This is another in the new series of Godzilla movies that Toho began making in the 1990s. These were supposed to be bigger and better, with cutting edge special effects, souped up monsters, and exciting plots. These flicks were supposed to tear a Godzilla-sized hole in your butt and in its own way, Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla did just that!
Going into this one, I have to admit that I was pretty jacked up about it all. I mean, here you had Big G battling his most heinous and unexpected foe: Space Godzilla. An evil spawn of a creature if there ever was one, Space Godzilla was born in one of two improbable ways (for some reason the movie put forth competing theories). Either Godzilla’s DNA got shipped off to the far, far, evil and strange reaches of deep space by his titanic, most epic battle of 1989 against Biollante or Mothra carried it into space after her titanic, most epic battle of 1992 against Godzilla.
However G’s DNA got out there, it combined with a bunch of bizarre crystals, fell into and out of a black hole and out popped a Space Godzilla! And now Space Godzilla is embedded in a bunch of crystals and hurtling toward Earth! There’s no good reason why he would be hurtling toward Earth from the far, far, evil and strange reaches of deep space of all places, but he is.
Along the way, Earth gets a report of some disaster aboard an American space station. The Japanese officials say that the Americans have no explanation for this and so they (the Japanese) can only speculate that it was caused by a giant monster. At first, that sounded like absurd hogwash, but the Japanese do have an extensive history with giant monsters, so I figured they would know the signs of an impending giant monster attack better than anyone.
As Space G is hauling his crystal butt to Earth for a showdown with his DNA donor, we go to a mysterious island where scientists are working on some ridiculous plan to control Godzilla. Known as Project T, they are going to implant a device on Godzilla and use it to order him around with their thoughts. Of course, there are doubters, but the Anti-Project T folks have their own just-as-idiotic plan to take care of Godzilla.
A guy whose brother was wasted by G back in a prior movie has come up with the ultimate revenge scheme against Godzilla. He is going to shoot Godzilla with a special bullet full of anticoagulant in Godzilla’s most vulnerable spot – the armpit!
As you can see, Godzilla’s biggest challenge is to try to stay in character and not laugh when these idiotic plans are brought to bear. Now that you know about the big Project Armpit, you’re probably saying, well, sure this movie is loaded with high drama, but isn’t there some type of comic relief to take the edge off of all this seriousness? I’ve got two words for you: Godzilla, Jr!
Lil’ Godzilla is the most precious little monster lizard you’ve ever seen! Whenever he’s on screen this little fairy music plays that makes you taste that acidic stuff that runs up from your stomach to your throat right before you blow chunks. Even better, when he growls, it sounds like someone twisting a cat. The best part though is that this creature is so god-awful in the special effects department that you’re left thinking, “that doesn’t look like a guy in a rubber suit at all – how fake!” (Space Godzilla’s best moment is when he captures that sickening little turd in a bunch of his crystals.)
Godzilla and SpaceGodzilla battled for the last several minutes of the film. It was one of those back and forth affairs where Godzilla tried to use his chronic halitosis on SpaceGodzilla and SpaceGodzilla deflected it because of his super powerful crystal deflectors.
The brawling really didn’t have the gleefulness that the classic Godzilla battles had when he fought monsters like the three-headed Ghidorah and took great delight in ripping off heads and stomping them into the ground. This one was a lumbering effort with both monsters going through the motions and showing little, if any personality.
You watch these movies for the fights. Those are the “money shots” in these flicks. If they don’t deliver, you’re left watching a movie about some idiot trying to shoot a big dinosaur in the armpit.
There were also some incomprehensible moments when Mothra and the two tiny fairy twins who travel with her appeared. They gave advice to a telepath about something or other, but I never did figure out what that had to do with Godzilla’s movie. Mothra only appeared in regular moth-sized form and never got embroiled in the various battles that transpired every thirty minutes or so.
A Godzilla/Space Godzilla movie could’ve been a decent entry in this series, but this was bogged down by non-monster related nonsense such as Project T and the armpit bullet. At 108 minutes this “modern” Godzilla film runs a good 20 minutes longer than the ones made 35 years before. And perhaps not so coincidentally, it runs a good 20 minutes longer than necessary.
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