Friday, December 2, 2016

THROWBACK REVIEW: Godzilla VS SpaceGodzilla (1994)

Critics log,  Stardate 11612.5. While on routine patrol, the Enterprise encountered a phenomenon in space in the form of a large crystal-like asteroid, whilst on my continuing mission to become a real authority figure in giant monster films.  Our sensors couldn't get a clear reading of the material of this strange bizarre asteroid, but our readings do indicate that there is one single life form within the Asteroid, with DNA readings remarkably similar to that of Godzilla. What's more, the Asteroid is on a direct collision path with Earth. Normally I'd advise a red alert, and warn  Earth of the danger, or advise the captain to fire a couple Quantum Torpedoes, and simply destroy the Asteroid (because I'm a man, and apparently all men think about is killing everything), but then I remembered two movies ago in which a meteor fell into the sea and nothing bad happened at all. I've decided to name this new life form SpaceGodzilla...because I have no originality in names. If it lands on Earth, let's hope Godzilla will wake up in a blaze of stock footage intros and fight off his biggest enemy yet...himself from space.

Godzilla VS SpaceGodzilla is the Godzilla movie that made me realize one very important thing; Man...Godzilla is a terrible father. That and apparently all men are the same and just wanna kill all things we don't understand. (I think the writers needed to meet Gene Roddenberry...okay I'll try and ease up on the Star Trek references). So to be blunt,  Godzilla VS SpaceGodzilla is honestly pretty harmless. Despite the silly characters, some mediocre action, and inclusion of Little Godzilla (I forgot he was here), the film is surprisingly entertaining. What's even more silly? Apparently this is one of the Godzilla films a lot of fans don't care for. So...if I'm getting this right, films I have problems with such as King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla are loved by the fans. But films I'm okay with don't get much love from the fans? Am I missing something here?

Okay, so since this film is on my good side for the most part, I'll go ahead and address my problems firstly, and right off the bat, I'm kinda peeved that I feel this film does some slight false advertising. Look at the poster. Take a good long look at it. Notice something? Mothra is there. But in the film, Mothra barely has a role at all. In fact the ONLY time we see Mothra is where we saw her (him?) flying through space to go and destroy that meteor that's supposed to destroy the world in 1999. Why not make the SpaceGodzilla meteor the meteor in question, and give Mothra more of a role in this film? Nope, one shot of Mothra and two scenes with the Cosmos, and their only role in this film is to give physic character the "Game over, you won" message...great...TWO things I detest are in this movie.

I also don't like the name SpaceGodzilla. I just think the name is lazy. Why not give him a bit of a more exotic name. I can think of a few right off the bat. NovaGodzilla, CrystalGodzilla (okay that one's still pretty silly but it at least fits a bit if you ask me), I honestly just think a name like SpaceGodzilla is silly. It's like calling MechaGodzilla, RobotGodzilla. Pretty lame, right? Space is full of wonders, and crazy terms. Experiment more.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually kinda like the characters of this film. I actually...get this...I actually REMEMBER some names. Yuki, Goji, Miki...though to be fair I remembered Yuki because I have a Japanese friend by that name, and Goji is just...way too easy to remember. Maybe it's Gojifan93? Wouldn't that be a riot. But regardless of me liking these characters, they still suffer from the common underdevelopment and cutout personalities that Toho has repeatedly given us. And will continue to give us. And it does need to be said that there are characters here that I never quite understood. Like the two soldier guys not including Yuki, who say they're working on Project T, yet continuously wanna aid Yuki in his quest to kill Godzilla (making Miki continuously whine about how men only wanna kill Godzilla and whatnot which is silly stupid)? Yuki hates Godzilla because I guess his brother died in Godzilla VS Biollante, and apparently all three of them are qualified pilots for the discount MechaGodzilla of this film. There's also the two generic love interests (okay seriously, Toho,  you're terrible at developing romance in these movies), and one's a psychic...allow me to take a small break here.

