Godzilla goes toe to toe with a disgusting heap of trash (no, I’m not talking about Britney Spears) in this fun entry (his 11th) in the franchise. His enemy this time out is a slimy monster known as Hedorah, who was born out of man’s constant pollution of the ocean. Since Hedorah needs pollution to survive, he hops atop chimney stacks and sucks the smoke right out of them! Genius! And whenever Hedorah flies over the city, he leaves a trail of pollution and acid rain that melts people! Godzilla shows up and gives him his whole “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” routine (which is actually true in this case) and they brawl. In the end, Godzilla teams up with the Japanese Army to kill Hedorah using electrified drive-in screens and his heretofore unmentioned jet propulsion ability to fly via his incendiary fire breath.

By this point in his cinematic career, Godzilla had gone from being the embodiment of all radiation evil to becoming the defender of Japan and a friend to children. (This is typified by the main juvenile star carrying around a Godzilla toy.) Godzilla stopped being a metaphor for the Atom Bomb destruction of Japan long ago, but it’s nice to see the series return to it’s roots (sort of) by having another metaphorical monster in the form of Hedorah.

Having said that, this is strictly kid’s stuff. Now instead of hearing Godzilla’s haunting theme song, he’s accompanied by a cool jazzy score. (We even get a groovy psychedelic club scene complete with body painting and freak-out sequences to appease the hippies too.) There’s even a pretty funny animated sequence of Hedorah floating around looking for garbage. Even though it was made for the kiddie set, it’s still a lot of fun and features plenty of monster mashing, so it should satisfy most fans of the G-Man’s escapades.

A concerned Japanese girl gets the movie’s best line when she describes what Hedorah consists of: “Human waste, poison gas, and everything ugly that is put into the sea!”

Whatever happened to sugar and spice and everything nice?

AKA: Godzilla vs. Hedora. AKA: Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

Godzilla returns in his 9th film and it’s one of the big guy’s best. He brought a ton of his friends with him to ensure this flick’s place in the pantheon of great monster movie mashes.

The year is 1999 and the G-Man and his buddies spring out of their prison in Monsterland and quickly go to town stomping on all the major cities of the world. A bunch of scientists head to the moon to talk to some aliens and there’s a lot of tomfoolery regarding… goddamn it this is a Godzilla movie who cares what the plot is!

Like all of Godzilla’s other cinematic appearances, the stuff involving humans isn’t nearly as much fun as the stuff with all the monsters. The human characters in this one are stupider than most in the series (at one point they run TOWARDS some poisonous gas), but some of their costumes (they all look like DEVO) are pretty hilarious. And yes, the badly dubbed dialogue is priceless (“I want you…. to cooperate with us… things will run… a lot…smoother.”) If you can get past all the rigmarole with the half assed astronauts and patiently wait until Godzilla and his friends show up, it’s damn good times.

Speaking of Godzilla’s buddies, there are ELEVEN monsters in this flick and although some of their parts are more than extended cameos, the sheer excess of enormous monsters makes this a must see. My favorite scenes include the giant snake Manda toppling a monorail, Godzilla rampaging down the streets of New York (years before that whole Roland Emmerich debacle), Mothra crashing through the subway and of course, the all out battle royale monster mash to end all battle royale monster mashes which climaxes the film.

The film is ripe with cheesy dialogue, but it’s a nerdy commander who gets the film’s best line: “It’s from space! And it’s alive!”

AKA: All Monsters Attack. AKA: Attack of the Marching Monsters. AKA: Monster Attack March. AKA: Monster Invasion. AKA: Operation Monsterland. AKA: The March of the Monsters.

Godzilla movies live or die by the sheer amount of monster mashing carnage that he and his cohorts create. Whether it’s a parable for nuclear war (like the first flick) or just a silly kid’s movie (like this), the audience demands that Godzilla must be in most of the movie either stomping on buildings or fighting with other monsters. This sequel commits the mortal sin of having way too much rigmarole before getting down to the good stuff. And what idiotic rigmarole we have in this one.

Token American star Nick Adams stars as a wisecracking astronaut (“Double crossing fink!”) who lands on the mysterious Planet X and runs afoul of a zany looking race of aliens who are being menaced by Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster. The aliens call him Monster Zero because “on our planet, everything is numbered.” Uh-huh. A monster is strong enough to destroy your planet and you refer to him as a zero. No wonder he’s pissed.

