We have arrived at the bottom 3rd of the top 15; the upper half of the Best Godzilla Movies. These fell just outside of the top 10, but have achieved excellence in their own right.
#15) Godzilla x
Megaguirus: I loved Megaguirus.
The most positive aspect of the 2000 series was the creation of new monsters to
take on Godzilla. Megaguirus is a prehistoric dragonfly that rivals Godzilla in
power. The special effects are significantly better in this installment than
its predecessor Godzilla 2000 (minus
an embarrassing scene where Godzilla attempts to pounce on Megaguirus) and
vastly improves in the music department as well. Although the monster action is
quite impressive, it is just as fun watching the humans plot to get rid of
Godzilla by inventing a new weapon that creates black holes. What surprises me
about GxMegaguirus is that it ranks only at the middle of the Godzilla Countdown.
#14) Godzilla Final
Wars: We all knew that this would be the last Godzilla movie for quite some
time. The American film was scoffed at by everyone and the 2000 series was not
wowing anyone at the box office. Godzilla Final Wars was one last hurrah that
seemed to mostly focus on satisfying fans before the BigG’s final departure
into the sunset. And boy was this one a doozy!
Admittedly, you almost forget this is a Godzilla movie
because in the opening scenes, the humans trap Godzilla in ice. What we are
given from that point forward is a plot involving mutant humans battling it out
with humanity and the Xillians (an alien race) for the fate of planet earth.
The bad guys took control of all of the earth monsters and commenced destroying
human civilization so they could herd up humans and
steal…their…mitochondria…yeah. But it created a good excuse for the humans to
go find Godzilla, whom the aliens could not control, and use him to kick the
daylights out of all of the other monsters and the aliens.
Not much makes sense about this movie and the musical score
was among the most mediocre of the entire series. But this movie wasn’t about
majoring in the minors. It was about fans watching Godzilla dominate EVERYONE.
Which he did and it was AWESOME.
#13) Godzilla x
Mechagodzilla: I almost ranked this movie toward the bottom of the list,
but then I watched it again and wondered, “What was I thinking?” Godzilla x Mechagodzilla is hands down
one of the best of the Godzilla movies.
Notice the title, though. This is not Godzilla vs
Mechagodzilla; rather, “X.” Once again, the Godzilla franchise needed a boost
and Toho made the decision to bring out one of Godzilla’s most popular foes to
stimulate the box office returns. Unfortunately, it could probably have been
considered a financial failure, but it produced two of the best Godzilla films
ever. This first installment of the MechaG movies developed the character of
Mechagodzilla, known as Kiryu, in the
2000 series. Instead of MechaG merely being a giant robot that looked like
Godzilla, humanity built a robot using the bones of the deceased first Godzilla
as its frame. The premise is cool. The design of the monsters is cool. The
music was very reminiscent of Godzilla x Megaguirus. The biggest drawback to
this movie is that no one knows if this was a sequel to Godzilla x Megaguirus
or a stand-alone film (along with its sequel). I’m guessing it’s a stand-alone
but certain elements do carry over.
For Toho, the biggest problem was that it didn’t rake in the
sort of cash they desired. This can probably be attributed to the reality that
even though the special effects were a cut above most of the other movies in
the franchise, they paled in comparison to American movies.
#12) Godzilla v
Mechagodzilla 2: The real title of this movie is just Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla but many people have attached II to the
end of its title to distinguish it from the original. GvMGII is hailed by many
people as being the best of the Heisei Godzilla
movies and is often said to have the best special effects. With the latter
sentiment, I would attribute this claim to a spectacular opening sequence that
makes use of CGI and one of the best monster themes in the series. The
Mechagodzilla theme for this movie was so spectacular that fans who sat through
the end credits of Shin Godzilla recognized
that it was the last song in the movie (and it fit Shin Godzilla’s mood rather nicely).
The special effects, as a whole are overrated, but what
makes this movie so good? Four monsters are featured in this film: Godzilla,
Mechagodzilla, Baby Godzilla (the first convincing portrayal of Baby Godzilla.
Note that he is not called Minilla in
this movie, but Baby), and Rodan. The
story is both well-written but not without cheese (which in a Godzilla movie is
not a bad element). Mechagodzilla is clearly superior to Godzilla throughout
the movie, minus a few malfunctions, and gains the upper hand at the end of the
movie, thanks to the new Super Mechagodzilla mode, and kills both Godzilla and
Rodan. But Rodan dies on top of Godzilla and his essence fuses with Godzilla to
give Godzilla a powered up state that I can only call Super Godzilla (in other
words, Godzilla is resurrected stronger than ever to finish Mechagodzilla).
In Japan, this movie was intended to be the last of the Heisei Series but was far too successful
to justify a terminal point of the series. Unfortunately this movies success
gave birth to Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla
and the rest is history.
#11) Destroy All Monsters: The most amazing Kaiju
rumble of all time! There isn’t much not to like about DAM. Aliens come down
from space and enslave all of the earth monsters that had been successfully
rounded up by mankind and relocated to Monster Island, where the monsters lived
in peace. There is not a lot of monster vs monster action in this movie, but it
is a lot of fun watching mankind battling this colossal menace to no avail.
Ultimately, the humans break the control of the aliens, take control of the
monsters, turn the monsters against the aliens, only to be interrupted by the
space monster King Ghidorah; which the earth monsters basically curb stomp to
death (almost literally…well, the to death part is literal).
Are there cons to this movie? There are, but they are all minor elements that permeate most of the movie. One of these elements that stuck out to me is the nature of the Japanese government. They seemed a little totalitarian to be playing the role of the good guys in this movie. The special effects aren’t perfect, but they work. Minilla appears in this movie, so that’s minus some points. Some of the monsters don’t join the final battle and some don’t join to the extent where they are used to their fullest capabilities. All in all, excellent movie.
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