One thing I've been meaning to talk about in all these films is the presence of psychics. I wouldn't have a problem with it, if they were actually just used good. A lot of the time, they're just there for the sake of being there. Before now, no other psychic character in these films has had a purpose. So I was actually kinda interested in this physic character here, but despite the bigger role, the execution is just off. I laughed at one scene where the writers of this film just straight up gave her telekinesis without any explanation. She literally was like, "Yeah I never tried it until now." Beginners luck? Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Final Wars. "We escaped somehow!" Yeah the characters are no strongsuit of this film, and a lot of their subplots go nowhere. Like Project T, that thing they focus on so heavily in this film is kinda dropped and dead on arrival. It barely plays a part at all in this film, which is a shame, because I was actually really interested to see what they were doing with it. 

The story honestly gets jumbled in ways similar to Mechagodzilla II. It's thankfully easier to follow, even if some things are never explained or whatnot. The Cosmos warn Miki of SpaceGodzilla, and then SpaceGodzilla arrives, has a fight with Godzilla, then imprisons Little Godzilla. High five Spacey! Actually...I won't lie, I got some inner pleasure watching SpaceGoji brutally attacking little Godzilla. Hey, it just hammers home the fact that Godzilla is a terrible father. "Son, you stay on this island with this guy who wants to see me dead, while I go live in the sea. What could possibly go wrong? You know aside from tear gas mines and space Kaiju?"

As for the monsters themselves, I'm pleasantly surprised. Godzilla looked better than last film, and though his atomic breath wasn't as good looking as Mothra, it did look better than the previous film. The one thing I didn't like was that his high pitched roar was used...excessively. At times it didn't even make sense. I never liked his high pitched roar as I just feel it's bad sound editing, but beforehand, it was used mainly when he was suffering an attack. I could see why they used it. Here, they use it whenever he's on screen. Whether he's being attacked, or just walking on the beach. Heck, when he arrives in the city, I swear he roars high pitched. Did his threatening roar crack or something?  SpaceGodzilla also looks pretty fun honestly. I love the crystal design. And the roast which can mirror that of Biollante? It's a neat callback to what happened in that film. M.O.G.U.E.R.A. though I don't really care for. To have this be declared as the ultimate Godzilla weapon in a film after MechaGodzilla....kinda disappointing. Compare this to what they had last film and just try and tell me that it's a better weapon. Just try. More like a big robot turkey. 

And thankfully, the action is better than Mechagodzilla. The brutality is back. It was really cool to see the large crystal formations on SpaceGoji's back explode as they did. But in the same way, a lot of it is really stupid to the point of it being silly, and the scene that immediately comes to mind is the space battle between Moguera and SpaceGodzilla. It's one of the things that I can safely say is so bad, that it's good. Why? Because I'm wondering if they even tried with it. The environment, the figures...it's so hysterically fake. The asteroids are plastic, Moguera looks like a discount transformers toy...I had a good laugh. I also laughed at the absurdity of SpaceGoji's tail impaling Moguera, and actually being powerful enough to lift the thing and throw it across the city. PSYCHICS! It's the one blotch on some otherwise pretty decent action. And again...the Mini-zilla beating was fun.

Godzilla VS SpaceGodzilla is getting a two and a half star rating out of four from me. I wanted to rate it a bit higher, five it that full three star rating, but I do believeit kinda misses that, just barely. Despite a lot if likable traits, the story just doesn't do it for me. In a film where the real strength is the characters, odd a Godzilla movie, I'm surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. I probably won't revisit it anytime soon, unless I get the original Japanese version of it (this did suffer from some funny English dubbing), but hey, it definitely wasn't as flawed as some other films I've seen in this series.

Feel free to request any films you'd like to see me take a look at. Leave a comment down below telling me of your own thoughts on this film, and as always, thanks for reading.

Final Verdict: 2.5/4

Hey...there's only one film in the Heisei Era left in Godzilla's lineup! Praise the Lord it's almost over! I'm almost free!!!

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