Gojirathon 25: Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidorâ: Daikaijû sôkôgeki (2001)

G: minus 4 days

Gojirathon is me just writing up some thoughts about the movies I see while I conduct my little marathon of Godzilla-movies in anticipation of the new Hollywood retooling. Why Gojirathon and not Godzillathon? Well, because Rolfe already did his Godzillathon as part of his Monster Madness, and I don’t want to steal his work. I’ll be using the terms, G, Big G, Godzilla and Gojira somewhat interchangeably… since I can be a bit lazy at times, when it comes to these things.

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! (2001)

Ok. We’re all out Showa now. There isn’t much here from the Heisei films other than the part that Godzilla is still considered to be the villain. We get yet another time-line to deal with. Now there was one attack in 1954 that the military silenced the solution of since they feared public humiliation. And then there has been pretty much peace and quiet for the Japanese people until recently, a couple of years ago, when a giant monster attacked New York. And we get a, not so subtle, jab at the american 98 film when one character asks “Was it Godzilla that attacked New York?” and the answer is “The americans claim it was Godzilla, but our experts are dubious”. And now the reports of monster-sightings are dropping in by the dozens

As a crew of TV-station BS Digital Q stumbles into one of these events while filming one of their regular bargain basement z-grade SciFi-films the main female decides this is her chance to turn this crummy station into something respectable. So they go all out in their inäÄ*vestigating the phenomenons .

They uncover legends about “Ancient Guardians”, Mothra, Baragon and King Ghidorah. And that one day they will join forces against the menace that is Godzilla. An old man who wrote a bock on the legends years ago now helps them.

It’s strange that they decided to leave Baragon out of the title? Was he maybe a surprise guest appearance? Was he just left out because the title was long enough as it was? Anyway, he is the most boring of the bunch that shows up anyways. So I’m actually glad that they decided to get rid of him as the first foe for Godzilla to annihilate.

After the titular “All-Out Attack” (one of the officers even complains that this city is becoming like some sort of  Damned Giant Monster Convention) The military resumes their tries. (Need I mention that the King of Monsters kicked the opponents asses?) And actually manages to destroy Godzilla from the inside out.

I have both great things and not so great things to say about this film. On the one hand I really enjoyed the energy put into every actor, no matter how small. But on the other hand. Godzilla. The one whos franchise these monsters are visiting is wearing the most underwhelming suit-design as of yet. While I like that we are returning to the fun of the showa-films, I really don’t like the new Godzilla-design. It just felt cheap now. And yes. I understand that it probably had more animatronics in it than most pre-cgi ILM days. It just looked wrong… Cheap and wrong.

But hey. At least I wasn’t the least bit bored here. I can forgive the non-existant plot if only the showmanship holds up. And here, for the most part, it does.

Oh, and isn’t it strange that for a film series that had it’s very roots in the dangers of nuclear weapons, it took them until now to actually show a Mushroom-cloud produced by that analogy?

Be Seeing You!

Gojira01

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