brando647 I watched a Godzilla movie for the first time in the weeks before Gareth Edwards' 2014 GODZILLA was released. I'd realized I'd never actually watched one and started with GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA II. It was a little crazier than I expected (in a good way) but it was ultimately the weak plot that soured me on it. I'd gotten it as part of a double feature and I hopeful the second movie might redeem the franchise for me. The title alone was enough to get me excited. GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA. It sounds like something out of a ten-year-old's fan fiction. When it becomes apparent that defeating Godzilla might be easier said than done, the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center formulate a new plan in hopes of controlling the monster, calling it Project T. The center's head psychic, Miki Saegusa, will use an amplifier to overcome the creature's natural will and control him. Meanwhile, a mysterious object rockets toward Earth and lands, no surprise, on the same island where Project T has established operations. Adorned in enormous power crystals, we discover Space Godzilla! He's here to…hmm..well, it's never really established. Destroy the Earth, I guess? Yeah, that sounds right. And the only thing standing in his path of ultimate destruction is Godzilla and the United Nation's new secret weapon, M.O.G.E.R.A.I'll get right to it. This movie was a disappointment, even with the super awesome potential inherent in the title GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA. What could've been so bad about this movie? It commits the ultimate movie sin: it's boring. Seriously dull. I can't watch this movie without mentally checking out in the second half. It starts promisingly, largely in part due to the horrible writing. For example, the opening of the film begins in the ESP center where psychic individuals meditate in weird pyramid tents. We are reintroduced to Miki Saegusa where she's discussing Project T with one of the program heads, Dr. Chinatsu Gondo. Gondo goes on a long bit of exposition explaining Project T to someone who, if I understand the movie, already knows everything Gondo is telling her. This is a prime example of screen writing laziness. We could've left it at Saegusa voicing her opinion that Godzilla is not a creature who can be controlled with telepathy and we, as an audience, would understand what Project T was. Instead, we get an awkward interaction that would never happen in real life with Gondo ending the conversation exclaiming, "We're using telepathy. That's why it's called Project T." The only way the screenwriters could have made it any more obvious would've been to hire someone to personally stand in every theater to nudge you with their elbow and scream, "T! It stands for telepathy! Get it?" I know I'm blowing a minor nitpick out of proportion here but that's just the most blatant example. Later in the film, Saegusa is betrayed and kidnapped by the Japanese mafia for no other reason than to bring the main team back to the mainland from the island. Because there was no better motivation to leave the island, where nothing is happening, and return to Japan where a giant space creature is about the rampage, right? Plus the mafia sequence allows for Saegusa to bust out with some telekinesis, a power she (and we) never knew her capable of and it's only used for one scene. The writing in GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA is just a long series of unmotivated plot movement.That's not to say the movie isn't without its surprises. Just when I thought I'd gotten a handle on all the weirdness these movies have to offer, we get space moths that morph into twin space fairies to inform Saegusa that she's some sort of chosen one who can save the Earth from Space Godzilla. SPACE! It's nice to see there's still some crazy to be mined from these movies. In fairness, the human story element is better here than it was in GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA II (before they drop it in favor of a 40 minute final battle). The concept of Project T is an interesting one, and the character of Akira Yuki (Akira Emoto) is pretty cool. He's actually got motivation (his best friend was killed in a Godzilla attack and he's out for revenge) and he's got a little character arc hidden in here. Space Godzilla is a pretty wicked monster too. He looks like something out of Godzilla's worst nightmares and the explanation behind him is pseudoscience at its most insane. Supposedly, some of Godzilla's cells were carried into space following a previous battle, were sucked into a black hole, and spit out a white hole where Godzilla's most vicious cells quickly evolved into Space Godzilla. Not gonna lie, I love that. Another fun bit of pseudoscience that could only have come from the mind of a child, Yuki's big plan to kill Godzilla are bullets the size of tampons containing blood coagulant. Yup, that's his big plan. Mechagodzilla couldn't take him down, but a little bit of blood coagulant (with no reason to believe it would affect Godzilla's blood as it would a human). But don't worry, despite his deep-rooted motivation to murder the beast, we never actually get to see if it would work because the one chance he gets where he can potentially kill Godzilla, he lets him go, explaining, "It's had enough of a bad day." I guess your revenge isn't as important as we were led to believe.Finally, my major complaint with the film is that the entire last half of the movie is one long battle sequence between Godzilla, Space Godzilla, and M.O.G.E.R.A. It was awesome for a while and Space Godzilla's got some cool moves but after twenty minutes I was bored and by the time it ended, I was mentally shot. Now to end this because I'm ranting and out of space. (SPACE!) One last positive not: my daughter loved it, so there's that.

