Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

The Achilles heal of these filmed has always been the humans who by default can never be as interesting as the monsters. 'Godzilla vs King Ghidorah' makes up for this somewhat with a goofy but sincere look at time travel that tries to delve into the origins of the big green guy. The faults are as one might expect, the monsters are under utilized for a great deal of the film and those wanting to see the film in the US have to suffer through a pretty awful dubbed version. The strengths? This Godzilla film has an interesting look into the past of the monster even in it's diluted time travel plot. Godzilla films are nothing if not ambitious. So many of these films try their absolute hardest to deliver layers of exposition of how each entry relates to the monster and how the citizens of Japan try to stop it. The problem is that there is so much repetition of the ideas over and over again. 'Godzilla vs King Ghidorah' deserves some level of praise because of it's time travel plot. The time travelers themselves seem like they've come out of 'Plan 9' but I really like the idea of the monster originating in a World War II subplot. It is an ambitious idea that sort of finds that balance of making up for the fact that Godzilla can be a hero amidst his total destruction of Japan. You do get a satisfaction once Godzilla is brought back to life because this film does sort of have a sense of stakes behind it.Ghidorah on the other hand does not have a character behind him. We don't really get to grasp why Ghidorah is Godzilla's greatest arch nemesis. The creatures Ghidorah spawns from are beyond ridiculous looking and so any sense of menace the character might have had is greatly limited in the long run. The actual time travelers seem to have complete control over him and so Ghidorah is never able to become his own entity. I imagine a great many Godzilla fans might have been disappointed by this characterization.The monster battles are all golden. The suits look realistic and menacing and a great deal of destruction is thrown on the screen. This thing has an epic quality that the lesser giant monster films sometimes lack. Unfortunately once we get past the monsters this film is inhabited by goofy humans. Like I said earlier the time travelers remind me so much of characters from 'Plan 9'. It isn't even the disconnect from adapting the film for Americans, these characters have legitimately bizarre dialogue that is meant to sound poignant but comes off as laughable. Godzilla gets some decent treatment here. He is the main reason to see this film. Ghidorah and his handlers leave a lot to be desired.

Suddenly finding myself determined to watch a loony Toho kaiju extravaganza from beginning to end, I caught 1991's "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (hereafter "GVKG")on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 8:15 p.m. on Encore. I am indebted to many of the posters who have already meticulously explained GVKG's contorted "time travel" plot. They probably did a better job than I could. Crazy as it is, that plot at least provides a semi-believable origin for both the atomic-powered lizard and the three-headed electricity spewing dragon. They were both mutated by the fallout of American H-Bomb test blasting during World War II, though not at the same time. Godzilla was originally the dinosaur Godzillasaurus, and King Ghidorah was a giant fusion of three cat-sized flying dragon things call dorats. As usual, it takes more than half the movie for the two behemoths to meet, but meet they do, not once but twice.Until the monsters' cataclysmic clash, we have to endure the usual, somewhat effeminate English dubbing of not only Japanese scientists, military personnel, and corporate CEOs, but also that of futuristic time travelers (including a Terminator-like android called M-11) who arrive in '90s Japan to offer a seemingly magnanimous chance for the nation to get rid of Godzilla forever - go back to the past before the Godzillasaurus was mutated, let the "imperialist" American World War II leave him mortally wounded, and then transport him back to the present to let him die in the ocean. Of course the aliens are not benevolent; fearing the rise of Japan as a conquering superpower, they resurrect and manipulate King Ghidorah to destroy Japan without any interference. The Japanese then decide to mutate the dying Godzillasaurus to help save them, but a nuclear sub explosively beats them to the punch. Godzilla is back but, as they say, the cure is worse than the disease. Now the Japanese must hijack an alien time travel ship to go back to the future to reanimate King Ghidorah, cybernetically fit him out, even give him a human-operated mechanical neck and head to replace the one Godzilla severed in the first battle, and send him back for a rematch. Which monster wins? Does it matter? Is Japan doomed anyway? Oops, I guess I regurgitated the plot again! :S GVKG is goofy typical Toho monster mashing, enhanced somewhat by the nuclear genetic mutation and time-spanning plot, and sometimes remarkable special effects, including a pre-Jurassic Park animation of the Godzillasaurus which "saves" a "noble" Japanese regiment, and especially its deeply grateful commander, from American naval annihilation. Also lurking in the movie is the ambivalent regard Japan has of itself as both a nationalistically and technologically proud but also reckless and potentially destructive (economically and ecologically) Japan. GVKG seems to view America that way as well. Godzilla is the "unfriendly" undying symbol of that country-conquering spirit.

