Suddenly, out of nowhere, Godzilla wades ashore without warning and proceeds to lay waste to the surrounding area with not a hint of the nice-guy persona he’s been carefully been crafting for the past fifteen years or so. He’s vicious, callous and every inch the destructive force he was back in the glory days of 1954 without nary a victory dance or a robot sidekick in sight. What the hell, Godzilla? A heel turn on your twentieth movie? Say it isn’t so!
After the early 70s saw Godzilla’s popularity decline due to a string of movies that refused to connect with Japanese audiences, Toho, in a rather inspired move, decided to mix up the usual formula a little and create a little mystery with their latest offering in order to counteract the goofy talespin mired by budget cuts and corner cutting. Yet while the rot was definately setting in and the beginning of the end had already begun for the Showa Era of Godzilla, the arrival of a shiny, brand new, arch villain who would go on to become one of the King Of The Monster’s most enduring foes, pumped new life into an overused formula the way only sticking the word “Mecha” in front of an established word can…
Godzilla has returned and his new outlook on life seems to be destroy literally anything you can see. This ties into a vision that an Azumi priestess has about a viscous monster rising up and destroying everything unless he is stopped by a union of two other monsters – but this still doesn’t explain the reasoning behind the previously heroic Godzilla laying waste to everything like a destructive toddler at a sandcastles building competition. As he rampages through the country, almost fatally mauling his good mate Anguirus (surely the most hapless, beating prone member of the Kaiju world) a startling twist is revealed when the actual Godzilla turns up looking to straighten this shit out and it turns out that the imposter is a robot doppelganger created by ape-like aliens from the Third Planet of the Black Hole whose homeworld is being utterly beefed-up by cosmic issues. Even multi-storey monsters aren’t safe from identity fraud it seems and after Godzilla unmasks the imposter like a 160 foot Scooby Gang, his initial battle with Mechagodzilla ends in a violent draw.
While the monkey-people ready their sinister dreadnaught for round two, a group of plucky humans led by Masahiko Shimzu attempt to thwart their plans for world conquest by locating and waking Okinawa’s dog-faced guardian god, King Caesar to vanquish the metal marauder with the help of Nanbara, a mysterious Interpol agent. Thus the stage is set for both Caesar and a throughly pissed off Godzilla to team up and throw giant hands with his mechanical twin for the fate of the entire planet.
In the pantheon of Godzilla villains, none have made an impact as fast and as huge as Mechagodzilla. Despite turning up fashionably late to the Big G’s rogue gallery party Mechagodzilla is essentially Venom to Godzilla’s Spider-Man or Bane to his Batman and is essentially a gloriously overpowered antithesis to our hero who packs plenty of punch and who almost single handedly pulled the entire series up by it’s boot straps. While logic might fray at the reasoning behind the alien apes using an indestructible murder-mech to frame Godzilla (did they think he was going to get arrested or something?), his disguised, first third, rampage gives the film a similar amount of weight from the days when our scaly hero didn’t fight for the side of good. Plus, his retro-futurustic look stomps directly on the line of being awesomely camp and legitimately super fucking cool despite sporting an egg-shaped, midsection and while I have no idea designs a robot with love handles and a paunch, I have to say as a chonky boy myself, I’m totally here for it. However, despite coming armed with a robotic dad bod, Mechagodzilla also comes loaded with more concealed weapons than a Texan trailer home and thus comes across as a legitimate threat, especially after brutally breaking Anguirus’ jaw in a nice spot of childhood trauma and fight Godzilla to a bloody standstill in their first scrap.
In fact, the sheer potential of this super-duper heavyweight bout makes you not really care that the human plot barely registers despite it seemingly trying incredibly hard to stand out. Oh sure, the part about the invasion of gorilla people is delightfully stupid and provides some nice examples of nightmare fuel (man with half-ape face, anyone?), but it’s not really that much different from the cockroach people of Godzilla Vs. Gigan and the characters – which even includes yet another appearance from serial Godzilla cast member Akihiko Hirata – kind of merge into one another. Also letting the team down a little is the debut of the rather motley looking King Caesar, who, despite quute a sizable build-up, turns out to be somewhat of a damp squib that looks like a mangy, massive shaggy rug come to life and displays an awful power set that involves being able uno reverse card lasers, but only as long as it hits him in the right eyeball. Never mind the fact that it takes an entire song to rouse him when matters are at their most dire, but how fucking lame do you have to be to enter a fight hoping that your attacker shoots you in the face? If anything, the appearance of this Kaiju version of a fifth wheel dangerously serves to detract from the hot Zilla on Zilla action that plays out over the final reel, but thankfully, director Jun Fukuda is at the top of his game. Ive given Fukuda some stick in the past thanks to his rather mid-level entries in the Godzilla cannon, but I’m genuinely pleased that he pulled this out of the hat before this era of Godzilla set its alarm and went dormant for a decade. Not to out too fine a point on it, but the final fight is utterly magnificent (when it doesn’t include Caesar hiding behind rocks, that is) and stands as one of the periods best with arterial spray and a vast, dazzling, array of rainbow coloured weaponry splashing all over the screen with a palpable feeling that for once, Godzilla has bitten off more than he can chew. In fact, while a lot of Kaiju brawl usually involve an abrupt ending or the beaten monster buggering off to fight another day, Fukada stages this brawl right down to the bitter end with a blood soaked Godzilla, stuck full of projectiles like he’s in a no DQ wrestling match, finally scoring the win by pulling off a nifty trick involving a bit of magnetism and a head twisting finishing move.
Coming out as the most vital Godzilla release in around six years, the first of many bouts between Big G and his mecha-nemesis resulted in a long overdue upturn in series quality and provided the legendary Kaiju with legitimately worthy villain. Full props to Fukuda who finally delivered a blinder that really works overtime to make the twilight days of the early movies a memorable high point. Or, to put it another way, this is mecca Godzilla.
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