Godzilla Film Review: Godzilla Final Wars (dir by Ryuhei Kitamura)

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars once again reboots the Godzilla franchise.

Godzilla: Final Wars opens with a narrator explaining that a series of environmental disasters have led to giant monsters attacking various cities over the course of the 20th Century. Perhaps the most fearsome of those monsters was a giant dinosaur named Godzilla that breathed radioactive fire. The same environmental disasters that created the monsters also gave rise to a group of mutant humans who had psychic powers. The mutants were recruited into Earth Defense Force to battle the monsters. Godzilla was finally imprisoned in the ice of Antarctica as the result of an attack led by a heroic American Douglas Gordon (Don Frye).

It may seem like Earth is in good hands but, after Gordon is suspended for damaging EDF property during a battle with a monster, the mummified remains of Gigan are found. This somehow leads to an appearance of those two annoying little girls who always follow Mothra around. A battle of good vs evil is coming, they explain. Everyone will have to choose a side. Okay, I choose the side of good. Hey, that was easy!

Soon, aliens arrive. Led by the fanatical Controller (Kazuki Kitamura), they cause all of the other monsters to attack every major city on Earth. Cue scenes of the Statue of Liberty in ruins, the Eiffel Tower getting destroyed, and the Sydney Opera House getting crushed. Almost every monster from every previous films shows up, even the American version of Godzilla! While the members of the EDF attempt to fight the aliens, the monsters appear to be unstoppable. Maybe Godzilla needs to be freed from Antarctica. Too bad the paper pushers at the EDF suspended Major Gordon….

Oh, how I love Godzilla: Final Wars. It’s over two-hours of nonstop action, nonstop monsters, and Kazuki Kitamura giving one of the most insanely over-the-top performances that I’ve ever seen. It’s a big, colorful celebration of the entire Godzilla franchise and it features cameos from every monster that matters. (It also features that lame son of Godzilla but nothing’s perfect.) Ghidorah makes an appearance towards the end. It’s not a Godzilla film without a final battle with Ghidorah.

Godzilla: Final Wars is terrifically entertaining. Surprisingly, it was also the last Godzilla film for ten years. When Godzilla returned, it would again be in an American film. In fact, it would be 12 years before there was another Japanese Godzilla film.

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Godzilla Film Review: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (dir by Masaaki Tezuka)

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

A direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, 2002’s Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. begins with the Shobijin, those two little annoying girls who hang out with Mothra, appearing to a Japanese scientist and his family and explaining to them that Godzilla won’t stop attacking Japan until the government does away with their Mechagodzilla, Kiryu. Kiryu was constructed using the bones of the original Godzilla and, as a result, the current Godzilla is drawn to him.

Instead, the Shobijin suggest that the Kiryu should be tossed in the ocean. In return, the latest incarnation of Mothra will serve as Japan’s champion whenever Godzilla attacks.

So, to make clear, Japan can either be protected by a badass cyborg that was created out of the skeletal remains of the original Godzilla or it can be protected by a giant moth that has to spend time in a cocoon before it can even become an effective monster. And, along with the whole cocoon thing, Mothra also comes with two annoying little sidekicks who are constantly popping up and going on and on about how stupid humanity is.

Now, I don’t know about you but, if I was in charge, I would probably just stick with the cyborg. If nothing else, the cyborg looks like a badass and it can destroy just as much property as Godzilla. The cyborg exists to say, “Hey, Godzilla — you’re not the only pointlessly destructive monster on this planet!” Add to that, the cyborg can be piloted and controlled by humans. The cyborg doesn’t talk back. The cyborg doesn’t tell humanity that everything is their fault. The cyborg can be shut down whenever there’s not a monster attack going on. In other words, get lost, Mothra!

In Tokyo S.O.S., The government of Japan agrees with me, which of course leads to a huge fight between Godzilla, Kiryu, and eventually Mothra. Mothra does that thing where she wraps Godzilla up in string and also where she appears to sacrifice her life. The problem is that, after you see enough of these films, you know that Mothra is always going to sacrifice her life and she’s always going to be reborn.

So, the story isn’t that spectacular. It’s pretty much just Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla all over again. But here’s the important thing: the fights are really cool. Yes, the fights are a bit familiar and there’s nothing about them that will really take you by surprise but, if you just want to watch Godzilla destroy stuff, this film delivers plenty of that.

