Director: Jun Fukuda
Year: 1973
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Gojira tai Megaro
Genre: Kaiju
Plot:
Following a series of Earthquakes, an inventor and his friend decide to use the opportunity to use his newly-invented robot Jet Jaguar to investigate what’s going on, but the robot is targeted by mysterious thugs and stolen from their possession. When it’s revealed the thugs are agents from the undersea kingdom of Seatopia to guide their monstrous insect guardian Megalon on a rampage across the surface world in retribution for what happened to them centuries ago. Realizing what’s going on and regaining control of Jet Jaguar, he’s sent to Monster Island to bring Godzilla to the mainline to defend the world, and with everything happening against them forces the Seatopians to bring in space monster Gigan to team with Megalon to fight back against the heroic pair.
Review:
While on the weaker side, there are some positive points to this one. Most of that is based on the monster action which features more action than anything else in the franchise until this point. With plenty of scenes involving the humanoid robot interacting with his owner and friends performing various tricks or being taken by the rival agents for use in helping Megalon interact in the surface world better as a guide. This allows for plenty of action as they encounter the military and go on a rampage which might get knocked down slightly due to the use of stock footage but the quantity here is what’s important as that carries on throughout the rest of the film. From the deranged Megalon running wild in the countryside and his attack on the dam where he interacts with the miniature buildings affecting the human drama has a lot to like. The final battle and how it gets started with the four monsters coming together through several different means is quite fun, much like the actual battle where the extended sequence takes up the entire second half of the film letting the various personalities of the monsters come to the forefront in several exquisite scenes with taunting, exclamations, and physical signs of disappointment or excitement based on how the battle is going. Given the two new monsters look decently enough for what they are as a more child-friendly tone, a still-impressive returning Gigan, and plenty of cheesy concepts in play, there’s enough to give this one some positive points.
There are some pretty big issues here that hold it down. While the story itself has some decent elements at play with the setup of the underground community trying to get back at mankind for continued underground nuclear tests with a monster guardian figure of theirs, the way it goes about it is quite awkward and bizarre without much build-up throughout. Setting up the undersea kingdom as a fallen community that had survived being sunk beneath the ground thousands of years ago and giving everything with only a minor sweep of the brush about the history they faced and treatment that ultimately requires monster intervention is a bit undercooked beyond just providing the basic framework of a workable story. It’s far too concerned with the antics of the inventor, his friend, and his son which takes up far more of the running time as there’s only one scene in the kingdom that denotes the creature awakening. This leads to a decidedly obvious kid-friendly tone throughout here involving the kid being subjected to a lot of preferential treatment to be the savior of the day or the main focus of everything as he gets the majority of the screen time here doing nothing but playing with toys, mugging for the camera, or the general smugness he exhibits despite being kidnapped by thugs which makes him the central figure that gives everything the kind of low-intensity tone it might not be inviting to most out there.
Regardless of how it comes off for the viewer, it’s hard to overcome the outright lack of special effects on display which is the main culprit with this one. The main figure here is Godzilla himself, with one of the worst costumes in the series featuring a simple body shape, overinflated back fins, and a compressed face that looks like a muppet alongside the oversized eyes that provide a cute look rather than a dinosaurian creature. It works in the context of the film but it’s such a departure from the rest of the series that it looks quite ugly, especially with the style of performance making him look far sillier than expected due to the perky skipping walk Godzilla undergoes while attempting to arrive at the scene of the fight or perform a flying dropkick by sliding across the countryside on his tail that looks hysterically funny if outright goofy. That continues with the parade of stock footage on display that is obvious from the moment it’s included due to the changing landscapes or tinted background time of day so it becomes laughable how this comes off at times. With a dearth of miniature work or transitional city rampages which is accomplished instead by this kind of stock footage, sloppy storytelling, and a generally silly musical score that gives everything a low-budget feel more than anything, these all manage to bring this one down.
Overview: */5
A highly underwhelming genre effort that has some likable moments, this one isn’t as outright terrible as it’s made out to be but does feature some genuine issues that bring it down considerably. This is really only for those who are fine with the issues present or are stalwart defenders of the heroic Godzilla angle while most others out there should heed extreme caution with this one.
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