Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
officer: "We've received news. A new monster has been seen at Mt. Fuji."
general: "What the hell's going on? It's like a monster convention here!"
release year: 2001
genre: Godzilla
viewing setting: home Bluray, 8/25/19
synopsis: After almost fifty years, Godzilla's back, but fortunately the Earth has other monsters to protect it.
impressions: This was the third entry in the Millennium era of Godzilla movies, and the 26th Godzilla movie overall. Like the previous two, this one ignored everything but the 1954 original, so that each new movie in this era can go in its own direction without having to worry about continuity or repercussions. In the world of this entry, there have been no Godzilla attacks in Japan since 1954, although he's been busy elsewhere apparently (this was a subtle dig at the 1998 American movie.) Anyway, as the action begins here are noteworthy elements: a missing submarine...the "BS Digital Q" film crew ("Listen, our specialty is making cheap sci-fi series, not investigative reporting.")...a Japanese biker gang...an earthquake with a moving epicenter (guess why?)...various monster sightings...a long-haired, chain-smoking, hippie boss...who just gets up and walks away while she's trying to make her point...a rocket-powered drill bomb (first used to clear away rubble, but I bet we can all think of another good use for this thing)...the sole survivor...an old book that has pretty much all the details needed to explain the nature of and relationship between all the monsters in this movie...some roaming punks who break into a store, try to drown a dog, and get what they deserve...a weird old forest guy who keeps showing up...a monster in the lake...Yuri comes home drunk (and looking awful cute...props to her friend for being chivalrous)...doubly so considering that her dad's a stern career military man...the weird old dude turns out to be the Godzilla prophet...a trip to the urinal ends badly for some poor guy...there's actually a lot of death in this movie.
I'll pause here to point out some rather novel ideas from this one. The first is that angry spirits of all the dead people from WWII are stored in Godzilla, which is why he's a raging source of destruction. The second is that Godzilla's actually the bad guy and others who oppose him are "guardian monsters." I felt that this idea influenced 2019's entry into the series. Kind of cool, really.
Okay, let's get back to it: some guy falls into a cave and finds a frozen Ghidorah...most Japanese people forgot (or don't believe in) Godzilla at all, until it's too late...Baragon!...Godzilla!...and he has kind of a long neck this time...the government is slow to believe Godzilla's back, and act...seven reactions to seeing Godzilla (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)...Godzilla somehow causing a mushroom cloud...and here's a reaction to seeing Baragon...but not everyone is scared, as a young couple decides to get a picture rather than flee like efveryone else (her: "It's scary, but quite cute, really." him: "Hey, quick. Take a photo. And then we'll run!")
Godzilla pops up in the background...that young couple's photo op with the approaching Baragon proves costly.
And now it's time for our first battle of the pay-per-view: Baragon vs Godzilla. It lasts about 7 minutes and is pretty one-sided, because although Baragon started it, he's really outmatched here. Notable things include: Baragon's lame pre-battle pose...Baragon tunnels underground, and Godzilla looks for him in vain...Baragon launches himself out of the cliff, and latches on with his jaws...but gets tossed away and then seriously stomped...several tail smashes later, Baragon is probably wondering why he started this fight...as was I...but he launches again...and Godzilla dodges and uses his tail to bat Baragon away...right into the news helicopter with the obnoxious reporter...then Godzilla breathes and demolishes both the cliff face and Baragon, who ignites and perishes...Godzilla resumes his rampage unopposed.
I want to reiterate the amount of human death and suffering here - in addition to everyone who's just outright been killed so far, we now see that the hospital's full of injured people. Regardless, Yuri cheers up an injured boy...and now has a stylish head bandage...elsewhere, a giant cocoon has appeared (depending on how your mind works, it may instead appear to be a giant white peanut, or a giant pair of white testicles)...Yuri obtains a bicycle to continue her intrepid reporting deeper in the danger zone...here come the fighter planes...their missiles have no effect on Godzilla...the general is overconfident...Godzilla blows all the planes out of the sky...that didn't last long at all...meanwhile, the weird old codger has awoken Ghidorah...who looks kind of goofy up close...Mothra hatches under the light of a full moon, no less...Yuri is somehow broadcasting live news reports with a camcorder, while riding a bicycle...twin girls are seen in the crowd of fleeing humans as Mothra flies past overhead, nice homage...the military decides to name all the monsters to avoid confusion...the defense forces prepare for the imminent big multi-monster battle.
And here we go! This second battle lasts around 23 minutes...it's a night battle, with spotlights on the monsters...Mothra is looking fairly colorful and gets the first blow in...and has some sort of projectiles...Godzilla's purple breath misses the flying Mothra, but decimates a number of buildings...Yuri is really getting banged up, she's even limping now...Mothra does the only physical attack that she really can...I just noticed that Godzilla has dead eyes in this one...maybe he's a zombie?...that would explain a lot...Ghidorah shows up to join the fray...and can deliver electrical attacks through his bites...we see that Ghidorah bleeds red...Godzilla swats the sneaky Mothra with his tail...then hurls Ghidorah away and breathes on him...and he's down for the count...Mothra flies into the path of the next breath attack and takes the hit...then the military cuts loose with their vaunted D-03 drill rockets and other weaponry...which only piss Godzilla off, causing him to annihilate pretty much every force arrayed against him...he stands triumphant...now he heads for the only remaining ship...Mothra again flies in and takes the hit, disintegrating into gold dust...which revives Ghidorah as the supercharged King Ghidorah...who blasts Godzilla into the bay, and takes the fight underwater...the admiral heroically takes a submarine with a D-03 missile to try and help stop Godzilla...perhaps the bridge overlooking the battle wasn't the best place from which to film the battle?...a crafty Godzilla dodges the missile, causing King Ghidorah to take the hit and also causing the admiral to drop an F-bomb...a randomly dropped stone re-energizes King Ghidorah...use of triple electrical breath attacks...more evidence of Godzilla's dead eyes...Godzilla must have somehow been supercharged, because his breath just obliterated King Ghidorah...some sort of giant monster spirit thing is going on, as the fiery remains morph through several shapes...it's not clear what is happening...the admiral pilots the sub right into Godzilla's mouth...has a vision of his daughter and wakes up in Godzilla's guts and then somehow has one more missile, and fires it...Godzilla's leaking his purple energy from the hole in his side and is unable to use his breath weapon...and then sinks down amidst a cloud of blood...and the admiral escapes!...and Godzilla vanishes!...it turns out that the weird old man was a ghost...better late than never, here's a picture of Yuri's hippie boss...at the bottom of the bay, we see a telltale heart still beating.
number in Godzilla series: 26
previous Godzilla movie in series: Godzilla vs Megaguirus
next Godzilla movie in series: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
other giant monsters appearing in this one: Baragon, Mothra, King Ghidorah
total giant monster battle time: about 30 minutes
acting: Main characters: Yuri, intrepid red-haired pseudo-reporter (for a cheesy station that mainly produces cheap sci-fi documentaries) who now has a chance to make the big time...her father Tachibana, an Admiral in the navy...Takeda, her friend who's a "science writer" and helps her with research, and may have a crush on her...Haruki, the hippie editor boss (played by Shiro Sano, who was Professor Miyasaka in Godzilla 2000)....Isayama, the weird old guy who knows everything (played by Hideyo Amamoto, who was Princess Salno's aide in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and an officer of Red Bamboo in Godzilla vs the Sea Monster and the odd toy inventor guy in All Monsters Attack, all three of those from the 1960s.)
final word: Entertaining twist on the usual formula, with lots of battle/destruction and some great special effects.
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