes

Review:

“You gave me strength. So did the others. No life is worthless. I believe you now.” – Akane Yashiro

The Millennium Era of the Godzilla franchise is definitely my least favorite. However, the films aren’t bad, they’re just kind of meh, overall.

While people seem to really like this film’s direct predecessor, I actually liked this one a wee bit more. I think it had a lot to do with feeling less convoluted and not bogged down by so much fantastical mysticism.

This is just a sci-fi action flick with a giant beast and a giant robot. Even though the Mechagodzilla gimmick had already been done to death, by this point, this version of that type of story felt like it worked. I also love the redesigned version of the robot, now called Kiryu.

The plot also feels like it was lifted from an Ultraman series more than it feels like a rehash of previous Godzilla plots. Although, the duo of Mechagodzilla films from the Heisei Era had similar plot setups.

The reason I liken this to Ultraman is that it features a government task force that is fighting the kaiju threat. Instead of calling on Ultraman and various suped-up vehicles, the ace pilot in this story controls Mechagodzilla (or Kiryu).

The human elements of the story are pretty boring, though. The action scenes and monster battles are good, however.

But if I am being honest, this is almost completely forgettable in the grand kaiju-sized scheme of Godzilla things. Honestly, this whole era, other than the series’ finale, Final Wars, is pretty forgettable.

Rating: 7.25/10
Pairs well with: other Godzilla films of the Millennium era.

Film Review: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Also known as: Godzilla vs. Super-Mechagodzilla (alternative English title)
Release Date: December 11th, 1993 (Japan)
Directed by: Takao Okawara
Written by: Wataru Mimura
Music by: Akira Ifukube
Cast: Masahiro Takashima, Ryoko Sano, Megumi Odaka, Yusuke Kawazu, Daijiro Harada, Kenji Sahara

Toho Co. Ltd., 108 Minutes

Review:

“The year is 1992 A.D… In order to try to counter the threat posed to the planet’s survival by Godzilla, Japan’s Counter-G Bureau recruited the most brilliant scientific brains in the world to build a fighting machine. The first machine was called Garuda, but its fighting capabilities were limited. A far more powerful machine was required. They salvaged a robot from the future, Mecha-King Ghidorah, in order to study its advanced technology. Its components were used to build a weapon to fight Godzilla. They called it Mechagodzilla.” – Narrator

I never disliked the Heisei era of Godzilla, although it’s never really hit the mark for me like the Showa stuff has. Although, revisiting these movies has been a fun experience and I think that their legacy has grown on me more over the years, as this film and the ones before it, were really exciting and really took this often times hokey franchise and made them edgier and darker without sacrificing the soul of the series.

These movies still feel like Godzilla movies in the best way but they feel a bit more grown up in how they don’t present the title character as a friendly monster looking out for Japan. They tap more into the sentiment of the original 1954 picture and keep him as a threat, even though he isn’t as bad as some of the more dangerous and deadly Heisei era kaiju.

In this tale, we see the Japanese government use the future tech left over from the defeated Mecha-King Ghidorah to create their own super powered, heavily armored defense kaiju: Mechagodzilla. I liked this approach to this era’s creation of the iconic monster and that it was cooler than just having Mechagodzilla being the superweapon of a hostile alien race. I also like that Kenji Sahara, a Toho legend, got to be in the cockpit of the mecha-kaiju.

This chapter in the Heisei universe also gives us its version of Rodan. I really love Rodan in this and not just because he’s one of my favorite monsters but because they make him so much more badass and dangerous. It also adds in an extra element, as this isn’t simply a Godzilla versus Mechahgodzilla film. It has more layers than that and the monsters and their own stories are well-balanced and come together wonderfully.

That being said, I actually got mad at how brutal Rodan’s defeat was. But it was effective in showing how powerful and dangerous that this version of Mechagodzilla is before the final showdown. And from the Mechagodzilla vs. Rodan fight to the Mechagodzilla vs. Godzilla finale, the last half hour or so of this movie was superb and featured some of the best kaiju footage of the entire film series.

