The full title for this one is “Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All Out Attack”! Someone went a little crazy with the title, didn’t they?
This movie is… wow. As much as I like it, is a bit of a mix for me. On one hand, the action, effects, and soundtrack are amazing, but on the other, the story and human scenes are questionable at best. I know people don’t watch Godzilla for the people, but I don’t want to be banging my head on a wall because of how stupid they are. They aren’t complete idiots in this film, but they do have their dumb moments, hokey acting, and crappy dialogue. There’s only one character I liked, and it’s the military commander guy… person… I still can’t remember anyone’s name. That’s usually how it goes with these films.
Am I really going to whine about stuff like ‘characters’ and ‘quality acting’? No. Instead, I’m going to attempt to express how great the kaiju element is! When it comes to the them, this movie doesn’t screw around. First off, the suit and puppets are pretty darn cool. Of course we have Godzilla, who looks a lot different than the previous design he had from the last two Millennium films, this time looking more like the classic design. He’s a little tubby in the belly, but his face is actually intimidating. He has those blank, white eyes that just give the impression of a beast of pure evil. Just look at him!
Tell me he does not look at least a little bit scary. If I ever saw the Godzilla from the 70’s, I would laugh. But this thing?!? If I EVER saw the GMK Godzilla, I would crap my pants and fear for my life! This has to be my #1 favorite design of Godzilla of the entire franchise. Not only is he designed well, but he is extremely overpowered! This guy doesn’t take anyone’s B.S.! He obliterates everything in his path! Boom! There goes one kaiju! Boom! There goes another one! His atomic breath is once again his most powerful weapon. No matter how strong the missiles, no matter how strong the other kaiju get, he just sends it all to hell.
I think what makes this Godzilla so great for me, and most other fans, is how brutal and merciless he is. In previous films, all you got to see were people running and screaming. There were very few scenes where they showed people getting killed. Here, it shows it all. It shows the world’s least threatening biker gang get buried under rocks, a bunch of vandalizing teenagers getting eaten, everything. My favorite part (among many) is where Godzilla is walking by the hospital, and a teenage girl recovering from a broken leg watches him come closer. It looks like he just missed the hospital, and she breathes a sigh of relief… but then his tail swings around and levels the building. Ow.
This is definitely trying to convey the absolute terror Godzilla puts people through, and it works really well. It was almost ruined by the cheesiness of it, but I’ll get to that in a bit. I guess I have to talk about the other kaiju as well.
At this point, Toho didn’t have any new ideas when it came to enemies for Godzilla to face, so the rest of the series uses already existing kaiju. Here, as we can tell from the title, there’s Mothra and King Ghidorah. Mothra is a lot better than she used to look. Before, she looked like a plush toy, but here, she’s updated and more insect like. Not much else about her, though. The other titled kaiju is King Ghidorah. I like this design for him, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite. I like his roar, though. Out of all the others, Ghidorah gets all the powerups. He gets defeated once, then when Mothra dies, her energy flows into him, making him a lot stronger. Then, Godzilla kicks his @$$ again, but some random amulet thing gives him even more power. But all that lightning breath and energy isn’t enough to stop Godzilla from literally claiming his soul. Literally.
There is one more kaiju, but his name isn’t in the title. It’s Baragon, an obscure character from the Showa era. His first appearance was in Frankenstein Conquers the World, then he had a small cameo in Destroy All Monsters. He was supposed to have more scenes, but they replaced him with Gorosaurus. It’s about time he got another role. He isn’t changed too much from his original design, but he has lost his fire breath. He’s the cutest kaiju to ever be put on screen. Look.
Adorable. Too bad he gets annihilated. Poor guy was put in the ground. Again, literally. Godzilla stomped his face into the dirt, then blew him up with an explosion Michael Bay would be jealous of. In fact, that happens to EVERYONE in this movie!
The action scenes were outstanding! The best part were the explosions. There are plenty of them, and they are spectacular. These scenes had great effects, and pretty decent computer effects as well. The part where Mothra comes out of the cocoon and spreads her wings is cool, and a few shots of a CG King Ghidorah flying around looked good.
The plot is okay, I guess. Just so everyone knows, this is yet again ANOTHER reboot to the series, ignoring every last film except for the original. Why? No clue. But this time around, it’s a little more epic. Again, Godzilla was killed in 1954, but now he’s coming back for some reason. It’s revealed that all the collective souls of the dead soldiers in the Pacific War have reawakened Godzilla, and he is back to make sure Japan never forgets the pain and suffering they went through.
In order to stop him, the Guardian Monsters, Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah are woken back up in order to fight him. This is the first and only time King Ghidorah has been one of the good guys in the movies, rather than an evil alien. One thing I like is how the Japanese defense force doesn’t immediately take the legend of the Guardian Monsters into consideration, instead of a movie like Dragon Wars, where the FBI saw the wreckage in the beginning of the film and instantly thought “Hm, that sure does resemble a Korean legend. Let’s use that as our primary reference.”
Anyway, as ridiculous as the whole spiritual and legend thing sounds, it had the potential to be a really good story… but the main characters ruined it with bad acting and bad dialogue. They had too many dumb lines and moments to describe, as did nearly everyone else in this movie. I feel like I could have written this better. But as far as the setup went, it was pretty interesting.
The only way to watch this movie and try to take the humans more seriously is by watching it in Japanese with subtitles. That’s what I did. Even without the dubbing, the acting didn’t seem too great. I don’t need to speak the language to know when acting is good or bad. It’s obvious.
In conclusion, I really like this one. It might start out a little slow, but it gets intense by the end. I love it. Speaking of things I love, the music here is unbelievably awesome! It’s so epic and so effective, It may very well be #2 on the best soundtrack on any Godzilla movie to date. Well, at least for my list.
Great action, great effects, great soundtrack, topped with the most awesome looking Godzilla ever, this is easily one of the best of the series. The human scenes are… eh… but that alone isn’t enough to take away from the epicness that is Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack.
FINAL RATING: 38 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5
ACTING: 2 / 5
CHARACTERS: 2 / 5
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 4 / 5
ACTION: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 3 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 5 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 5 / 5
I honestly think this would have made an amazing anime series. Not some children's anime like Pokemon, or something, I mean a REAL anime series. Or an anime movie. This has the perfect set up for one. I would definitely watch it! Coming next is another film that could make a good anime, this time, remaking another one of Godzilla's classic foes.
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