Tokyo S.O.S. is unique amongst the Godzilla films of its era in that it was a direct sequel as opposed to be a reboot. In fact, it was only the direct sequel of the so-called Millennium Era. The next Godzilla film, Godzilla: Final Wars, would be a reboot and a spectacular one at that. We’ll take a look at it next week.

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Godzilla Film Review: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (dir by Masaaki Tezuka)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Godzilla gets a brand new backstory in 2002’s Godzilla against Mechagodzilla!

That’s not a surprise. At the start of the 21st century, when Toho was still trying to figure out how their biggest star would function in a new world, nearly every Godzilla film was a reboot that pretty much ignored all of the films that came before it, with the exception of the original Gojira. Godzilla against Mechagodzilla opens with Japan being attacked by Godzilla but it’s not the same Godzilla from the original film. That Godzilla actually did die as a result of the Oxygen destroyer. However, its relatives are still out there and occasionally, one will pop up and attack Japan. Japan has gotten a reputation for being cursed.

However, a discovery has been made that could change everything. The skeleton of the original Godzilla has been discovered and it has been used to create a cyborg Godzilla. The cyborg Godzilla is called Kiryu but, in appearance, it’s pretty much just Mechagodzilla all over again. Kiryu is able to defeat the new Godzilla but the battle triggers memories of its former life and soon, it’s going on a rampage of its own. Eventually, being a cyborg, it runs out of power but it’s obvious that Kiryu will need the guiding hand of a human. How about Lt. Akane Yushiro (Yukimo Shaku), who is undeniably talented but whose previous battle against the latest version of Godzilla has left her haunted by guilt and also caused others to doubt her abilities? Can she pilot Kiryu and save Japan from future Godzilla attacks?

Fortunately, Godzilla against Mechagodzilla know what its mission is. It understands that the majority of its audience is watching because they want to see Godzilla use his radioactive breath to destroy things and they want to see Mechagodzilla shoot lasers beams out of his eyes. The movie delivers both of those things, often in spectacular fashion. The special effects are certainly better than the special effects from Godzilla’s earlier Toho films but they still look primitive enough to retain the franchise’s B-movie charm. The film’s battle scenes are truly impressive and live up to the Godzilla name. As for the “human” story, Yumiko Shaku gives a strong performance and is likable as Akane and you actually do want her to get her chance to prove herself. While this film isn’t quite as enjoyably weird as some of the other entries, it’s still an above-average Godzilla film and a worthy chapter in the series. In fact, Godzilla against Mechagodzilla worked so well that the next entry in the series was not a reboot but a direct sequel! We’ll check that out next week.

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (dir by Masaaki Tezuka)

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It has always bothered me whenever a long-running franchise decides that the best way to reboot things is to wipe away its own history.

Consider the James Bond films, in which the current producers apparently decided that Daniel Craig’s grim and whiny interpretation of the character was so definitive that it would be no big deal to wipe all of the previous Bond films out of existence. Sorry, Sean Connery. Sorry, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and even George Lazenby. Sorry, everyone who enjoyed the original Bond films and who enjoys spies who are relatively free of angst and self-pity. Your films are now no longer canon, all because someone thought it would be a good idea for Bond and Blofeld to be brothers.

Consider the DC films, in which there are so many different versions of the same characters floating around that it’s next to impossible to keep straight what is an “official” film and what isn’t. Admittedly, the majority of the DC films weren’t that good but still, there’s just something kind of annoying in the way that franchise in particular tends to just shrug and say, “Okay, that film doesn’t really count.” Own your mistakes.

And then there’s my beloved Halloween franchise, ruined by David Gordon Green’s belief that he was better than the genre. After years of brother/sister drama between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Green simply decided to do away with all of that and, in the process, he made the entire story (and Laurie Strode as a character) far less interesting.

Usually I think of this as being a relatively new phenomena but, as I watched 2000’s Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, I realized that reboots that do away with years of continuity are nothing new. Godzilla vs. Megagurius opens with a narrator literally telling us to forget about all the films that came out after the original Gojira. And we’re also told to forget about the ending of Gojira because that never happened either. The Oxygen Destroyer was not used and Tokyo had to be abandoned. Godzilla survived the end of Gojira and he continues to use Japan as his own personal power source, attacking not only a nuclear reactor but also a plasma reactor. So, sorry, Mothra. Sorry, Rodan. Sorry, all of you fans of Ghidorah. Sorry everyone who enjoyed the classic Godzilla films. We’re now in a universe where none of that happened.