We also get the introduction of Godzilla Junior, here, which thankfully, wasn’t a modernization of the Minya character. Instead, this monster was human-sized and had the general look of Godzilla, as opposed to resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy after a bad kitchen fire. Godzilla Junior would go on to be more important to the film series, as it rolled out its final two movies after this one.

All in all, this is a pretty awesome Godzilla flick with everything you’d probably want from one. Great action, decent acting, great effects for its time and it still has that Toho magic.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: other Godzilla films from the Heisei era.

Video Game Review: Godzilla (PlayStation 4)

I’m a massive kaiju fan, tokusatsu fan and Godzilla fan. I know it may sound silly to some but this game is the one that made me finally break down and buy a PlayStation 4. I also got it for Uncharted 4 but it’s this game that really made up my mind for me just because I wanted a great Godzilla fighting game with great graphics and mass environmental destruction.

Sadly, this doesn’t live up to the expectations I had for it but I did enjoy the hell out of this game, regardless. It has several flaws but even those didn’t distract me from the monster on monster combat for the first few weeks that I played this. But eventually, those flaws caught up to me and I wanted much more from this game.

If you are also a fan of the classic Godzilla universe, this will probably make you happy, for the most part. Luckily, this game is cheap as balls now because I wouldn’t recommend paying full price for this thing, as it runs its course pretty quickly.

You don’t start out with all the monsters being playable. You have to play the story mode multiple times to unlock every character and then you also have to play more to unlock points that can be used to enhance the abilities and stats of your monsters. This is fun for a little while but I doubt anyone will ever want to finish this arduous task because the game suffers heavily from repetitiveness.

It’s fun to play through this a few times but it is just the same thing over and over again.

Also, there really isn’t a good versus mode in this and the other modes kind of suck. The story mode is where it’s at but this is sadly, a one trick Minya.

There are some key monsters also missing from this game. I had hoped that there would be some DLCs that would add more monsters to the game but this was a commercial failure and nothing extra was developed.

Another negative, is that the environments are fun to destroy but you are confined to an area and can’t really roam too freely. Every stage has a border around it. It’d be much cooler if there was a massive map of Tokyo and you could actually walk from one side of the massive city to the other, confronting other kaiju along the way.

The game does do a good job of replicating the Shōwa era by using all the familiar music and giving you many levels that look like sets from those films. You can even knock down the Tokyo Tower on one stage. However, that nostalgia wears off the more you play the game.

It also doesn’t help that the monsters have a very limited move set and clunky controls that seem to work against you.

If you don’t give a shit about Godzilla, you should steer clear of this. If you do like the franchise, this is worth a buy if you can get it for like $10-$15.

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: Sadly, there aren’t a lot of kaiju games, at least in the US. But I bet this pairs well with the Japanese Ultraman games. If you have the ability to play imports, I’d suggest those.

Film Review: Ready Player One (2018)

Release Date: March 11th, 2018 (SXSW)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline
Based on: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Music by: Alan Silvestri
Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Letitia Wright, Clare Higgins, McKenna Grace, Julia Nickson (uncredited)

Village Roadshow Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, De Line Pictures, Farah Films & Management, Warner Bros., 140 Minutes

Review:

“People come to the Oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.” – Parzival

*There be spoilers here!

The first thing that people who read the book are going to ask is, “How much did they change?” The short answer is, “Everything.”

In fact, there is so much that has changed that it’s too much to list out. As my friend Greg said once the credits started rolling, “They should change it to say ‘vaguely inspired by Ready Player One.'” And that’s pretty much how I feel, as someone who read the book first.

The main thing that this film is lacking is heart and soul. The book did a decent job building up characters and making the first time meetings meaningful and sweet, the film just drops the real humans in with no warning, halfway through the story. In the book, none of these people actually meet until the very end, as they unite in the real world for the big final battle.

And for some reason, maybe because Spielberg is besties with George Lucas, this version has some sort of “rebellion” that already exists and abducts Parzival in an effort to get him to join. This leads to him meeting Artemis before the midpoint of the film. In the book, she’s so freaked out by her own appearance that she won’t actually meet Parzival until the very end. Here, her birthmark was something that could be easily covered up with foundation. I’ve seen plenty of girls who have looked far worse without makeup… hell, with makeup. And in a world where most people are poverty stricken and dirty with facial tattoos, the whole thing is ridiculous.

