“Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah” Review

I have always found this entry to be the black sheep of the Heisei era. It stands out…well…I’m going to say it: like a sore thumb. Coming off of Godzilla 1985 and Godzilla Vs. Biollante, two movies that had great tones, I feel like this one was a complete 180 degree change.

But enough at the moment; let’s get to the review.

Synopsis: A UFO is spotted in rural Japan just outside Tokyo. Two military helicopters are destroyed and the army, along with a couple government representatives, make an attempt to converse with the beings.

It’s discovered that the UFO isn’t from a different planet, but a time machine from the 23rd century (2204 A.D.). Wilson, Emmy, and Glenchiko (Futurians) introduce themselves and request a meeting with the Prime Minister and other top government officials. They report that Godzilla must be disposed of, because Godzilla will destroy most of Japan along with enough nuclear reactors to finish the job he couldn’t; Japan will become uninhabitable.

Terisawa, who works for a publication that writes about UFOs, Miki Saegusa, and Professor Mazaki are asked to go back to Lagos Island in 1944 with Emmy and the crew’s android: M-11. The mission: transport the Godzillasaurus (Godzilla before atomic bomb testing was done on the island in 1954) to the present.

After encountering the Godzillasaurus taking out a U.S. military unit, the crew transports the Godzillasaurus to the present time period in place of Godzilla. However, Emmy deposited three winged creatures called Dorats on Lagos Island before their arrival back into the present. Instead of the Godzillasaurus turning into Godzilla, the three Dorats morphed into King Ghidorah.

But the Godzillasaurus was placed in a ocean site where nuclear waste was lying and the Godzillasaurus turned into Godzilla anyhow. After Godzilla attacks a nuclear submarine, his size increased from the previous incarnation. King Ghidorah terrorizes Japan and Godzilla makes landfall. The two titans finally meet-up for battle.

Meanwhile, the Japanese find out the Futurians weren’t concerned with getting rid of Godzilla. Rather, they wanted to create King Ghidorah to destroy Japan. Emmy finds out she, too, had been tricked. She warns the others and is pursued by M-11. Emmy tells Terisawa the reason Wilson and Glenchiko want to destroy Japan is because the country becomes extremely wealthy and powerful in the many years ahead.

After Godzilla defeats Ghidorah, and blows off Ghidorah’s middle head, he goes on a rampage. M-11 catches up to Terisawa and Emmy and takes Emmy back to the ship. Later, Terisawa joins her on the ship where Emmy re-programmed M-11. The three heroes take out Wilson and Glenchiko.

The problem, now, is dealing with Godzilla. Immediately, the idea of resurrecting Ghidorah in the 23rd century is brought up and it is established that the creature will come back to the present to battle Godzilla.

Emmy rebuilds Ghidorah into Mecha-King Ghidorah and battles Godzilla in Tokyo. After a back and forth battle, Mecha-King Ghidorah grabs Godzilla and heads out to the ocean. Godzilla blasts the cyborg’s wings and both behemoths plummet into the ocean. Emmy escapes from inside Mecha-King Ghidorah and informs Terisawa they are distant relatives. But Godzilla is seen still alive and ready to battle again.

Story: There is a lot of sloppy writing in this movie. Outside of the issues with the time travel sequences (and believe me, there are plenty of problems with this; but I won’t go into detail about that here, because it is discussed quite well at other Godzilla fan sites), there are bad moments of dialogue and story.

The dialogue is really bad. In fact, I will even say it is probably the worst out of the series. When two government officials first meet the Futurians, the Futurians say they are from the future and have arrived to warn them about Godzilla. Seconds later, after walking through the holographic image of the Futurians, one official asks the Futurians, “So-so you’re from the future?” A couple minutes later, after the Futurians teleport to the Prime Minister’s mansion, the other official tells the same official, “They’re from the future to warn us about Godzilla.”

At the end of the film, when Emmy is battling Godzilla inside Mecha-King Ghidorah, Godzilla blasts the cyborg and it topples over. Terisawa, watching the battle from a room far from the battlefield, exclaims, “Emmy, what’s the matter?” Wilson, prior to confronting Emmy and Terisawa on the ship tells them, “This new Godzilla isn’t friendly and he’s going to destroy your country.” Since when was Godzilla ever friendly, outside of the 1970s films? Those are a couple of examples of bad dialogue.

The story has many issues as well.