That’s not to say that Godzilla vs. Megagurius is a bad film, of course. The majority of the people who watch these films (and films in general) could hardly care less about continuity. They want to see a fight between giant monsters and they want to hear Godzilla’s roar and this film provides both of them. After Japan attempts to destroy Godzilla with a satellite that shoots — I kid you not — miniature black holes, it finds itself being attacked by prehistoric dragonflys. While Godzilla searches for a new power source, the dragonflys attempt to siphon off Godzilla’s energy for their own uses. As so often happened with these movies, humanity’s attempt to destroy Godzilla actually leads to far more destruction than if they had just left Godzilla alone. It turns out that creating miniature black holes and ripping open the time/space continuum is not the solution to all the world’s problems. It’s the human beings who are ultimately the bigger threat than the giant monsters.

It’s an entertaining film. The Megagurius is a good monster and a worthy opponent to Godzilla. Godzilla does what he does best. The film wiped out a decades worth of continuity but at least it kept the Godzilla roar. In the end, you can’t silence a good giant monster.

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla (dir by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

There’s a giant lizard rampaging through New York, the result of a mutation that happened as a result of being exposed to radiation. The military tries to stop the lizard but it turns out that stopping a giant lizard is not that easy. Scientists try to understand the lizard and how it came to be a destructive giant. The media breathlessly reports from the scene as two wisecracking cameramen do their best to record every second of the mayhem. The reporters call this lizard …. GODZILLA!

But is it Godzilla?

No, it’s not. Oh, it may be called Godzilla. And the movie itself may be called Godzilla. But the creature at the center of the 1998 American film Godzilla is definitely not Godzilla.

Godzilla was released with a great deal of fanfare in 1998, with commercials and toys and a lot of hype. Diddy, back when he was still calling himself Puff Daddy, recorded a song for the soundtrack and upset thousands of Led Zeppelin fans like my Dad who found themselves having to deal with kids who thought Kashmir was called Follow Me. (Diddy singing, “Follow me?” AGCK! How cringey is that!?) But, like many of the film of Roland Emmerich, it’s been almost totally forgotten in the years since.

And why not? It’s a forgettable film. It’s the epitome of an assembly-line action blockbuster, the type of thing that Roland Emmerich is known for. There’s comic relief, in the form of Hank Azaria. There’s a nerdy scientist hero in the form of Matthew Broderick. Broderick’s scientist has an ex-wife and yes, Godzilla’s invasion of New York gives them a chance to get back together. There’s a mysterious Frenchman who is played, somewhat inevitably, by Jean Reno. The Mayor of New York is a fat guy named Ebert (Michael Lerner) and he has an assistant named Gene (Lorry Goldman) and they get a lot of screentime because Emmerich wanted to make fun of two films critics who didn’t care much for his work. In fact, the Mayor and his assistant get so much screentime that it distracts from the rest of the film. Emmerich was directing a multi-million dollar reboot of a beloved franchise and he was more concerned with a petty feud.

He certainly wasn’t concerned with Godzilla. Personally, I like the giant lizard and one of the only effective moments in the film is when the lizard discovers that its children have been killed by the military. But that lizard is not Godzilla and the fact that Emmerich made a Godzilla film without Godzilla indicates that he didn’t really care about the monster or its fans. This film has no love for its source material and that’s a shame. The Godzilla films are fun! And the fact that the majority of the ones made up until the release of this film looked kind of cheap and featured a Godzilla who was obviously a man in a rubber suit only added to the fun. There’s not much fun to be found in this version of Godzilla. The movie looks great without ever making much of an impression.

And you know what? Having gotten this review out of the way, I’m ready to get back to reviewing the true Godzilla films. They may not have cost as much as Emmerich’s film but they’ve got heart.

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (dir by Kensho Yamashita)

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Godzilla!

At the start of 1994’s Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla, our favorite big green radioactive monster isn’t asking for much. Mostly, he just wants to live on his island and be left alone. He’s busy raising Baby Godzilla and he’s minding his own business. That’s one thing that people tend to forget when it comes to Godzilla. With the exception of the very early films, Godzilla is usually just minding his own business until he’s forced to go on a rampage by either aliens or humans. In this film, Godzilla has to deal with both.

