Review: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1974)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla AKA Gojira Tai Mekagojira AKA Godzilla vs. the Bionic Monster AKA Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster is one of the well known Godzilla films, and celebrated the 20th anniversary of Big G, and is a favorite to many Godzilla fans, as it features the first appearance of a true rival to Godzilla: MechaGodzilla. However, a bad sci-fi James Bond meets Planet of the Apes plot makes any good impressions of this movie a thing of childhood memories and nostalgia, as opposed to being a fun movie to watch now.
The Plot
According to cave drawings and legends, there is some sort of prophecy about monsters attacking, if you watch the signs. Thankfully, we have an interpol agent, professor, reporter, and second string women to watch them and help save humanity. Sure enough the signs appear to be coming true when Godzilla attacks Japan and his friend Angilas. Godzilla’s roar is all wrong, too, and he’s walking differently- why did he turn bad? While he beats down his old friend Angilas by breaking his jaw and making him bleed (Angilas has a bad win/loss record), Godzilla’s skin chips to reveal him being a robot! The REAL Godzilla fights him. It’s Godzilla vs Godzilla!
The evil Godzilla is revealed to be a cyborg robot created and controlled by evil spies who are really monkeys from another planet (Third Planet from the Black Hole).
Meanwhile, MechaGodzilla defeats Godzilla and is pretty much indestructible. The good humans solve the prophecy riddle and awaken the sleeping guardian monster: King Seesar. He sounds scary and powerful. (Too bad he looks like your puppy, and doesn’t stand a chance against MechaGodzilla).
Godzilla is clever, and he absorbs lightning to become even more powerful and become a walking magnet. He finally defeats his robot double, and the heroes beat the Planet of the Apes rejects in a very confusing and boring subplot.
The Good
- MechaGodzilla doesn’t look like a rubber costume. It also is the best challenge to Godzilla in a while- he has all of Godzilla’s powers plus unlimited missiles, force shield, and flight.
- The monster battles were enjoyable and hard hitting.
- The music was a change from the “funny” composers of recent movies.
- Excellent use of pyrotechnics and miniatures.
- Darker movie…more melancholy than the goofier movies that I have been reviewing.
- Helped me with an afternoon nap on Saturday. I love afternoon naps, and haven’t taken one in a very, very long time.
The Bad
- The human elements are just boringly bad: plot, pacing, dialog, and storyline. It’s a Japanese spy movie: the villains wear sunglasses, speak melodramatically, have futuristic technology, and when they die, they show their true forms: apes. The whole subplot had bad pacing, and the focus is on the humans too much.
- King Seesar looks like a giant version of Rowlf from the Muppets, and doesn’t change the tide of the battle. It seemed like he was being pushed as the next big thing, like Godzilla’s replacement, but once he began to fight, he was pretty weak.
The Ugly
- A woman sings for around 10 minutes to wake up the guardian monster King Seesar.
- The “old man” is a stereotypical kung-fu hermit.
- The alien invasion by James Bond villain apes should have been funny and campy; instead it was pitched as a serious storyline.
Conclusion
This is an overrated Godzilla movie because it features the first (and some say best) appearance of MechaGodzilla, who really has a great presence and is a super villain for Godzilla. The actual human plot and alien invasion storyline took too much screentime and was poorly conceived and executed. Not even the great battle scenes can save this from being bad. Other Godzilla fans rate this much higher, and call it an “above average Godzilla movie”, and they technically may be correct- especially when compared to the last few movies- but they are ignoring the human vs alien parts, which take up the bulk of the movie.
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More great WPIX fare. The only reason to sit through the inane human scenes was the MechaGodzilla fight scenes!
I hope they did.a better MechaGodzilla movie afterwards!
Kids are supposed to have short attention spans but we had no problems sitting through the human scenes back then…
The first time I realized Godzilla movies were bad (due to the human subplots which were really main plots) was my last Godzilla marathon. I was 16 at the time, and they ran it on TBS all day and night. I watched all the 1970’s movies and said to myself, “Ouch. Much better as a kid.”
Things really picked up in the 90’s in Japan.
I just watched Godzilla vs. Destroyah on Netflix … I won’t get into it, except to say it was definitely a finer brand of cheese.
I cried at the end…I thought it was a great movie linking past and present. They made that movie in Japan after the American 1998 debacle. Never released in US theaters.