GODZILLA VS MEGALON (1973)
Tagline: Titan against Titan! Giant against Giant, in the most spectacular battle yet!!
(Action, Adventure, Family) [PG]
This one is the 13th Godzilla movie in the series. Originally slated to be a Jet Jaguar movie, Megalon was to be the only “enemy” at first. A later version of the script added Godzilla and Gigan because TOHO feared they wouldn’t be able to market the movie to a wide audience without Godzilla. I should also say that there was a G-rated version put out there. The one I watched I am calling R because I highly doubt that a G flick would have that much blood. Bizarrely there is even a scene where some guys are driving a truck with some nude women in the background.
In this one, we’ve got a freakin underground kingdom with a bunch of spaced-out Greek god types running the show. I mean, that isn’t quite what they are, but they look like they were stolen from the dance floor at a senior disco dance tournament. Their hangout isn’t much better, that place seems like it was one of the test sets for Ron Burgundy’s apartment in ANCHORMAN. They send Megalon (basically a giant beetle with drill-like hands) to destroy the surface dwellers because we just are not chill enough or some crap. At some point, this inventor's robot named “Jet Jaguar” talks Godzilla into going to fight Megalon. Jet can be the size of a human or a kaiju, it doesn’t really matter, this movie does what it wants. Megalon also turns out to not be quite bad-a-s enough so Gigan also joins the fight. He’s a really cool-looking monster from space that also fought Godzilla in GODZILLA VS GIGAN.
Strong points – The design for both Gigan and Megalon are pretty freaking great. Out of all the kaiju in the Godzilla series, these two are definitely in my top 10.
Jet Jaguar’s design was meant for kids, so I am not going to harp on that, it is what it is. Godzilla in this looks pretty much the same as has for the past several movies in the Showa era (1954-1975).
The fight scenes are pretty cool in this one, so that was a plus for me. Not amazing, but cool.
I also don’t mind the underground kingdom of Seatopia idea. By the time you get to the 13th movie in any series, you need to be thinking outside the box. Unless it’s FRIDAY THE 13TH…then don’t. You had better just get right back in that box and give us teens at camp getting chased by Jason.
Weak points – The acting in this thing is really rough. Whoever did the voice for the main kid in the English dub didn’t do us any favors.
The soundtrack in this is surprisingly weak and the movie itself should have never been marketed with a poster of Megalon and Godzilla standing on top of the Twin Towers that once dominated the NY skyline.
The cheesy tail slide attack I can handle especially when I was a kid, but shaking hands with Jet Jaguar. NOPE… didn’t like that. Godzilla is almost too human-like in this flick.
The final song in the movie also makes me want to puke every time I hear it.
I can see that they might have just wanted to keep this to a minimum run time, but 81 minutes is excessively short.
I have to admit it, this is not a bad Godzilla film by any means. I have seen some crap that would make your head spin in this series. I like the fact that they went full bore for a kid's movie (post production) but still managed to get in Godzilla getting cut and having blood spewing all over the place, a few intense human fights, and even a scene where a dude just gets cut pretty bad to at least give something for the parents to enjoy as well. Watching this as a kid, it was definitely one of my favorites but again most of this is based on the G-rated version, not the one with the nude photos in the truck.
I am going to go out on a limb and give this thing a 4 out of 7. It’s not perfect by any means, but I thought it was pretty damn fun.
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