Friday, March 13, 2009

Decade of the Lizard: Godzilla X Mechagodzilla

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla

It is hard for a big, green lizard to make friends when he only shows up to break everything. After years of wrecked cities, the Japanese decide to build their own monster to kick this one's ass. They discover the bones of the original Godzilla- from "Gojira"- and build a robot suit around it. They explain that- in a bit of movie pseudo science- a robot with humanoid components works much more efficiently than one with just circuits. Sort of a 'screw you' to the three previous versions of Mechagodzilla, which were either purely robotic or controlled by operators.

They build the thing just in time to battle the real deal, though something goes wrong in the fight. Godzilla's roar awakens the 'primal spirit' from the skeleton, causing the defender to go haywire and smash more than the scaly version. Naturally, the people protest billions of their own dollars being used to destroy their city. They fix this, however, and gear up for a rematch in a few days. The battle is epic in scale and makes use of the creation's biggest weapon: a giant, freeze ray. The action is big, explosive and fun. Mechagodzilla moves and looks better than in previous films, as one should expect from a modern update to the character.

There is, as usual, some human plot stuff going on with the female pilot, a widowed scientist and a match-making kid. Man, that cliche has even reached across the globe to Japan! The story is as important as ever, so feel free to ignore anything that is not happening on the sound stage. Real nerdy fans- i.e. the internet- will point out that Godzilla's skeleton was destroyed by the weapon too. Good for you. A real quirky part of the movie involves a cameo by a famous Japanese baseball player. Why? It's because, his 'official' name is Hideki 'Godzilla' Matsui, duh. That makes perfect sense! This one was good enough to get an actual sequel, making it the only one in the Millennium series to get the honor. That should tell you something.

Thanks to numerous sites for the pictures. All of them are visible in the hyperlink headings. Check them out.

More kaiju to come. Stay tuned...

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