Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
scientist: "Can you recover an interspinal cell?"
Yuhara: "It won't be easy...hold on. You want to clone it?"
Science Minister: "Not quite. We want to make something like Godzilla. It's called a bio-robot. You're familiar with those, I hear. We want to build a super-weapon to fight Godzilla. Our bio-mechanical Godzilla will be even more powerful than the real thing."
release year: 2002
genre: Godzilla
viewing setting: home Bluray, 8/26/19
synopsis: A mechanical Godzilla is built to stop the real one, but not everything goes as planned.
impressions: This was the fourth entry in the Millennium era of Godzilla movies, and the 27th Godzilla movie overall. Like the previous three, 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, Godzilla hasn't attacked Japan since 1954, but may have gone elsewhere (it's not made clear.) Also, there are some other monsters around e.h. Mothra and "Bigfoot Gaira". The action begins in 1999, when Godzilla shows up in the middle of Typhoon 13 and is faced by troops from the AMF (Anti-Megalosaurus Force.) This organization was formed in 1966 to defend the nation from monsters, and its tanks foolishly attack Godzilla with all available weapons, including masers. Unfortunately, nothing works, and to make things worse, young gunner Akane is partially responsible for some of her comrades getting stepped on by Godzilla.
So now it's sox months later and they've demoted her, and now the real story begins. Notable elements: a fake trilobite...a meeting of all the expert scientists...they've got the Godzilla skeleton from 1954...because they want to build a robotic Godzilla...father's advice to daughter: "Now eat your vegetables. I don't want you getting scurvy."...a happy little kid...fast-forward to 2003, which is how long it took the Mechagodzilla aka Kiryu to be built...Akane gets tapped tojoin the elite team that will pilot Godzilla...and must deal with the angry brother of a soldier who died in the 1999 scene...and must undergo some intense training...she befriends the happy little girl...but doesn't want to get too close to anyone...the scientists give a rundown of the Mechagodzilla's design and capabilities, which include "DNA computers" that use base 4 instead of base 2 aka binary...and the thing also has an Absolute Zero gun...actually, Mechagodzilla looks pretty good...and they operate it remotely, from planes above...but also the planes have to carry it around...these planes, like the one in the last movie, look like Firefox...Hideki Matsui makes a cameo...Godzilla shows up and is also looking pretty good...and now the battle is on!...
Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a battle. Mechagodzilla is fairly fast-moving and agile, and deploys various weapons to stagger Godzilla - all of which had some great special effects, by the way - and then it suddenly stops fighting and goes berserk, ironically while the real Godzilla wanders away into the ocean (probably smirking to himself.) It takes the humans a lot longer than it took me to figure out that the control problems were caused by Godzilla's roar. Anyway, Mechagodzilla attacks the jets and then goes apeshit and decimates a bunch of buildings. A good quote here: "It's acting like Godzilla." Another: "It's working fine, it's just not responding."
Some more interesting elements: Akane saves angry-guy from death...Mechagodzilla literally walks right through a building...it takes an hour of rampaging before it runs out of energy and can be taken away to get fixed...the kid sits around looking really sad...the whole team supports Akane now, except of course the guy she just saved...the kid sympathizes with Mechagodzilla because it's kind of a living creature, and is being forced to fight, and is in pain...not sure how she knew all that...the kid talks sense into Akane before she gets wrapped up in self-pity...Godzilla returns for more destruction, and destroys five jet fighter planes in less than ten seconds...and also destroys all the tanks...and then proceeds to destroy much of the city...the "hey, that's not E.T." moment...Mechagodzilla comes blasting onto the scene...its weapons include a shoulder ram, missiles, laters, masers, its electrically-charged fists...the combatants circle each other but won't commit like opponents in a UFC fight...Godzilla pulls the blade out of his body and flings it aside...Mechagodzilla's backpack unit gets ejected as an attack...it delivers a jet-powered spinning attack...Godzilla wakes up suddenly and throws off the aim of the Absolute Zero weapon...Akane goes for it, as apparently Mechagodzilla can in fact be piloted manually...the path to which has radioactive decontamination spray...Mechagodzilla is recharged via microwave transmission...Godzilla catches the plane in his mouth...Akane flies him out to sea and uses the Absolute Zero weapon...which doesn't stop Godzilla, but he's leaving anyway for reasons only he knows...Mechagodzilla is all messed up...a post-credits scene shows all the main human characters growing closer together.
number in Godzilla series: 27
previous Godzilla movie in series: Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
next Godzilla movie in series: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.
other giant monsters appearing in this one: Mechagodzilla
total giant monster battle time: about 20 minutes
acting: Main characters: Akane, brilliant maser cannon operator who goes on to pilot the Mechagodzilla...Dr. Yuhara, robotics and DNA expert ()played by the same actor who was the main guy in Godzilla 1985)...Sara, his spunky daughter, who carries her potted plant around everywhere...Science Minister Igarashi, whose great Mechagodzilla plan doesn't go as smoothly as he thought it would...Hayama, possed-off brother of a guy who died in 1999 because of Akane.
final word: Pretty action-packed return of one of the better opponents.
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