Year: 

1974

Directed by: 

Jun Fukuda

Rated: 

G

Country: 

Japan

Runtime: 

1 hr. 24 min.

Production Company: 

Toho

Written by: 

Jun Fukuda

Shinichi Sekizawa

Masami Fukushima

Hiroyasu Yamamura

Starring: 

Masaaki Daimon

Kazuya Aoyama

Saeko Kaneshiro

Reiko Tajima

Similar Films: 

Terror of Mechagodzilla

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

Who doesn't want to see a giant lizard fight a giant robot that looks like a lizard? Who also doesn't want to see an ancient demon get caught up in the mix? This is the genius of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is everything we love about the Godzilla franchise, that is, men in stiff monster suits trampling miniature sets with the accompaniment of B-level special effects, but this movie takes it a step further by featuring the coolest monster of the franchise: Mechagodzilla. It makes me smile just typing it.

Do you really care how it gets there? Some alien race that looks like something from an Ed Wood film has created a robot, Mechagodzilla, dressed as Godzilla to fool the town and destroy it (the real Godzilla, in this installment, is a hero monster). Our first clue that it isn't the real Godzilla comes when one of the monster's old buddies, Anguirus, begins attacking the lookalike, knowing he's not the real thing. One of the characters points this out with a stupid line that comes across as if he's talking to the viewer directly: "Something's wrong. Anguirus shouldn't attack his friend Godzilla." Thanks, dude, but why are you talking to yourself in the car like that? Anyway, Mechagodzilla is soon exposed as the poser he is when the real Godzilla comes out to kick some robot monster ass and ends up burning off some of his fake skin. Now it's on. Mechagodzilla, you just impersonated the wrong giant lizard.

The weak parts of the film consist of basically everything between the monster battles. Take the script, for instance. Not a single piece of the film's dialogue is actually interesting; it's all expository. There are at least a couple lines that stand out as amusingly stupid, though, along with the one previously mentioned, and they save the downtime from being boring. At one point a scientist says, "I'm sure that Mechagodzilla is being remotely controlled by a spaceman. This space metal is the evidence," and later, when Godzilla somehow magnetizes himself during a fight with Mechagodzilla, a character says, "So, he's transformed himself into a magnetic pole," as if it were just another move. I don't know about you, but I live off this stuff.

The monsters of this installment are the focus of the film, as they almost always should be but too often are not. Take Mechagodzilla, for instance. He is the R2-D2 of the giant monster world, looking sufficiently cool but also packing gadgets that make him fully formidable. Rainbow rays, belly lasers, finger missiles -- this giant lizard robot has it all. King Caesar's no slouch, either. This giant dog-demon is a force to be reckoned with, sporting the ability to absorb lasers through one eye and shoot them back out the other! And I hardly even need to mention Godzilla, the king of the monsters, himself. If you want giant monster coolness, you got it here.

The best part about these elements, though, is not their mere presence but they way they are used, which is often hilarious. When we first see the robot imposter destroying a building, for instance, he does so literally by punching it. Mechagodzilla also looks plain funny when he flies around like a fighter jet, and his tornado force field move is something you have to see for yourself. At one point, Mechagodzilla jumps over Godzilla's radiation attack, and Godzilla throws his arm in frustration, as if snapping his fingers and saying something like, "Dang!" My favorite part of all, though, may be the simple little jump that Anguirus does near the beginning of the film before charging Mechagodzilla. It's the big things as well as the little nuances that make this film so enjoyable.

I'll wrap things up now to avoid embarrassing myself through over-lavishment of praise, but let me just reiterate: in this movie you get to see Godzilla and a demon monster fight a robot monster. This is one of the most fun Godzilla films there is and one of my top three personal favorites of the franchise (tied with Godzilla: Final Wars in second behind the original Gojira). That's really all there is to say about this movie. It's just plain fun.