There’s a SpaceGodzilla heading towards the Earth. Apparently, Godzilla cells were released into space during the epic battles that were featured in both Godzilla vs. Biollante and Godzilla vs Mothra. Those cells were exposed to the radiation of a black hole and the end result was SpaceGodzilla. SpaceGodzilla is coming to Earth to not only dethrone Godzilla as King of the Monsters but also to transform Earth’s core into a power source that it can use to do whatever it is that SpaceGodzillas do in their spare time.

After being warned by those two annoying little faeries that follow Mothra around everywhere, psychic Miki Saegusa (Megumi Okada) and some members of G-Force head to the island that Godzilla calls home. Unfortunately, the Yakuza follows them because the want to capture Miki so that they can use her psychic powers to control Godzilla and use him to …. well, I don’t know. I mean, yes, Godzilla is an awesome weapon but he’s really big and there’s always a lot of collateral damage whenever he gets into a fight and it seems like using him to commit any sort of Yakuza-style crimes would be a bit counter-productive. I mean, you can’t really extort businesses if they all get destroyed by Godzilla, can you? Plus, I just don’t see Godzilla agreeing to chop off the tip of his finger or get all of those Yakuza tattoos.

But listen, I’m thinking too hard about the plot here. Yes, there’s some stuff that goes on with the humans but that’s all forgotten as soon as SpaceGodzilla lands and abducts Baby Godzilla. Grown-up Godzilla is out for vengeance and it leads to some very dramatic fights. This film gives us a chance to see Godzilla fight, more or less, himself and it’s an entertaining sight. This is a bit of a campy film, even by Godzilla standards. It even ends with a warning that SpaceGodzilla might return if human don’t stop polluting space. (Uhmm …. talk to Mothra, she’s the one who sent all those cells up there.) But the important thing is that the battles are fun to watch and Baby Godzilla is adorable.

Who needs the Son of Godzilla when you’ve got this?

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (dir by Takao Okaware)

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Mechagodzilla is back!

Well, not quite. While 1993’s Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II does indeed feature a giant robotic Godzilla who gets into a battle with the real Godzilla, this Mechagodzilla is not the same Mechagodzilla who appeared in the previous Mechagodzilla film. (Maybe I just like typing Mechagodzilla, who knows?) Instead, this Mechagodzilla is a robot that was built by G-Force, the military branch of United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center. (Booo! Thanks for wasting our tax money, UN!) This Mechagodzilla has been built out of parts left over from Mechaghidorah and it exists not to conquer the world but to protect it.

Wow, that was an exhausting paragraph to write. On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that the Heisei era Godzilla films actually made an attempt to maintain a consistent continuity. On the other hand, it’s difficult to keep track of all of these different monsters and robots. I have to admit that trying to follow the plots of these movies always tends to make my ADD go crazy. Really, the important thing is that Godzilla fights a giant robot version of himself and Rodan helps out!

That’s right. Everyone’s favorite Pterodactyl shows up in this film. (The previous film in the franchise reunited Godzilla with Mothra so it just makes sense that Rodan would eventually return.) Godzilla gets upset when he discovers that Rodan has a Baby Godzilla egg in her nest and, after an absolutely adorable mini-Godzilla hatches from the egg, the two of them fight over him. However, Godzilla and Rodan later team up to battle Mechagodzilla. The monsters may not like each other but they get even more annoyed with robot versions of themselves. One thing that I really appreciate about the Godzilla films of the 80s and 90s is that they show just how exhausting it is for these monsters to constantly have to fight each other. Godzilla and Rodan are both exhausted towards the end of this movie. At one point, it appears that Rodan makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Godzilla and I have to admit that I got surprisingly emotional at that point. But then I remembered that Rodan was going to show up in a later movie and immediately start fighting Godzilla again. Seriously, monsters are like cats when it comes to showing each other appreciation.

Anyway, the main attraction here is Baby Godzilla, who is absolutely adorable in a way that horrific-looking Son of Godzilla never was. It helps that Baby actually looks like Godzilla as opposed to looking like the bastard monster child of Godzilla’s mailman. There’s an awe inspiring scene where Baby Godzilla runs up to Godzilla and we see that Baby Godzilla is barely the size of grown Godzilla’s big toe. It’s both a cute scene and a reminder that Godzilla is beyond huge.

This was an entertaining entry in the Godzilla franchise. The plot is less important than the battles and the cuteness of Baby Godzilla. Try all you want, G-Force. WE LOVE GODZILLA!

