31 Movies of May, Day 7: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
May 7th viewing: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, chosen by the prophecy that foretold I would watch monsters do battle on my television screen
Year of Release: 1974
Directed by: Jun Fukuda
Written by: Jun Fukuda, Masami Fukushima, Shin’ichi Sekizawa, Hiroyasu Yamaura
Starring: Masaaki Daimon, Kazuya Aoyama, Reiko Tajima, Akihiko Hirata, Hiromi Matsushita, Hiroshi Koizumi, Masao Imafuku, Bellabella Lin, Shin Kishida, Gorō Mutsumi
Accompanying Beverage of Choice: Ride or Die (IPA, 5.5% ABV) - Hopewell Brewing Co., Chicago, Illinois
(Support Independent Breweries - buy local when getting buzzed during quarantine)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla opens with a prophecy that a monster will come to destroy a city. This is the 14th movie in the Godzilla franchise. This “prophecy” is about as impressive as me predicting that the ice cream machine at my neighborhood Burger King will be out of order when I show up at the drive-thru.
The prophecy belies the obvious familiarity with giant mythical creatures. Godzilla is 50 meters tall. Mechagodzilla, by logical extension of him being a doppelganger of Godzilla, is also 50 meters tall, and at one point he destroys a multistory apartment building. Two other monsters show up who also each appear to be roughly the size of a grain elevator. Yet other than the half-dozen or so major human characters, nobody in the entire country of Japan appears to think this is a big deal.
Perhaps it’s because this version of Godzilla looks rather, uh, adorable? The plates on his back genuinely look like they are made out of plush material, probably because they are. Godzilla’s eyes look like those harmless April Fool’s Day pranks where people put googly eyes on all the items in a person’s fridge. As for Mechagodzilla, he only looks slightly more ferocious, at least until you realize that his weapons are literal finger guns.
Honestly y’all, I don’t have much to say about this one. Some Godzilla movies are great, some are silly and fun, some are just silly. This is one of the “just silly” ones. I have a prophecy that I will not be watching it again.
