Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
Can Godzilla defeat the evil Megaguirus?
Have you ever wanted to see a man in a monster suit reenact that Nic Cage scene where he’s shouting about bees? Why, do I have a gem of a present for you today! Continuing our trek through the Millennium series we come to an interesting stage where things start to get a little goofy - and yet it still is technically classic horror-scifi to boot. Get out your G-discs and put on your G-helmet, tonight we fly on in to Godzilla vs Megaguirus: The G Annihilation Strategy.
Yes, I know that after tag isn’t in the main title header up top - call it laziness that I don’t want to have to repeat it, or just the fact that it doesn’t always have the subtitle on there when you look it up despite it being a pretty dang gnarly thing. It also really encompasses the plot and the seemingly constant capacity to apply the letter G in front of everything - G network, G-chasers, G-regenerator, G-plan, G-force, you get the idea. Godzilla has ceased being viewed as a force of nature for this one - it’s a distinct military view of the threat he poses to the energy needs of Japan, as he constantly keeps showing up every time Japan tries to come up with a powerful energy source. Nuke plants? Godzilla’d. Fancy new plasma energy? Godzilla’d. If it isn’t green, then the big G is coming to eat yah. Due to this, the government has gotten some Godzilla focused teams together - a research, statistic, and defense - to try and deal with the inevitable occurrence of a Godzilla attack. Their plan this time - to weaponize a black hole to either kill Godzilla or at least lock him away in the black hole. Their test shows this might not be the best idea, although none of them seem to think such, when it seems to mutate a bug to abnormal size. When a kid brings an egg with him to Tokyo and dumps it in the sewer, it causes an escalation of mega-sized bugs, which only further complicates when they start mingling about and being a nuisance to Godzilla. Will the black hole plan work? Will the giant bugs be more of a problem than Godzilla?
This is another situation of me watching a dubbed version - which again I’m perfectly okay with. It helps me focus on the movie when my eyes are on it, and it also means that if there’s talking and I look away for something - like to grab lunch or dinner or something - that I can still hear and understand whats going on. Of course, the emoting behind the voices seems fine enough, although at times deliveries can be a bit plain or perhaps feel a bit unnatural given some of the dialogue - but at the same time, I don’t know how you really make designing a miniature black hole cannon to sound natural. Body language is pretty good for the most part, albeit the lead ladies facial expressions at time can be a bit hard for me to read - if it’s an actress issue, a directing issue, a cultural issue, or just my general lack of social skills kicking in I don’t know, but it only seem like it’s her that I had this problem with in the movie. The kid character is there, and is generally alright from what I can tell, although I might be slightly colored by the fact I was worried about him becoming a Kenny for the bugs somehow despite not remembering that happening from however long ago it was I last watched this movie.
The monster acting is a bit rough and tumble - sometimes it’s quite good, other times not as much. Some of this comes from the challenger monster being a bug, and therefore not a normal suit monster like most the others. This means for a lot of the time it’s either a computer element (in the case of the little ones) or a rather static creature with a few movement points (such as the big one). They do manage to have some real standout points even within that though - such as the evil smirk the big bug does at one point when fighting Godzilla. Godzilla keeps up on the same rough level as the last movie, although perhaps feeling like the movements have a little less personality at times. There is a few big G double takes, where he shakes his around to knock the cobwebs of concussion out or just out of being mad - I’m not sure which. Like I said, it’s not always as clear this time around as the last one, where it was easy to attach human expression to the monster suit.
Someone’s trying to hit 88.
The suit itself is still look good though. I noticed the red tint at the end of the spines this time whereas I never noticed in the last one it did that. They also had a nice shot from the front that had some pretty good articulation and details of the inside of his mouth at one point. You also get quite a few up-close shots of him in relation to human-size characters. A good chunk of the intro is a soldiers perspective of the G man stomping through town, and it leads to some really cool shots with miniatures and him interacting with miniature buildings as he get’s miffed off at the little humans blasting him with missile launchers. Likewise, the bug suits/props all look quite good and well detailed as well. It’s always kind of neat when they opt to stray from the standard suited-person process, as it lets them get a bit more tricky with things like extra legs, facial designs, and just overall silhouette. Normal people don’t want to be left behind either, with some of them getting some fancy combat suits that include visors, breathers, and built in flotation devices. Really though, outside of the Chaser defense force branch, most of it is just everyday clothes, military attire, or lab attire, so the humans still got a ways to go before they become as interesting as the monster visually.
Effects does a wonderful job here, plenty of lasers and explosions and breaking miniatures all abound. My favorite stuff is probably the opening, as you get some real neat shots of Godzilla from a more impressive perspective. The computer stuff fairs a bit better than it did last time, but still shows some “getting the hang of it” and leaving room for improvement. There’s an underwater shot of ‘zilla swimming about that looks noticeably CG, as do plenty of the shots of the little bugs, but it’s sad to say I’ve seen worse in modern movies (although it’s a bit unfair considering the fact I’ll watch dang near anything). Much improved over the last entry is the compositing of things - things don’t look nearly as stand out “not in the same shot” as the last movie did, and it feels like they put some actual effort into making things blend well this time around. They also tend to do more… interesting we’ll call it options with the camera. An example of this is one that at first confused me but I then realized what it was they were going for - in the final fight between Godzilla and the mega-bug, the frame rate suddenly drops like crazy. Like I said, I was very confused about this until I realized - or at least I think they meant to - make it a noticeable difference to reflect what the bug was seeing. I mean, it was kinda of annoying to have the movie suddenly be all jittery, but at least it seems like a neat thematic move instead of just trying to pad out the run time or something, and it doesn’t do it too much.
Audio is also pretty good here. I mean, again, I can’t talk for the original voice lines or anything, but what I heard was all fine. There was no difficulty in hearing someone talking regardless of the carnage that could be going on, and even things like the monster roaring had distinct sounds to it that indicates to your ears whose being loud. I didn’t really have any of the music stick out into my head this time around, and I wonder if I was just so distracted by the stuff going on on screen that I somehow managed to not notice the classic Godzilla theme pop up at some point, I mean, it’s always there, but perhaps I’m just so used to it now that it doesn’t register compared to the army of bugs and the probably unintended amount of laughter over me watching Godzilla swat at a bunch of annoying bugs and having Cage screaming “not the bees!” on a loop in my head during it. Still, it’s there to support the stuff on screen and not steal the center stage, so it’s doing a fine job of that - and all the background sounds and the likes do a fine job as well in making things not feel too quiet and empty.
That’s no island!
Another fine entry. Perhaps not quite as interesting as the last one, but certainly feels a bit more put together than the last one as well. There’s some fun to be had here - not always intentionally I’m sure - and I had a good time with it. It’s also somewhat fun to see how foundations for things are starting to get lain out for the ones yet to come, so I once again look forward to next week where we tackle yet another and see if just perhaps they keep the improvements going.