Movie Reviews XVII

Gojira tai Hedora (1971)
C
I love this movie. Sure it is ridiculous, some of the
ideas are campy and/or suggest Yoshimitsu Banno
was out of his mind...but it's an amazingly fun film.
Because of its flaws, and its outlandish events this is
one of my absolute favorite Godzilla films, top 5 easily.


Chikyu kogegeki meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan (1972)
C-
Though the film introduces one of my favorite kaiju,
Gigan. It also has an extremely fun and entertaining
cast, however it is a pretty bad film. Why? Well the
Soshingeki suit is pretty screwed up by this point,
what with chunks of it falling off during the fights.
Also disappointing is that the score is stock music,
and most of the SFX shots are stock. Disappointing,
but satisfying...how the hell does that even work?


Gojira tai Megaro (1973)
D-
Good lord. While featuring two beloved kaiju this
film is bad. It's fun, but it's bad. Tons of stock
footage and laughably bad scripting bother me.
The car chase is the weirdest thing in the whole
movie, oh wait, scratch that. The weirdest thing is
the Seatopian culture. If you watch this try to find
a japanese subtitled print...it makes it better.
Sort of, though note...Megalon is a cool kaiju.


Gojira tai Mekagojira (1974)
C+
Yes, Yes, I know most of these are C+
Oh wellz. This movie is one of my favorites
of the 1970's Showa films. Introduces MechaGodzilla
and features Angilas' last performance until Final
Wars. This movie is so good for something to just
have on, because its non stop monster fun. There's
also a gratuitous amount of blood in this film that
seems semi out of place, though very enjoyable.


Mekagojira no gyakushu (1975)
C
Ishiro Honda's return to the genre
is not as great as his earlier work,
but it's definitely better than it could
have been. The film drops in quality
only slightly, possibly due to Honda's
absence from filmmaking and his
not being use to the ridiculous demands
of kaiju filmmaking at the time.
Regardless he pulls out a quality kaiju
film the likes of which no one had seen
since Destroy All Monsters, excluding
the previous film. A solid Godzilla movie
and it makes the two MechaGodzilla
films the best of the 70s bunch.