Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

I've been hard on these films. Godzilla has become sort of boring over the years and a lack of imagination by the producers hasn't helped. This one, where scientists have found a way to create a black hole and send out favorite reptile into oblivion is suspenseful and very entertaining. Of course, when you mess with nature, you have to be careful not to screw up. In testing the device, some dragonfly eggs get out and this leads to a mass invasion of the winged things. Not only that, but a really big one, Megaguiris is everything Godzilla can handle. Apparently, this variety of dragonfly is fearless and has some big biting and stinging capabilities. What makes this fun is that the human characters are quite good and we begin to care about them. Of course, I still don't know why Godzilla needs to continually stomp all over years of urban development. What does he hope to accomplish? What are his motivations. The weird thing is that he seems to be a sentient creature. He just likes to walk in places where building crowd around him. Why not be happy with a stroll on the beach. Maybe the fact that he will never get married is the problem. He could be loaded with testosterone and have no future. Of course, since he appeared in the early fifties, he seems to have weathered a great deal of grief.

I was pleased that Toho was continuing to explorer new monsters with this film. In fact, I really liked Megaguirus' origins. I also like that they tried for a slightly scarier experience, particularly the alley scene.And yet, I rate the film only 6/10. Outside of the monster action, much of the rest of the movie is fairly dull, as is the female lead. I also find the Dimension Tide piece of the plot almost too silly. A man-made mini black hole fired at Godzilla from a satellite in space? Oh come on! That's gotta be more outlandish than aliens. The special effects were only okay, but with three notable bad points. The SGS looks like a small toy, the Meganula on Godzilla's hide looked iffy, and when Megaguirus first appears, the wires are visible. But on the whole the effects were otherwise pretty good.This was the second installment of Godzilla's Millennium series, and after watching these two you might not be inspired to watch the next four movies unless you're a major Japanese monster movie or Godzilla fan, which I am. But rest assured, the rest of the series picks up (even Final Wars). As a final word, if you don't really care how loony some of the plot is, then you'll probably enjoy this movie more than a 6/10, no problem. If you want to give the Godzilla franchise a try though, I'd check out GMK or Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo SOS before this one.

As i say, there are monster movies that get lost (understandably) trying to run many subplots or to develop characters. Latests Mechagodzilla movies give that up to an extent and focus on what people (who buy this kind of movie) want to see: man in suit rampage & cartonbox miniature levelling. Here they try some character development (EG the old story of the female soldier seeking revenge; the silly, unaware child bringing unknowingly a monster back home ) but keep it in line & don't try to overact or to oversize it. A very watchable, nice movie with good SFX. Of course the idea of a war machine shooting black holes is silly, but in the early 70's Go Nagai (the cartoon/comics writer ) had portrayed alien invaders doing just that in his spurious series "Daiku Maryu Gaiking".

Version: Eastern Eye R4 DVD - Japanese, English subtitlesGodzilla is back to stomp all over Japan, but this time he has to fight a giant dragonfly... Sounds awesome, yes no?In 1996, Japan has been running on clean, renewable energy for thirty years, and has not seen Godzilla since 1966. Clean energy can no longer provide enough power for Japan, the government begins research into neutron energy. Naturally, Godzilla takes the opportunity to announce his coming out of retirement and levels the neutron facility while decimating the anti-Godzilla force 'G-Grasper'. Obviously, military's plan was to confuse Godzilla with a funny name, and then fire a few missiles at him. Needless to say, it doesn't work.Several years later, Kiriko Tsujimori (Misato Tanaka) - a survivor of G-Grasper's 1996 encounter with Godzilla - is now the G-Grasper commander and has a grudge against Godzilla. Obviously G-Grasper need a new weapon to take on Godzilla, and so they turn to Japan's crazy scientists. The result is a cannon called the 'Dimension Tide': a weapon designed to shoot black holes, which they intend to shoot at Godzilla, from space, to minimize the damage to Earth. Obviously no one thought of any possible negative consequences of shooting a black hole - from space, mind you - towards a moving target Earth. The mad scientists have really gone off the deep end here. Of course, they test it first, and open up a rift to another dimension, letting a swarm of Meganuron (over-sized dragonflies) through.Essentially, 'Godzilla vs Megaguirus' is a lighter, happier version of both 'Godzilla vs Destroyer' and 'Gamera 2'. The Meganuron / Megaguirus greatly resembles the Legion from 'Gamera 2'. The shots of Godzilla being swarmed by the Meganuron, look much like the shots of Gamera being swarmed by the Legion. However, going one up on the other two movies, 'Godzilla vs Megaguirus' has better special effects. The 'Alien' style Meganuron look a lot better than the 'Alien' style Destroyer(s) from 'Godzilla vs Destroyer'. Also, it has mad scientists. A big bonus. They might not look like mad scientists, but they certainly think like them.There is some nice monster action, even if it is heavily offset by the human characters running shooting black holes at things. The Tokyo showdown between Godzilla vs Megaguirus is fun. It may not come close to one of the best monster fight scenes, but its funny and entertaining. Smart use of CGI ensures the monsters and fights look good, but on the other hand, for a giant dragonfly, Megaguirus does not beat his wing that often.'Godzilla vs Megaguirus' is a fun Godzilla movie, and should appeal to Godzilla fans. It does drag on a little though - 7/10