The biggest problem with the movie is it took a decent book with some good ideas and it made them worse. I was hoping that Spielberg could put his hand in the story and use his magic to fix up the weaker bits. But the story is so different than the book that those weak bits are gone. Sadly, they’re replaced with something much more superficial, artificial and monotonous.

Every time that something with real weight happened in this movie, it didn’t have the weight that it did in the book. I think the book benefits from having Wade/Parzival tell his story from the first-person point-of-view. The movie is just a movie without any narration, internal monologue or anything that can really add more the the story. You just don’t feel anything for these people, their situation or the events themselves. The film needs a lot more seasoning.

Additionally, the challenges were terrible. The first one is a motor race with a small detail no one was able to crack for over five years. Yet anytime a new video game comes out in the real world, our real world, some guy on YouTube finds all the Easter eggs and secrets within the first 24 hours of playing it. But in a future world where the population is probably double what it is now, where everyone is obsessed with solving the first challenge, not one single person thought to themselves, “I wonder what will happen if I drive backwards?” In reality, some noob would’ve done it by mistake and solved the puzzle.

The second challenge brought the characters into a recreation of The Shining but as cool as it was initially, it still didn’t measure up to the similar sequences in the book, where Parzival had to reenact a role in a film from start to finish. Whatever. We ended up with The Shining being populated by dancing, green glowing zombies for some reason.

The final gate was the closest to the original version but was still a heavily altered and simplified version.

One thing I was hoping would make it in the movie was the battle between Ultraman and Mechagodzilla during the big finale. Ultraman was replaced with a Gundam. Mechagodzilla was there but the design was something new and looked more like a generic metal dinosaur than any version of Mechagodzilla we’ve ever seen.

And what the hell was with Sorrento leaving his password right on his pod? Make your password something you can remember that way you don’t get easily hacked? You’re the top dog in the second largest corporation in the friggin’ world and you basically wore a t-shirt saying, “Please hack me! My password is…” I can’t accept the stupidity of this plot point, he’s not an assistant principal from a John Hughes movie. Plus, in the film they dumb him down and make him rely solely on the knowledge of his minions, as opposed to being savvy on his own and only calling for backup when stumped.

The film fails in comparison to the book and the book was hardly a literary classic. I could pontificate about all the shit I didn’t like and take this review to 5000-plus words but I think I’ve made my point about the negative side of the equation here.

On the side of positives there is sadly only really a few.

One, Mark Rylance was fantastic as Halliday and played the character in a way that was even better than what I saw in my own head while reading the book. He was really the only character I felt a connection to by the end of the film. Which is sad, as he’s barely in it.

Another positive is that it was fun in the right sort of way but it still wasn’t enough to make up for the soullessness and randomness of this adaptation.

I can’t think of another positive.

The biggest highlight of the film was the big battle at the end but it was still a mess. There were so many pop culture references running around on the screen that it was hard to focus on any one of them and you just sort of see this mish mash of shit where if the camera stops moving for one second, you might make out a Battletoad, Spawn, Ryu or a Ninja Turtle. But at least Chucky from Child’s Play got to kick some ass for a few seconds.

I don’t know, man. I had high hopes for this and I left the theater feeling empty and completely unemotional. This was like a vacuum that sucked everything out of me for well over two hours. I walked out of the theater a dumbfounded blank.

This film is like an excited toddler showing you all their toys by throwing them at your face with the speed of the Flash for two hours and twenty minutes. There is no real semblance of a plot, just toys bouncing off of your face and incomprehensible toddler rambling.

Also, Spielberg produces those terrible Michael Bay Transformers movies. This was the perfect opportunity to use accurate looking Autobots and Decpeticons. I mean, what the shit, dude?! You’re telling me the G1 versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron aren’t avatars in the Oasis?

Between the execution of this film and Spielberg’s weird comments about Netflix the other day, I think homeboy is starting to show his age.

Lastly, Zak Penn is awful. Truly, awful. How does he keep getting hired to write shit?