Ben Larson Getting ready for the new Godzilla, I decided to revisit as many of the old ones as I could.In this one, we see that Godzilla has to defend Baby Godzilla, who is much bigger, against a UN built Transformer-type machine and also Space Godzilla, which was formed by some Godzilla DNA that traveled to space somehow. They keep getting sillier and sillier. This one seemed to drag on forever before we got to the real action. When we did, it wasn't as good as the others. I do have to admit that the finale, when Godzilla destroyed Space Godzilla, was spectacular and one of the best fireworks displays I have seen. The ending was sorta cheesy as Godzilla calmly reenters the sea to some romantic music and a setting sun, as two of the G-Force team walk along the beach holding hands and whispering sweet nothings. Megumi Odaka, Kôichi Ueda, and Kenji Sahara are back from the last film. Watch, if you must, but not as good.

SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain Underrated Godzilla movie. Here we have Godzilla fighting Space Godzilla. OK, so they are obviously running out of monsters here, but at least it ties in with the previous titles. Space Godzilla was created after the spores of Biollante, or possibly some of the big G's DNA from Mothra, mutated with something or BLAH BLAH BLAH. Who cares? It's Godzilla, and there's a monster that needs fighting. The film also has some great human characters, with a man out for vengeance after Godzilla killed his friend. Despite this, he has a soft spot for little Godzilla. The battles are fairly lengthy, maybe too much so. Space Godzilla starts turning things into crystals, which is bad. Telepathy, space, monsters, ridiculous science. It's Godzilla and it rocks.

FilmExpertWannabe The Heisei series is kind of frustrating. It started off so well with 1985's Return of Godzilla and 1989's Godzilla vs Biollante, but then got steadily worse until spiking up again with Godzilla vs Destroyah. This is one of those movies I'd pass up if you haven't seen a few of Godzilla's better movies first. Surprisingly for a G flick, not even the music is a redeeming quality.The first problem is the stinkin' pacing of the movie. It's has huge gaping pieces of the film that are dull and make you want to just fast forward to get into some action because nothing of any remote importance is happening and the characters are boring. Then you get to the action and you're totally underwhelmed. The action basically boils down to three scenes. In the beginning Moguera (Japan's semi-replacement for Mechagodzilla, which was destroyed the year before by the Big G) briefly tangles with Spacegodzilla in space ... which looks unquestionably like a black background with giant brown foam balls meant to look like rocks floating in space. It's simply awful, even compared to some of what we've seen in the Showa series. You know it's bad if hardcore Godzilla nerds like me are poking fun at it. The second is a battle between Spacegodzilla and Godzilla himself. The battle is quite brief and nothing happens aside from the two engaging in a beam spam war for a few blasts before SG decides to leave, having taken Little Godzilla hostage. The third battle is the long one with Godzilla and Moguera teaming up against SG. It's an improvement, but it's still mostly just a beam spam fest.The monsters themselves are a mixed bag. Little Godzilla looks rather cute, which wasn't the theme they were going for with him in the prior film nor the succeeding film. Godzilla looks fine, other than perhaps being too chunky; in fact, the suit is so big and bulky that this is the reason that many of the Heisei series monsters relied mostly on their beams, as physical combat was too challenging to do much. Spacegodzilla is a split for me. He looks good other than for the crystal spines, which are just goofy, not that the giant shoulder crystals or the whole crystal aspect to him are much better. Moguera looks lame. He didn't look good in his first appearance (The Mysterians, 1957) and he doesn't look good in this second appearance.In the end, I'm forced to give this one a low score. It has virtually no redeeming qualities and almost all of the bad ones for which Godzilla naysayers can lay claim. The theories of SG's origins with Biollante and Mothra are actually interesting, but then they fail to follow through with it at all. Just disappointing. Watch this one once (even for free on Crackle!) just to say you've seen it, but don't expect all too much.As a final note, in the plot hole for this movie, it is said that the events of previous movies could not have happened due to the time travel plot of 1991's Godzilla vs King Ghidorah. This is actually not the case, and if you care enough you can read why below. Just connect all of the below link.http:// www.scifijapan.com /articles/2007/08/16/ godzilla-vs-king-ghidorah -time-travel- and-the- origins-of- godzilla/