"GHIDORAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER"
A bond like Asian detective named Shindo is assigned to
protect a Princess from assassins, however, the Princess’ plane
sadly never made it to Japan since her plane has been bombed. Luckily the
Princess is still alive but is possessed by an alien that warns the humans of
future events that are going to occur. These events lead to the return of Rodan
and Godzilla; and the arrival of a monster from outer space named King
Ghidorah. As Rodan and Godzilla fight each other for whatever reason, while
King Ghidorah destroys Japan;
the humans ask the help from the two twin fairies to summon Mothra to Japan and
persuade Godzilla and Rodan to settle their differences with each other and the
human world to destroy Ghidorah. The plot is really awesome! I
mean you have aliens; a Princess; a deadly assassin; a James Bond type of hero; an
introduction to one of Toho's greatest monsters of all time; and three classic
monsters from Toho banding together to take down this new monster?!This
sounds like the ultimate Godzilla flick that I was hoping to see. However, with
plot aside is the execution great; ON WITH THE REVIEW!
When it comes to building-up these monsters, the only real build-up that we get to any of these monsters is King Ghidorah. I mean sure we do get some sort of build-up to Rodan and Godzilla from the alien possessed Princess warning the people of what's going to happen, which is effective, but not as effective and great as the build-up to King Ghidorah. The build-up to King Ghidorah revolves around a giant egg that’s destined to hatch which the human's think that it's a meteorite. As Ghidorah's egg glows brighter and brighter each day, while also having a magnetic pulse; we discover the back story of the monster from the alien possessed Princess, which begs the question why this monster is in an egg? When the egg hatches, we get strong winds, fires sparking and bursting (Which almost makes the reveal of this monster seem like a celebration that this monster has finally hatched out of its egg, and that we’re finally going to see it), and a cartoon fire ball that forms into this iconic three headed monster as the monster lets out its iconic roar! It's really an awesome entrance, as well as the entrances for the other the monsters being just as awesome as well!
Remember how the last Godzilla film took itself seriously while having a few elements for kids? In terms of the human characters in this film it’s serious, but in terms of monsters, it's for the most part played out for little kids. The way how Godzilla and Rodan fight each other is laughably silly than it is cool; and the way these monsters interact with each other is done more comically than it is seriously. This is also the first film where Godzilla is no longer a villain and is now considered to be a hero. The reason for that change is so kids can now root for Godzilla instead of the humans or other monsters challenging him. What also really plays out for children in this film is that Godzilla and Rodan sadly look more like the Muppets from “Sesame Street”, than they look badass and threatening. Their giant brown and yellow eyes look silly; whenever Godzilla and Rodan open and close their mouths look very puppet-like, especially with Rodan’s beak looking similar to Big Bird’s beak movements; and unlike the last film when we hardly saw the strings on Mothra, we see the strings in this film way too often! The only monster in this heroic trio that looks cool is Mothra in her Larva form, and that's the last monster that you thought would look cool out of all 4 monsters in this movie. Oh and incase if you're wondering what happened to the other Mothra and Rodan's lover, they're dead, which I call complete B.S.! I mean how did the other Mothra die; how come one Rodan survived from the volcano eruption, but yet the other one didn't?! It just makes no sense and just feels like a lazy excuse to have these monsters go solo. Now as much as I complain about the monsters being played out more towards kids, that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy watching them because it is fun and interesting to see them actually interact and communicate with each other instead of just fighting each other. Even the comical fight that Godzilla and Rodan have is laughably entertaining. I also like that Godzilla and Rodan decide to redeem themselves despite what they went through with the humans. So while the kid friendly element is done heavily with our three monsters by making me wish that the costumes for Godzilla and Rodan were better and that the connection would be a little more serious and badass, I still enjoy watching them together.