The Ray Bans wearing extra-terrestrials ask the astronauts to “borrow” Godzilla and Rodan and take them back to Planet X so they can eradicate Ghidrah, and in return they will give Earth “a miracle drug that will cure all disease”. But the aliens have something sinister up their sleeve. They actually want to shanghai the monsters back to their planet and turn Ghidrah loose on Earth so they can take over and rule the world.

The main problem with Godzilla vs. Monster Zero is that most of the movie plays like one of those cut rate Italian sci-fi flicks like The Wild, Wild Planet than an honest to goodness Godzilla movie, and that is not a sterling recommendation. I mean you know the monster effects are gonna be bad, but the half assed spaceship effects are even worse. It doesn’t help that Godzilla doesn’t show up until the 40 minute mark.

The monster battles once they finally get around to them are decent, but are way too brief. The film’s best moment takes place shortly after Godzilla’s first victory over Ghidrah when the G-Man dances just like Michael Flatley. It’s almost worth sitting through this mess just for that moment. Almost.

Actually, this may be Godzilla’s worst. It’s so bad that Adams committed suicide before it was released in America. I can’t say I blame him.

AKA: Invasion of the Astro-Monster. AKA: Monster Zero. AKA: Battle of the Astros. AKA: Invasion of Planet X. AKA: Invasion of the Astros. AKA: The Great Monster War. AKA: War of the Monsters.

Godzilla returns for the fourth time and it’s one of his better outings. This time he’s going head to head against another one of Toho Studios’ creations, the giant killer moth, Mothra. When a giant egg containing Mothra washes up on the Japanese shore, a greedy industrialist tries to make some money off of it. Mothra’s two protectors, the tiny Alien Twins warn that Mothra will be needed to fend off Godzilla’s impending attack, but of course, no one listens. Godzilla shows up and starts doing his thing and soon enough he’s going mano y mano (err… make that mano y motho) with the big ass moth. This flick marked the last time (or until Godzilla 1985 that is) that Godzilla was portrayed as a menacingly evil monster. Starting with the next movie, Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster, he became a defender of Japan and the hero of children.

AKA: Godzilla vs. The Thing.

Godzilla’s second rendezvous with Japan is notable for being the first film in which Godzilla goes toe to toe with another giant sized monster; in this case, the spiny backed Anguirus. Toho Studios rushed it out a mere six months after the success of the first Godzilla movie (and it shows) figuring that two times the monsters would be two times the fun. Not necessarily so, but the monster battle scenes are pretty entertaining.

Unfortunately Godzilla knocks the snot out of Anguirus about halfway through the movie, which leads to the tedious finale in which the Japanese Air Force bombs the shit out of the G-Man for what seems like hours.

Strangely enough, during the film’s initial release in America, Godzilla was given a new name, Gigantis either because the American producers were too cheap or too stupid to use the copywrited Godzilla name. In fact the American dubbing (which like in all of the G-Man’s movies is pretty hideous) is so inane that it often confuses the names of the two monsters, sometimes calling Godzilla Anguirus and vice versa. (They even give Godzilla’s patented roar to Anguirus in some scenes as well!) The filmmakers also made subtle changes to Godzilla’s suit, giving his eyes a squintier Clint Eastwood look that gives him a real sense of menace.

Although the monster mashing is more than adequate, the constant narration, lame dialogue, and woefully weak ending wear thin on the nerves. This movie was also notable for being Godzilla’s last film in black and white. (I always thought he looked cooler in black and white.) His next stop was fighting America’s reigning monster, King Kong.

AKA: Gigantis, the Fire Monster.

Nobody was quite prepared for what Toho Studios unleashed upon the world in the mid 50’s. Godzilla, an enormous reptilian monster ran rampant through downtown Tokyo destroying everything in its path with its massive feet, destructive tail and atomic fire breath. A classic was born. The obvious symbolism was the A Bomb that had ravaged Japan just a decade earlier, but the big innovation was a man in a monster suit wrecking model cities. Godzilla, the character almost overnight became a legend. The movie he inhabits not so much. Whether viewed in its original Japanese form, Gojira, or as most will remember it in it’s Americanized incarnation with Raymond (Perry Mason) Burr shoddily edited in, Godzilla remains a seminal monster movie because of the MONSTER. The effects are fantastic and Godzilla is empowered with a real sense of menace and dread, something that the later sequels would greatly diminish. It takes way too long for Godzilla to rear his ugly head (you have to wait till about 45 minutes into the movie) and you could really care less about the drama involving actors not appearing in rubber suits whether they are American or Japanese, but the scenes where Godzilla rampages through the city are unforgettable.

AKA: Gojira.

Some purists were pissed at this movie because King Kong was played by a man in a suit, but if you’re a die hard Godzilla fan, you won’t care. It’s his first movie in color and it’s one of Godzilla’s best.