The third entry in the Heisei Godzilla series, and a great one at that. One reason to love it if you're a fan, as myself, is that King Ghidorah returns!! Just as maniacal and evil as he was in the Showa films. Unfortunately, King Ghidorah would be a 'good guy' the next time him and Godzilla face off, in GMK, in ten years. This film is famous for revealing the Monster King's origin. More on that later...Akira Ifukbe also returns to score the film, bringing back Godzilla and Ghidorah's original themes, which both sound spectacular. The human characters are pretty throughout,but the action sequences sub-par. One major problem with this film is simply that Kazuki Omori's screenplay called for too much human action that the budget was definitely not big enough for. However that wasn't the point in this film, at least most of the time, with its political statements and essentially deep plot, if you look at it in a satirical yet intricate perspective. In fact there are quite a bit of themes in this film if you dig deep enough and don't dismiss the film for Toho's expected budget. Moving away from that, Ghidorah not only has a new look, but a new origin. I could explain it, but you'll get it after seeing it a few times I assume. The King of Darkness looked great and his rampage scenes look awesome. The only thing I didn't like about him was that he wasn't given his original roar ( or shriek, whatever you want to call it) and instead a modified Rodan-cackle. Whatever....Godzilla looks incredible and I love his roar. He doesn't appear till the last 38 minutes but once he does he gets plenty of action scenes that were well done for the most part. The Godzillasaurus was a cool monster and its fight with the Navy vessels was great. It wasn't till later I realized they used Gamera's roar as the creature dies, I guess a bit of a spoof of some sort. I guess Toho had no idea Gamera would return in 1995 with a new series of films that would challenge Godzilla as the Monster King. Mecha-King Ghidorah was a nice edition as well and the final battle was top notch. To me, however, the battle between the two title monsters was the best and one of the best in the Heisei series. I admire it for its creativity and for its physical side. The part where Ghidorah uses his python like necks to strangle Godzilla was my favorite moment.Mr. Shindo and Godzilla's confrontation was actually a bit moving. But when a story involves time travel, there are bound to be flaws. To go into this continuity catastrophe with great detail would be too much for this review. So despite the continuity of the Heisei series now ruined, this film deserves respect for great monsters and its other aspects and I still find it enjoyable to watch. You'll literally rate it two stars lower if you watch the Sony Tristar dub, seeing as it was f*ckin terrible to say the least.

First off, I should point out the 7/10 rating I am giving this movie is not by the same standards I would any other film. It is a 7 out of 10 for a Godzilla movie. I look at is as "what was the film maker trying to do, and did they accomplish that?", now that I have made that clear, I will get into the review.The story of this film revolves highly around time traveling, but this is where the plot of the film has the biggest set back. The time travelers came back from the 23rd century to stop Godzilla from destroying Japan, or so they tell the people in 1992 Japan. The problem is, when they find Godzilla and remove him from history they go back to 1992, and Godzilla has never existed, yet people remember him. Not to mention it actually creates a paradox. It would take me forever to explain the flaws in this film based solely of the time travel aspect.Once you get past that, it is a well put together movie. Higher production values then most other Godzilla films. Good characters, some funny scenes and very good action sequences. King Ghidorah looks good in both normal and mecha forms and creates a believable(for a Godzilla film) opponent.The film has been critiqued for being anti-American and pro-Japanese, but the only person who would see it that way would be a jingoistic individual to say the least. The reason it was critiqued for being anti-American is because you see Godzilla(as a dinosaur, not yet mutated) attack American troops during WW2. Funny, because Godzilla had only been attacking Japanese troops in the past movies and in future movies. The attacking American troops is even worked into the plot, as Gdzilla later destroys a ex Japanese soldier who thought Godzilla had saved them from the US troops. The other part of the criticism of it being anti-American is that the people from the 23rd century say that Japan becomes the dominant global power of the world. Pro-Japanese, yes. Anti-American is stretching it. The reason of Japan becoming the dominant global power works in the context of the story they are telling.As a Godzilla movie, this is one of the more memorable ones, if you can get past the time travel plot holes.