Godzilla Vs. Mothra (1992)

Surprisingly the second most succesful film of this series.

Yeah after the fan favorite with King Ghidorah, this and one other later on were the most succesful at the box office of the Heisei series. Which I find kind of surprising, now I've heard one story that the movie going audience of that time was predominantly female hence why there's emphasis on the fairies, the first and only human plot to my knowledge in the whole series to focus on an estranged couple, heck even Mothra was the most popular monster with women. I obviously can't speak for that myself considering I wasn't even a gleam in my mother's eye in 1992, but it does make for one of the more unique plots. When the opening credits rolled I genuinely expected almost a full remake of the 1964 classic with a typhoon uncovering Mothra's egg, and while several elements pop up along the way it is entirely it's own thing. The story involves a divorced husband and wife who discover an ancient civilization on Infant Island where they were told to investigate, where they meet the iconic fairy duo who want to keep Mothra safe while she is still yet to be born, and meanwhile a new monster named Battra appears who takes on a malevolent opposite side of Mothra and starts to wreak destruction on the humans for harming the Earth. Yeah it's one of those environmentally aware movies, which I can appreciate. It's strange because Godzilla while undoubtedly a part of the movie doesn't have much stake plot wise, you still get a few monster fights, good ones too, but he is certainly more on the back burner. You think I would hate that, but I very much enjoy the plot focusing on Mothra. The effects could be argued are even better than King Ghidorah to the point where I have no idea how they accomplished some of it with the larva stage of Mothra, and attempted ambitious effects with the fairies and while some of it is obvious how they pulled it off they were commited to bring their A-game, the miniatures look outstanding, and Battra has such an awesome design. No joke this was the most succesful Godzilla movie until Shin Gojira, that is such an impressive achievement and while it may not be one of my favorites from this series, I have a lot of admiration for it and respect for the effects. The film just looks nice and it has one of the most beautiful pieces of music like ever. I'm so not kidding, words cannot express the beauty of The Birth Of Adult Mothra, it is done to perfection. Really I only could gripe about two things in the entire movie which full disclosure are absolute nitpicks. Battra's roar is straight up Rodan's which was slightly distracting cause I expected constantly he was about to swoop in and change the game. Second is the dub, now I try my hardest to review the japanese cut, I did it for Biollante, but some of the DVD's I own have strictly an english dub done by Tristar. And I swear on my life it was like they had the dub cast for King Ghidorah do both films, I almost dare even say they had half the cast of Ghidorah cause I heard Emi's voice actor at least 4 times throught the movie voicing different characters. It was so damn bizzare. So I apologize for reviewing inconsistent versions but that's just the way my movie collection is, an absolute mixed bag of different languages, countries, and actors. But I digress, this is a fine entry to the Godzilla series and no doubt has it's big fans out there. I give it 3 stars, 7/10, and one more classic adversary will be joining us tomorrow.

Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Boy that's a paradoxical title isn't it?

The first in the Millenium series, over 16 years old, how is it? Pretty great. The plot isn't spectacular, but what comes out of it is highly entertaining. The Japanese government searches the depths of the ocean to discover a new source of energy, then soon find an alien craft that rises from the depths and is strangely focused on Godzilla. That is one of the major high points for this movie, it has an excellent sense of mystery around the monster, named Orga and you never know what it really looks like or why it is focused on Godzilla until near the end. Orga mutates several times throughout the movie, similar to Shin Gojira and I love the originality with the monster. But then again Toho has always had such genius designs for it's monsters, and this design of Godzilla might actually be my most favorite of all the designs. In fact, the whole movie looks great, the models are so highly detailed they look real, I am floored by the sets in this movie. We get many good shots of Tokyo at night, and the more I thought about it I realized the fact that I have probably seen more movies set in Tokyo than New York City, Japan has always been present in my life since I was real little in some form or another, and will continue to until I die. Japan is in the heart, wherever I go she is with me. And now, time for backstory! In 1994 Toho planned on making the final Godzilla film after 40 long years, killing the King Of The Monsters once and for all. They did just that, giving the rights to TriStar to make future American Godzilla films. They failed. Horribly. To the point where Toho was so outraged they released this movie less than a year later in 1999, titled Godzilla Millenium. Then it got a theatrical release here in the States in 2000, which hasn't been done since Godzilla 1984 and never again until Shin Gojira, but sadly it bombed. Yes this film actually failed, which is why we don't get many Godzilla films here until it gets on home video. It's very sad but very true. But you can never keep the big guy down, he has died at least three times, four if you count the TriStar movie, but Goonies never say die or something, so he always comes back. It was one of the first Godzilla movies I ever saw, I still love it, I think you would enjoy it, but we got one more to go before the week is out. Tune in tomorrow for a GOOD American Godzilla movie.