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (dir by Kazuki Omori)

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Godzilla has been erased from time …. but now, King Ghidorah is here!”

Whoops! I guess you all shouldn’t have traveled back in time and kept that dinosaur from mutating into Godzilla then!

1991’s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah was the 18th film in the Godzilla franchise and, because the Back To The Future franchise was very popular in Japan at the time that the film was made, it has a plot that revolves around time travel. A group called The Futurians appear in 1990s Japan. They explain that, by the year 2204, Godzilla will have destroyed all life in Japan. However, they have a plan. They’ve built a time machine and they will be going back to 1944 so that they can remove Godzilla from his island home before the nuclear testing begins. For some reason, the Futurians take a few people from the 90s back with them.

After witnessing a dinosaur stepping on a World War II American army platoon, the Futurians arrange for the dinosaur to be transported to the Bering Strait, where it won’t get doused with radiation. Meanwhile, they secretly leave behind three adorable baby dragons that, once nuclear testing begins, will end up being transformed into King Ghidorah.

It turns out that Futurians are liars! I’m shocked too. In 22o4, Japan is actually the most powerful country in the world and it is so economically strong that America, Russian, and Europe are dependent upon it for their survival. The Futurians were just jealous of what a great country Japan was destined to become so they decided to get rid of Godzilla and instead allow King Ghidorah to destroy the country.

Now, if the Futurians were smart, they would have actually destroyed the dinosaur. Instead, they just sent it to the Bering Strait. And if the Futurians were really smart, they wouldn’t have allowed people in 1991 to know what they were doing. To be honest, all of the mistakes made by the Futurians were self-inflicted. By taking people from the 90s back to the past and letting them see where the dinosaur was sent, they basically ensured that those people would immediately go to the Bering Strait in 1991 and give the dinosaur a dose of radiation so that it would become Godzilla and then battle Ghidorah….

WHAT!?

Yeah, I know. It makes no sense. This is one of the least logical Godzilla films that I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something. Godzilla vs Biollante was loved by critics but it was considered to be a disappointment at the box office. For the follow-up, the producers not only brought back a classic Godzilla opponent (and I did smile when the three-headed Ghidorah showed up because he really was the most awesome member of Godzilla’s supporting cast) but they also came up with a plot that was considerably more juvenile than the previous film. The end result is a film that makes no sense from a narrative point of view but it does at least feature a few good fights between Godzilla, Ghidorah, and a robot version of Ghidorah. And it was also a film that did well enough at the Japanese box office to guarantee that Godzilla would return.

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla vs Biollante (dir by Kazuki Omori)

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1989’s Godzilla vs Biollante, Godzilla returns and gets into a fight with a giant plant named Biollante. Created by mixing plant cells with Godzilla cells and the cells of one human who was killed in a terrorist attack, Biollante has the body of a monster, the head of a giant rose, and the soul of a human. In fact, because her cells were used to help create Biollante, the late Erika Shiragami (Yusko Sawaguchi) can telepathically communicate from inside of Billante.

Now, you might be tempted to laugh at all of that but, silly origin story aside, Biollante is actually a wonderful creation and a fierce competitor to Godzilla. As Biollante was created using DNA that Godzilla left behind during his previous rampage of Tokyo, Godzilla and Biollante have a bit of a mental connection. One could even argue that this film features Godzilla fighting a mutated version of himself. (This was a theme to which many of the future Godzilla films would return.) Biollante is not only capable of wrapping monsters, things, and people in its tendrils but it’s also implied to literally be immortal. Damaging Biollante just causes it to release spores that presumably will lead to the creation of a new Biollante.

How did Biollante come into existence? As usual, it’s all the fault of the government and the corporations. Following Godzilla’s previous rampage in Japan, the government of the Middle Eastern nation of Saradia demanded some of Godzilla’s cells so that they could experiment with creating plant life that could survive in the desert. Meanwhile, an American company called Bio-Major decided that it wanted the cells for itself and they even sent over terrorists to blow up a Saradian lab, leading to the death of Erika and the apparent madness of her father, Dr. Genichiro Shiragami (Koji Takahashi). Dr. Shiragami fused Erika’s cells with the cells of one of the Godzilla plants and Biollatne was created….