Rating: 4.75/10
Pairs well with: Maybe the novel it is “based on” but the book is superior.

Book Review: ‘Ready Player One: A Novel’ by Ernest Cline

I have heard great things about this book for a few years now. I have meant to read it but life is a busy bitch most of the time. However, I definitely wanted to experience and know the book before the Steven Spielberg film adaptation of it hit theaters, which happens later this month.

I didn’t really know what to expect but I did know that the film primarily takes place in a virtual world and was littered with a shit ton of pop culture references, primarily from the 1980s. I grew up at the same time as the author (and the genius mastermind who built an empire in the book) and I knew that this would mostly likely jive with me.

It’s a book that really taps into the nostalgia of the 1980s and for someone who was there, it is really hard to avoid getting sucked into this tale. Cline wrote this with a lot of passion and it mirrors the passion I had, as well as my friends, back in the ’80s when we were experiencing all of these things first hand. Nostalgia alone can’t carry a story, however.

Although, with or without nostalgia as a real driving force in the creative direction of this book, the characters were all very good and you cared for them and their quest. Wade, the main character, really reflected a lot of myself and I’m sure Ernest Cline, in his love and appreciation for all of these pop culture things. He also reflected back who my friends were in childhood and in my teen years.

Wade’s friends were sort of a combination of typical ’80s kids mixed with the social norms of modern times, as nowadays, many people only know each other online and haven’t actually met in person. Not that that’s actually a bad thing but the book makes a point to remind us all to step outside of the OASIS (the virtual world) and to truly connect with people in the flesh. In fact, an important piece of advice is given to Wade at the end, and that is that true happiness can only be found “out there” (the real physical world).

Wade does find happiness but he finds much more than that too. He has to deal with tragedy, loss, a truly broken heart and the weight of the world being on his shoulders. While his goal is to win the contest within the story, his true goal is to save the digital world from a corporate giant who seeks to exploit it for profit and in effect, control everything in the real world due to how tied into the OASIS everyone has become.

There is a big ’80s pop culture boom going on, right now. Especially after the success of Stranger Things, It and other shows and films that sort of bring people back to that era from a childlike point of view. Ready Player One came out at the perfect time and maybe it will open the door to that cultural era for younger generations to appreciate.

I liked this book for a lot of reasons. But after reading it, I can’t really envision how this can even translate to screen. Sure, I’ve seen the trailers and they’ve got me pretty excited but this is such a unique story that I can’t imagine that adapting it won’t be an immense challenge, even for a legend like Steven Spielberg. I guess we’ll see in less than a month’s time how this pans out.

I’m not a big fan of dropping spoilers but sometimes it is unavoidable in a review. However, I’m not going to say how or when or why but this book has one of the most badass moments in literary history when Ultraman shows up to battle Mechagodzilla. I mean, holy f’n shit, that whole sequence in the book had me smiling like Aech after being exposed to Smylex hygiene products.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: Just about every pop culture reference wedged between its covers.

Film Review: Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Also known as: Mekagojira no Gyakushū, lit. Counterattack of Mechagodzilla (Japan)
Release Date: March 15th, 1975 (Japan)
Directed by: Ishirō Honda
Written by: Yukiko Takayama
Music by: Akira Ifukube
Cast: Katsuhiko Sasaki, Tomoko Ai, Akihiko Hirata, Katsumasa Uchida, Goro Mutsumi, Tadao Nakamaru, Toru Kawai, Kenji Sahara

Toho, 83 Minutes

Review:

“Wait till I really let Titanosaurus loose!” – Dr. Shinji Mafune

Well, this was the big sendoff for Godzilla in his Shōwa era of films, which stretch over fifteen movies from 1954’s Gojira to this 1975 conclusion that reunited original director Ishirō Honda and original music maestro Akira Ifukube.

Despite the talent working on this final chapter, it is fairly lackluster. I think the main reason is that it was a rehash of the Mechagodzilla story from the previous year’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Also, instead of featuring the awesome King Caesar, we are introduced to a new kaiju: Titanosaurus. Unfortunately, despite a new power, Titanosaurus was pretty lame. In fact, his power isn’t really that original as it is just wind gusts, which we got as far back as 1956’s Rodan. Rodan used his supersonic speed to create destructive wind gusts where Titanosaurus used his fan shaped tail. I know that Titanosaurus has his fans out there but I’m not one of them.

