Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)


Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, despite its U.S. title, is not a sequel to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.  In fact, that one already had a sequel with Terror of Mechagodzilla, the film that officially ended the original run of Godzilla films in 1975.  Instead, like the big lizard's two previous bouts with King Ghidorah and Mothra, this was another reimagining of previous monsters from those movies, but updated to the 1990s.  

A new agency, codenamed G-Force, has been created as a joint effort between the United Nations and Japan to defend against giant monsters, specifically Godzilla (Kenpachirô Satsuma), with the hope of defeating him one and for all.  In order to do this engineer Kazuma Aoki (Masahiro Takashima) has been given the task of building Garuda, a flying machine to fight Godzilla.  However, by reverse engineering the technology from the salvaged Mecha-King Ghidorah, G-Force has created Mechagodzilla (Wataru Fukuda), a fighting machine capable of going toe-to-toe with the big lizard.

He is not the only one they have to worry about as Rodan, a giant irradiated Pteranodon, is found living on a remote island by a research crew.  They also find an unhatched egg that they think belongs to the same species.  It is brought back to Japan and put in the care of Azusa Gojo (Ryoko Sano), who takes on the role of the surrogate mother.  Only, instead of a flying reptile, what hatches is an herbivorous Godzillasaur that Azusa calls Baby Godzilla ('Hurricane Ryu' Hariken).  It turns out that Baby has a psychic connection with both Godzilla and Rodan, leading to further destruction of Japan as both try to claim the baby dinosaur, while G-Force intends to use the creature to lure Godzilla to a remote location to fight Mechagodzilla. 

A major complaint I have about Godzilla films is that, often, Godzilla seems to only have a cameo role or the monster action is sidetracked by the human drama.  That was definitely the case with Godzilla vs. Mothra, the preceding movie, as it started off as just a Mothra movie that added in Godzilla at the last moment.  That movie was also concerned with getting more women and children into the theater and, as cynical an approach as that sounds, it worked.  It was successful enough to get this movie made which was intended to the last one in the Heisei series.  

The one recurring character, other than Godzilla, is Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka), who once again shows up to do not a whole lot other than discover some crucial information about Baby and his connection to the other creatures.  Original series regular Kenji Sahara and Tadao Takashima, who was in Son of Godzilla, return for small roles in this one.  

Despite Toho trying to dumb down the series like they did with the original Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II reverses that trend a bit.  Rodan's redesign is impressive and quite intimidating.  Mechagodzilla looks like a smoother, more buff version of the original, but I still prefer the 1974 and 1975 designs.  As for Baby, it's the one creature meant to appeal to kids, and does include a cringeworthy sequence of psychic children singing to it, but it is nowhere near as divisive as Minya.  I do agree with one review that stated Baby looks like he is stoned most of the time, but unlike Minya he does serve an important role down the line. 

It is also nice to see a lot of monster fighting going on.  Rodan doesn't serve much purpose other than to remind audiences he exists, but that doesn't mean his presence isn't welcome, as he gets into bouts with both Godzilla and Mechagodzilla, and those two punch it out twice.  The "Super-Mechagodzilla" melding of Garuda and the mech is underwhelming, and left over from when the robot was originally reimagined as a Voltron-like machine, but Mechagodzilla on its own is impressive.  

The film is still cheesy, has some issues in keeping the right tone while feeling heavy-handed in some of its messaging, but nowhere to the level of the previous film.  It is also the last in this series to recycle the old villains, opting with the next to once again try introducing new rivals, something Toho seemed reluctant to do after Godzilla vs. Biollante failed to live up to box office expectations. 

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
Time: 105 minutes
Starring: Masahiro Takashima, Ryoko Sano, Megumi Odaka, Kenpichirô Satsuma, Wataru Fukuda, 'Hurricane Ryu' Hariken
Director: Takao Okawara

 

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