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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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: Terror of Mechagodzilla (dir by Ishiro Honda)

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Megchagodzilla has returned!

The robot version of Godzilla, Mechagodzilla made his debut in 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. In that film, it was revealed that Mechagodzilla was built and controlled by a bunch of aliens who wanted to use him to subjugate humanity so that the aliens could take over the Earth. The real Godzilla put an end to those plans, not only saving the world from an alien invasion but also tossing Mechagodzilla into the ocean.

Unfortunately, it would appear that Godzilla didn’t do a good enough job taking care of his robotic counterpart because, in 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, the aliens are able to resurrect Mechagodzilla and they once again sent it out to destroy humanity, starting with Japan. Working with the aliens is a mad scientist named Dr. Mafune (Akihko Hirata). Mafune’s daugther, Katsura (Tomoka Ai0), is a cyborg who has a mechanical and mental connection to Mechagodzilla. Whenever her eyes glow, Mechagodizlla does something destructive. The aliens team Mechagodzilla up with a new monster, the fearsome Titanosaurus.

Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus work together to once again destroy Japan and it must be said that they appear to be quite capable of doing just that. Say what you will about the special effects in these films, the scene where Mechagodzilla blows up an entire city block does pack a punch. If Mechagodzilla is laser-focused on blowing stuff up, Titanosaurus just seems to be looking for a fight with someone. Titanosaurus is a very enthusiastic monster, like a previously bullied kid who has just hit a growth spurt and now can’t wait to beat up everyone on the playground. Eventually, Godzilla shows up to give Titanosaurus the fight that he’s looking for.

This film is one of the ones where Godzilla is firmly established as being humanity’s champion. The atomic beast who once represented the trauma of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is now a friend to all humans. That said, it’s hard not to notice that it takes Godzilla a while to actually show up. He allows Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus to blow up a lot of buildings and probably kill a lot of people before he finally puts in an appearance and orders them to stop. It’s nice that Godzilla showed up in time to save a group of children from Mechagodzilla but you have to wonder how many of those children are now orphans because Godzilla wasn’t willing to do anything while Mechagodzilla was blowing up apartment buildings.

The majority of this film centers not on Godzilla but instead on some Interpol agents who are trying to figure out what the professor and the aliens are planning on doing. (To me, it seemed pretty obvious that the aliens were planning on using a bunch of giant monsters to destroy humanity but maybe Interpol had some information that I didn’t.) The agents do eventually manage to track down the aliens and the professor. There’s some sub-James Bond style action as the agents attack the evil lair. Despite everything that Interpol does in this film, it’s obvious that Godzilla is man’s only hope.

This was the last of the original Godzilla films. After this film came out, it would be nearly ten years before the monster was revived and returned to once again being a threat to humanity as opposed to being a friend. Sadly, Terror of Mechagodzilla doesn’t feature enough giant monster action. When the monsters are onscreen and fighting, this movie is a lot of fun. Godzilla’s visible frustration with having to deal with Mechagodzilla again is very endearing. Unfortunately, the majority of the film gets bogged down with the humans searching for the bad guys and trying to figure out their extremely simple plot. In the end, the movie leaves the viewer thankful for Godzilla but also frustrated that he didn’t get more to do.

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