Yeah, it doesn’t always make a lot of sense. That’s to be expected of a Godzilla film, though. The important thing is that, no matter how ludicrous the plot, the cast delivers their lines with enough skill and conviction that the viewer is willing to accept what’s being said without worrying too much about the logic behind it. There’s definitely a political subtext here for those who want to find it. Japan once again finds itself saving the world from the mistakes made by America and, this time, the Middle East. For Japan, every Godzilla rampage is a tragedy. For America and the rest of the world, it’s an economic opportunity. Just as the rest of the world reacted to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by saying, “Cool, we’ve got to figure out how to do that!,” the world reacts to over 30 years of Godzilla-led death and destruction by trying to figure out how to create their own Godzilla.

There’s a lot going on in Godzilla vs Biollante. Psychic Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka) makes her first appearance in the Godzilla franchise. There’s a fear assassin named SSS9 (Majot Bedi) who pops up throughout the movie so that he can shoot people. There are scenes of corporate espionage and car chases and action sequences featuring a lot of gunfire. This is one of the more violent and fast-paced Godzilla films that I’ve watched. In the end, though, the main attraction is watching Godzilla battle a giant plant and both Godzilla and Biollante acquit themselves well. It makes for an exciting film, one that feels worthy of starring the King of the Monsters.

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Horror Film Review: Godzilla 1985 (dir by R.J. Kizer and Koji Hashimoto)

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Nine years after The Terror of Mechagodzilla, Godzilla finally returned to Japanese movie screens in The Return of Godzilla!

One year later, Raymond Burr joined him when The Return of Godzilla was released in the United States as Godzilla 1985.

The film’s plot is a simple one, though it does have an interesting subtext. Godzilla is once again roaming the planet and, after spending the last few years as humanity’s champion, he is once again destroying everything in his path. (This is a rare later Godzilla film that features only Godzilla. Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and that weird armadillo that always used to follow Godzilla around, none of them are present. The son of Godzilla is not mentioned, to the regret of no one.) Looking to prevent a mass panic, the Prime Minister of Japan tries to cover up the news of Godzilla’s return. But when a Russian submarine is destroyed by Godzilla and the Russians blame the Americans and bring the world to the verge of atomic war, the Prime Minister is forced to reveal the truth. The Super X, an experimental new airplane, is deployed to take Godzilla out but it turns out that Godzilla is not that easy to get rid of.

Now, as I said, there is an interesting subtext here. If the first Godzilla films were all about the trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this version of Godzilla is all about being trapped between the whims of two super powers. For the most part, Godzilla only attacks Japan. At the time this movie came out, he had been attacking Japan for nearly 30 years and the rest of the world was content to allow Japan to deal with the consequences alone. However, when Godzilla sinks that Russian sub, both the Russians and the Americans blame each other and bring the world to the brink of annihilation. Japan, like the rest of the world, finds itself caught in the middle. In the end, it’s up to Japan to not only defeat Godzilla but to keep the Americans and Russians from blowing up the rest of the world. Godzilla may be bad, this movie tells us, but he’s nowhere near as bad as the idiots with all of the atomic missiles.

Of course, when The Return of Godzilla came to America, extra scenes were shot to make it clear that America had Japan’s back. For that reason, Raymond Burr returns as journalist Steve Martin. Martin is called in to share his first-hand knowledge of what Godzilla is capable of. One has to wonder who thought that was a good idea as Martin basically comes across as being a grouchy crank who just wants to tell everyone to get off his lawn. As opposed to the first Americanized Godzilla film, which was edited to make it appear as if Burr was actually talking to characters from Gojira, Godzilla 1985 just features a lot of scenes of Burr staring at a screen in the Pentagon and making ominous comments about what Godzilla is capable of doing. It’s a wasted cameo but I guess the film’s American distributors didn’t have faith that Godzilla could pull in the audiences on his own.

Fortunately, Raymond Burr’s time-consuming cameo can’t keep this film from being a lot of fun. It’s a Godzilla film, after all. Godzilla stomps on a lot of buildings and breathes a lot of fire and wisely, the film doesn’t wait too long before allowing him to go on his rampage. After spending several films as an almost comic character, this film reminds audiences that Godzilla was always meant to be frightening. Of course, lest anyone take this film too seriously, the size of the Super X changes from scene to scene, depending on which miniature was being used. Godzilla loses his temper and falls into a volcano but there’s never any doubt that he’ll be back. You can’t stop Godzilla!

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