The movie opens up with a random ass quote from Hamlet (!) then the story begins. Godzilla busts out of an iceberg and sets his sights on Japan. King Kong on the other hand is living it up on “Pharaoh Island” and fights it out with a giant octopus. He gets shanghaied by two scheming publicity men, but wakes up aboard their boat and goes storming off to Japan where he derails a train. The army dopes him up with some berries and airlifts him over to Mt. Fiji to battle Godzilla apeo y reptilo.

Universal released this here in the states and added scenes with American actors, put in their usual Creature from the Black Lagoon music and changed the ending so that Kong wins. (Of course Godzilla wins in the Japanese version.) Godzilla specialist Inoshiro Honda directed. Toho Studios later gave Kong his own semi-sequel, King Kong Escapes.

A Japanese inventor creates a silver faced Ultraman wannabe robot named Jet Jaguar. When the leaders of Seatopia, an Atlantis-esque underwater kingdom get pissed at Japan for setting off A-Bombs in their living rooms, they send Megalon, a roach like monster with spiked arms to level Japan. Then, it’s Jet Jaguar to the rescue! But when another monster, Gigan joins the brawl, Jet beats cheeks to Monster Island to get Godzilla to fight for Japan.

It takes almost an hour for the big man to show up, but once he arrives, the Four Way Monster Brawl is pretty damn great. Unfortunately, way too much time is spent on Jet Jaguar. He even gets his own theme song! Excuse me, but the title is GODZILLA vs. Megalon, and not The Jet Jaguar Show! Godzilla does get to strut his stuff in the final battle by sliding on his tail and drop kicking the hell outta Megalon. At this point Godzilla was strictly for kids, displaying none of the menace and dread he had in his earlier flicks. Also, he DEFENDS Japan, in this one (as well as later entries) and not destroys it.

On the 50th anniversary of the original Godzilla, Toho Studios gave Ryuhei (Versus) Kitamura the reigns for the supposedly final installment in the Godzilla franchise. It features an impressive line up of over fifteen monsters (including Rodan, Gigan, and an all new Ghidrah) and borrows elements from X-Men, Armageddon and The Matrix.

The plot has an alien race coming to Earth to supposedly save it from rampaging monsters, but of course they really just want to take over the world. When they unleash over a dozen monsters worldwide to destroy the planet, the last remaining surviving humans release Godzilla from his icy prison to save the day.

As with most Godzilla movies, the scenes with man in suit monsters are a lot more fun than the ones with actual humans, but at least there are some fun action scenes, including a pretty nifty motorcycle chase. It’s way too long (over two hours), but the scenes of monster mashing carnage kick ass. They’re some of the best in the entire series, the best being a four way brawl on top of Mt. Fuji.

The best part of the movie though is seeing Godzilla kick the shit out of that crappy CGI Godzilla from the American remake. That alone is worth full admission price!

Music by Keith Emerson.

The creators of Independence Day ruined the all American holiday, so I didn’t put it past them to piss all over Japan’s national treasure.

Nuclear tests mutate a Komodo Dragon (Godzilla) who grows 100 feet tall and stomps on New York City. When she (That’s right, SHE! We find out Godzilla is a GIRL!!! NOOO!!!) disappears halfway through the movie, her litter of Godzillettes take center stage and the movie rapidly goes into the shitter and becomes another Jurassic Park rip off, as the baby Godzukis look suspiciously a lot like raptors. When Ferris Bueller kills all the little bastards, The G-Man… err… Woman comes back for revenge. The ending even has the cajones to rip off the 1976 King Kong remake!

Too bad too, cuz the opening scenes have promise and the cast (including Hank Azaria, and Jean Reno) seem game. The best bit is by Michael Lerner as Mayor Ebert(!), who with his assistant Gene, give everyone the thumbs up! Toho Studios quickly got the rights back from us greedy Americans and brought Godzilla back to Japan where HE belongs for more entertaining and official Godzilla movies.

A meteor lands in Japan carrying Ghidrah, a three headed dragon. Meanwhile, a princess is possessed by a Martian being who tries to warn Japan. Godzilla and Rodan show up and only want to fight each other, but Mothra (along with his pals the miniature alien twins) convince them they should join up to fight Ghidrah. The final battle is great, but the subplot about assassins trying to kill the princess slows things down. Director Inoshiro Honda (who also did the original Godzilla) again shows his flair for directing man in suit monsters. Akiko Wakabayashi, who plays the princess, was also in You Only Live Twice.