Terror of Mechagodzilla
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Movie Reviews of Terror of Mechagodzilla
Movie Review: The Man, The Myth, The Legend
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a godzilla fan when they used to come on fox 5 before kung fu theatre on saturdays. I was excited when toho put both the uncut japanese and the english versions on the same dvd. The dvd is put together very well. The picture quality is excellent, sound is excellent and the special features are excellent for a godzilla dvd.Movie Review: Last of the Showa's
Summary: 5 Stars
The first, or Show, series ends with this classic battle between Godzilla and his strongest enemy ever - Mechagodzilla-I. The Masterwork packaging is perfect and the remastering is wonderfull, as is having both the Dubbed and Japanese versions of the film. This is a great bargain for a Kaiju classic.Movie Review: WOW
Summary: 5 Stars
This video looks GREAT! The picture and sound are restored and look amazing - probably better than it did when it was released to theaters originally. Nice fight scenes with Titanosaurus, Mechagodzilla, and Godzilla plus the evil black hole aliens.Movie Review: TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA
Summary: 5 Stars
This version is the best I've seen i reactamend GODZILLA FANS to get the comeplete box series 6 movie comes in the box set they are all great.Movie Review: Violent, weird, campy, grim, and kitschy
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not sure how many more adjectives can describe this film. In what is a complete departure from the previous ten films in the Showa series, Terror of Mechagodzilla offers complex characters (at least in Godzilla movie terms), a brooding score by Akira Ifukube, and a sense of human tragedy. The plot concerns a disgraced scientist who agrees to help a group of aliens destroy the world with Mechagodzilla and a dinosaur called Titanosaurus after the aliens "save" his daughter's life by turning her into a cyborg. Yeah.
From a technical standpoint, the film is pretty well-made. Ishiro Honda and Akira Ifukube both returned to the series after they last collaborated on Destroy All Monsters in 1968, so the film "feels" more elaborate than basically all of the 70s films. Their returns are very much welcomed, as previous director Jun Fukuda lacked Honda's artistic touch when it came to kaiju films. Terror of Mechagodzilla has several very striking scenes in it, namely Godzilla's first appearance (which is absolutely brilliantly filmed), the destruction of Tokyo by Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus, and Titanosaurus rising out of the water at the film's start.
For a Showa era Godzilla film, Terror of Mechagodzilla is a pretty bleak affair, probably due to Yukiko Takayama's script (most of the previous films had been written by Senichi Sekizawa, who brought a sense of humor and fun to the series). Suicides, shoot-outs, love affairs, espionage, graphic surgeries, and even human slavery are tossed about in the film, making it the most serious entry in the series since Mothra vs. Godzilla eleven years earlier; the difference is that Mothra vs. Godzilla wasn't downright macabre like this film is. The cyborg Katsura, as played memorably by Tomoko Ai, is easily one of the most tragic characters in a Godzilla film. Themes of dehumanization are constantly brought up, as she struggles to find some sense of morality and loyalty (either to the humans or the aliens) during all the chaos.
Unfortunately, the camp elements of the Showa series also rear their ugly head and clash with the dark seriousness of the film; obviously. Once again, aliens are involved in a plot to take over the world, the same aliens, in fact, from the previous film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (although here they don't turn into apes when they die). We can tell they're aliens because they wear silver jumpsuits and silly helmets straight out of an Ed Wood movie. Dr. Mafune is played to extreme camp by series regular Akihiko Hirata, who would unfortunately die just before the Heisei series was kicked off. While Godzilla himself is a bit more serious this time around, he still has the goofy "muppet" look that was left over from the previous two films. Toho would have been wise to update his costume, because those puffy dorsal spikes just don't look good. The monster fight scenes play the same as most Showa films, with the monsters fighting the way humans would, though it is nice to see Godzilla fight two bad guys at once.
Despite being one of the better films of the late Showa era, Terror of Mechagodzilla became the worst-grossing Godzilla film to date, not even selling a million tickets in its native Japan. Worse still was the way the film was hacked up for its American release. When Godzilla waded off into the sunset at the end, he was going into a nine-year hiatus and would not return until the excellent reboot Godzilla 1985 (released in Japan in 1984). Despite its box office failure, Terror of Mechagodzilla is an oddly engaging, if extremely flawed, kaiju film. The Classic Media DVD is pretty much the only version of it worth buying, as it finally restores the film to its original state and fixes many continuity errors and plot holes in the US version. Recommended, overall.