While I love Mechagodzilla, there just wasn’t much to separate this film from the previous one and everything that was actually different was a step down. Still, it is a Godzilla film from his best era and it is a fun time.

I think the problem with this movie, is that although Ishirō Honda is the superior Godzilla director, the ’70s Godzilla films really belonged to Jun Fukuda. He created the vibe that worked in the ’70s, as the character of Godzilla became more kid friendly and kind of goofy. Honda’s style wasn’t really effective when trying to make a direct sequel to Fukuda’s Mechagodzilla film. Godzilla was very different in 1975 than it was when Honda directed his near masterpiece Gojira in 1954.

Also, I need to point out something strange with my latest viewing of this movie. While it is rated G and categorized in places as a “family film”, this movie has boobies in it. Granted, they are fake cyborg boobies but they are nude breasties, nonetheless. Strangely, these ’70s boobies never existed in any version of the film that I have seen before. While I own this, I most recently watched it on the Starz app. So if you are using that and are showing these “G rated” Godzilla movies to some young ones, be forewarned that you might get a mammary surprise. But, as far as I know, this is the only Godzilla film with cyborg titties in it or any titties for that matter.

Titties aside, I do like this film even if it is in the lower rung of Shōwa era films. The main reason, is that I don’t dislike any Shōwa era film. Something about this heroic kaiju makes me smile, especially in the classic era of rubber suits, miniature sets and a sort of hokey magic that ties it all together. While many fans don’t like ’70s Godzilla, I always have, as it was the decade I felt more connected to when I discovered these movies as a kid in the ’80s.

Terror of Mechagodzilla isn’t a place that I would start, if introducing this great and massive film franchise to new generations, but it still works in spite of its flaws. Granted, most people probably won’t embrace this with the enthusiasm that I have but most people paid to see Transformers 5.

Rating: 6/10

Video Game Review: Godzilla: Monster of Monsters (NES)

*written in 2014.

Back in the day, just about every kid in America had a Nintendo Entertainment System. Truthfully, I feel for those who didn’t. Reason being, at that time in history, the NES was Americana! Sure, it is a video game console imported from Japan but it was just as much a part of American culture as it was Japanese.

Like today, you can’t say Call of Duty isn’t American. Even though it is played on a Japanese console and part of a monstrous industry created in Japan. I guess Godzilla fits that mold to a degree, as well. A Japanese creation hat has transcended an industry and also become a part of American culture.

Well, putting video games and Godzilla together in 1989 gave us Godzilla: Monster of Monsters. It was released on the Nintendo in a time when I was at the height of both my video game playing and Godzilla worship. When the game dropped, I was at the store to buy a copy as soon as I had earned enough money to afford it.

Godzilla: Monster of Monsters certainly isn’t a game without flaws and in many ways, it is very repetitive. However, some of my fondest video game playing memories, from that era, where when I was fully engaged in this game. It was fun and in a time before fighting games were a normal thing, Godzilla introduced me to the style with its awesome one-on-one monster battles.

The monster battles were actually the big highlight of the game. There were literally dozens and dozens of levels, many of them just rehashes of themselves, which added to the repetitiveness of the game. The problem was that all one wanted to do was fight giant monsters and the levels became too abundant and too much of a roadblock to get to each epic kaiju battle. Honestly, that is my biggest complaint about the game.

The only other real complaint is that the mechanics of the monster battles are very primitive and tedious at times. In retrospect, it didn’t bother me back in 1989, as there wasn’t a lot to compare it to. It doesn’t play great today but at the time, it was awesome. The other issue with it, in regards to the battle mechanics, is that the fights tended to be super long, especially the further you went into the game, as the monsters become increasingly more powerful.

Today, despite the issues, I still find the game enjoyable and fire it up from time-to-time. And I should also make note of the graphics, which were pretty impressive for 1989 on an 8-bit console.

Rating: 7/10