A super computer is brought up at one point and it’s made out to be, perhaps, an important part in the fight against the Futurians; though the computer is never brought up again. One of Emmy’s commanding officers in the future is reluctant, at first, to revive Ghidorah. He tells her that Godzilla destroyed Japan anyways, but, earlier, Emmy told Terisawa that Japan is the most powerful nation on the planet. It’s also never fully explained why Wilson and Glenchiko want to destroy Japan. Is it because they’re of Caucasian origin and don’t want their homelands (if they aren’t originally from Japan) to be bought-up by Japan? We never really know.

Perhaps the strangest element of the story involves the relationship between Emmy and Terisawa. Earlier in the movie, it’s clear that Emmy has some sort of crush/enormous affection towards Terisawa. Yet, at the end of the film, she reveals they’re related. Awkward to say the least. The crush should not have been touched and it would have fleshed Emmy’s and Terisawa’s characters out more if it was revealed they were distant relatives much sooner in the film and explore that element.

I will give Omori an A for effort, because there is a fun story here and great kaiju scenes; but are too many problems with the story.

Special Effects: Kawakita does a masterful job, for the most part, with the effects in this movie. The new looks for Godzilla and Ghidorah are beautiful and the miniature work is fantastic. Perhaps the greatest miniature work, in the entire series, is during the ending battle with the kaiju fighting amongst enormous skyscrapers. It is truly beautiful. The Godzillasaurus design is great, but Mecha-King Ghidorah steals the show. The design is very unique.

Many of the matte shots are well done too. However, this is where some of the effects tend to look a little lackluster as well. While this film won the special effects award in the 1992 Japan Academy Awards, some of the CGI effects look terrible. Granted, they may have looked awesome in 1991, but about half of these shots don’t age well. The shots of M-11 running are also strange and really weird in a bad way.

Nevertheless, Kawakita brings out a good effort.

Acting: I’m not impressed with the acting in the movie. Sure, there are some moments where the actors give some good performances, but the overall effort is weak.

Robert Scott Field played well as M-11 and Katsuhiko Sasaki did well as Professor Mazaki. Megumi Odaka, with the very little screen time she was given in this film, did all right as Miki, but it wasn’t her best Miki performance.

Perhaps the poor acting is attributed to the writing as there are problems with the story as mentioned earlier.

Battles: This is the only redeeming quality the movie has to offer. The Godzilla and Ghidorah destruction sequences are done extremely well and the battles between the two are very entertaining.

The first battle was great. Seeing Ghidorah’s head get blown off was something very different in the Godzilla franchise. Normally, we’d see limbs get chopped off in the Gamera movies, but the Godzilla films were beginning to take a bit of a page out of the Gamera playbook.

The final battle is one of my favorites. I love Godzilla’s expression when Mecha-King Ghidorah gets back onto its feet after Godzilla dealt, what looked to be a fatal blow. Godzilla seemed very surprised.

Human Drama: There isn’t a whole lot of character development with the movie and, as I stated earlier, it would have greatly benefited the story if Emmy had told Terisawa they were related earlier in the movie. This would have created an interesting dynamic for the two characters and a nice twist to the story.

The villains are also destroyed too soon. Granted, they did serve their purpose is, basically, bringing Ghidorah into the story, but then they’re quickly cast aside. Not to mention I didn’t feel as if Wilson and Glenchiko were convincing villains. M-11 did a better job than they did. Wilson and Glenchiko seemed to acknowledge that they could see some of their mistakes coming and their own fighting ability is dirt poor. These two come off as buffoonish and utterly ridiculous.

The human drama had some moments, but nothing that put me on the edge of my seat or kept me interested with the exception of Shindo’s affection towards Godzilla. Otherwise, I was bored most of the time and waited for the kaiju scenes.

Overall: Unfortunately, I don’t find this to be a great Godzilla film. There are so many issues with the story it is sad. While no Godzilla movie is perfect, the writing, in my opinion, is probably at its sloppiest here. Although one, or a couple, of the 70s films may have worse writing (time will tell as we progress), this one definitely has the worst writing in the Heisei era and is the worst film in that same era.

It feels so weird to go from two great films in Godzilla 1985 and Godzilla Vs. Biollante to this film that completely throws the tone of the last two films out the window for something much more crazy. But I will, also, give it props for that at the same time. Godzilla movies are made to be fun, and this one had some moments…but they were all in the kaiju scenes and those come about halfway into the film.

Sadly, I’m not a fan of this movie. When I first watched it in 1998, I thought it was an all right movie, but definitely the weakest of the newer Godzilla films I had seen up to that time. I still think that way about the movie but really understand now why I hadn’t watched the film in…oh gosh…four years?

I’ve found some people really like this movie, and more power to them. But for me, this isn’t my cup of tea.