Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

I just love the modern era Mecha-G films!

Much like Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, this film is good fun when it comes to the battles, but unlike that movie, it doesn't have the best story or balance of campiness.

This movie still has a lack of common sense like Godzilla vs Mothra and allows the moral of the story to be the closing argument as to why the ending is how it is. It is dumb, and not the good kind.

The ending is a big issue, but the whole justification of the "magic" crap is stupid and unneeded in a movie that features a giant metal lizard. These elements have always been there since the Showa series, but this series of films uses it so much to get over plot points that would have otherwise needed more explaining. It's getting tiring.

Godzilla's Son looks waaay better than he did before. And the human bonding element works until the final scene. Because again, the ending is just "let life live" or something along those lines. This is good when you think about it for a movie where Godzilla is punishing us for what we have done. But the humans here are acting as if Godzilla is a wild animal who we are treating badly. We haven't deforested his home, he lives on nuclear energy, so either give him a supply for himself or kill him. Human lives are apparently less important than Godzilla, and that issue so far has plagued the Heisei series after the first movie. Godzilla vs King Ghidorah however, did understand that Godzilla is a menace.

The new Mechagodzilla suit is nice, yet bulky looking. One thing I do have to praise this movie on is the sound effects. I feel like the sound has had significantly more attention here, and I appreciate that. Every footstep Godzilla or Mechagodzilla takes is heard and realistic. This also follows over to the destruction scenes which are visually and audibly satisfying.

It's really good fun when you don't factor in the actual argument it's trying to make and has good brawls and much better use of Mechagodzilla than in the previous film. Though that subplot of the underqualified G-Force engineer is stupid and unneeded and I hated it.

**7/10**

Godzilla Junior already looks like he wants to die. Still better than Minilla.

After the rather mediocre "Godzilla vs. Mothra," I enjoyed "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" a little more. Although the English title is somewhat misleading, as it is of course not a sequel to "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" from 1974, continuity has never been a priority in this franchise, even if the Heisei films pay a little more attention to it.

Regardless, the film has a few scenes where the humor actually works for a change, as well as a comprehensible story and solid monster action. Not even Baby Godzilla bothered me too much, because it's much less annoying than in the Shōwa films. Nevertheless, I still have to make a few adjustments to the rating because the movie can't keep up the quality throughout and also has a few long stretches. However, this only spoiled my viewing pleasure in some places.

This is a good Godzilla flick. There's some entertaining fights, particularly the battles between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla. The effects are good other than Rodan who is a bit on the stiff side. The problem with the flying beasts in every Godzilla movie is that that they flap their wings twice and they're at full speed. That's as evident here as anywhere. Godzilla and Mechagodzilla look great here and MG is loaded to the hilt with weapons. There's some gushing Godzilla blood courtesy of those weapons, too.

The problem with this movie is two-fold. The human characters are annoying. The poor choice of character voices used for the dubbing makes them even worse. And the biggest problem is the baby Godzilla that gets way too much screen time. It's so cute, it's nauseating. It also doesn't help that the woman that serves as its caretaker constantly refers to it as "baby". She must say "baby" a hundred times. I think if you could take the baby Godzilla out of this movie, "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" would be one of the better entries in the series.