Out of all monsters in the film, the real monster that carries the awesome and serious factor, instead of the comical kid friendly factor is our title monster! Aside from the wires being visible on many occasions, everything about this monster is awesome! The build-up; the design; his ability to fire lightning-like "gravity beams" and cause a hurricane with his wings (Haven't seen that before, but screw it); and the scenes of destruction that he causes; it's all completely awesome! Working with this Three Headed flying monster did not at all seem like an easy task for the special effects team, but the effort shows and the pay off is wonderful! As for the final fight at the end of the movie, aside from a few things, it's not as laughably campy as the fight between Godzilla and Rodan, it actually is awesome, especially when it comes to seeing these monsters band together and fight off this Three Headed monster! However, there are a few things I found disappointing in this final battle. We sadly never see Mothra turn into her Imago form, and Godzilla never uses his atomic breath at all during the battle and instead just kicks boulders at the monster which he had done earlier on in the movie with Rodan. Speaking of his atomic breath, we only see the blue atomic breath like once or twice in the movie. The effect that's used the most for his atomic breath is the mist effect, which isn't as cool as the blue atomic breath effect, nor does it pose as a threat. In effects wise, aside from the silly looking costumes for Godzilla and Rodan; the wires being shown way too many times; and the fact that the effects team just use the old atomic breath effect instead of the new one; the rest of the effects look good! The effect for the fairies is just as great as the effect for them in the last movie; the models for the most part are shot up to scale with the monsters fighting and attacking the city; the animated effects for beams coming out of monsters mouths are cool; and the costumes and puppetry for Mothra and King Ghidorah for the most part look really amazing!
As for the humans in this film, they're ok. The actor as this Bond like detective has his cool moments and is well acted, but he's sadly not that interesting in personality or character wise which makes this heroic character boring. Kenji Sahara as the editor, while not a damsel in distress that screams, runs, and gets into trouble unlike most films in that genre, as well as being well acted, she too is not that interesting either. Plus I feel like I've seen strong female leads before in some of the previous Godzilla films before this one, so there's really nothing that special or different about her. She also idiotically tells people on national TV where the princess is, even though she was recently almost assassinated by hit-men. The assassin that's after the Princess is played by Hisaya Ito and while he is cool looking with his shades and badass approach, he's got to be one of the worst assassins that I've ever seen. He and his men run away from one guy with a gun, and when they escape they don't bother to capture the Princess; despite getting a clear sniper shot on one of the characters, he somehow misses; and what happens to him in the end is so stupid that it's not even funny. Also seeing him in old fashion English clothes as he's wearing his modern day sun glasses, along with the rest of the people in the fictional country that the Princess is from is beyond silly looking, fictional or not. Akiko Wakabayashi as the alien possessed Princess does give a very effecting performance and she plays both the alien possessed side and the innocent Princess side extremely well. Just a little fun fact for you, since her protector is a Bond like hero, a few years after this film, she would become a Bond girl in the 007 film "You Only Live Twice" starring Sean Connery, who fails to look Asian in his Asian disguise. The only problem I have with the aliens possessing the Princess is we never see the alien that's taken control of her, which is something that I always found myself curious to see at the end of the movie. The fairies that appear in this movie are as beautifully cute and enchanting as they were in the previous films along with their amazing singing voices, and sadly this would be the last time that "The Peanuts" would ever play this adorably cute duo. The only problem I have with the fairies in this movie is that they are now willingly to appear on TV just to have two kids see Mothra through their powers, which seems completely out of character. I mean seriously, considering that these two fairies are from a cultural Native tribe that don't trust humans, and the fact that they have been captured by a greedy man that forced them to do shows; it seems pretty stupid that they would willingly leave their Island to make public appearances nation wide.
As much as it pains me to say this, this film is pretty disappointing. Instead of improving on what the last film did so well with, this film takes a few steps backwards. Godzilla and Rodan both look and act extremely goofy; the reasons for why we don't see the other Mothra and Rodan is lazy writing; a good half of the effects are either silly and lazy; and a huge majority of human leads are either boring, forgettable or horribly written. Still I can't say the film was that disappointing because it did have a great amount of things done right. Our new monster King Ghidorah is awesome; Mothra looks cool; a good chunk of the effects make-up for the bad ones; the performances from Wakabayashi, "The Peanuts", and even Ito as the terrible assassin are good performances; the fight scenes and scenes of destruction with the monsters are entertaining and at times cool; and making these three iconic monsters become heroes as well as seeing them fight together side by side, despite how kid friendly it is, is still fun, interesting, and awesome! While not as awesome as I hoped the film would be, it's still an overall good Godzilla flick, just don't expect the monsters (Aside from one) to play on the adult giant monster movie level like most of the previous Godzilla films did.
RATING 3/5
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