All Monsters Attack

Yo, Ishirō Honda is back with a movie about Godzilla! Kinda. It's mostly about Minilla and a little kid. But Haruo Nakajima is, of course, back as Godzilla for the few minutes of original monster footage they shot for this movie. Let's just get to it.

 

If You Haven't Seen it Before

- The opening credits are new, showing monsters doing monster stuff before staff are named. It's fun.

- Children walk down the street singing a song about baby Godzilla, Minilla, before being attacked by a bully named Gabara.

- The main character is a little boy named Ichiro who dreams of going to Monster Island. He spends a lot of time alone as his parents work a lot.

- He grabs a toy from his closet and day dreams about going to Monster Island and watching Godzilla fight Kamacuras and Ebirah in reused footage from Son of Godzilla.

- He falls down a hole and meets Minilla, who literally talks to him about the giant monster Gabara, who is bullying Minilla. Godzilla won't take down Gabara for his son because he thinks Minilla needs to learn to fight his own battles.

- We now rewatch one of the battles between Godzilla and Ebirah, as well as G vs giant monster Kumonga.

- After the stock footage finally, mercifully, ends, Minilla is attacked by Gabara again. Before we get the conclusion of this, Ichiro is grabbed by a legitimately surprising man covered in leaves in the forest.

- Back in the real world, Ichiro has been kidnapped by villains because of a convoluted and stupid reason.

- Stuff happens, and we're back on Monster Island where Gabara and Minilla fight.

- Minilla finally outwits Gabara, and Godzilla comes by to congratulate his child before being ambushed by an angry Gabara.

- He soundly destroys Gabara, throwing him right on his head and neck. Gabara is lucky he doesn't break in half. He runs away.

- Back in the real world, Ichiro uses the lessons he imagined to thwart his own attacks and stand up to his own bully: little boy Gabara.

- Fin.

 

Kaiju Notes

- Gabara sucks.

- I do like Gabara's electric hands powers.

- Gabara also fights like a bully, which is kind of fun. At one point he literally places a hand on Minilla's hand while Minilla helplessly swings and that's pretty cute.

 

Overall, this movie blows. I knew going in that this is generally considered one of if not the worst Godzilla movie, but goddamn was I not prepared. This movie actually actively sucks. It does have a message, which I typically enjoy in my kaiju flicks, but it's surrounded by weird, horrible nonsense. All of the monster battles are the literal figment of a child's imagination, and rather than that being a great excuse to do wild shit you might see in the dreamworld of a kaiju fanatic that is also 9 years old, you get stock footage showing battles we saw several movies ago with about 10 minutes of unique monster action. It's... disappointing, to say the least. When I was a child, my dreams about monster fights would've included alongside Godzilla riding a laser-shark into battle against King Ghidorah, each head holding a sword (all different types, of course) and them having a battle on the surface of Venus, complete with acid volcanoes and traveling lightning storms. But apparently little Ichiro is not the creative type so we get Ebirah and Godzilla playing rock volleyball again. I thought that scene was ridiculous but amusing the first time, I hate it this go round.

The message isn't necessarily a bad one. Ichiro did need a confidence boost and the incredibly annoying Minilla did give him the (fantasy) inspiration he needed to stand up to his own Gabara, but just because a movie might be good for a small and impressionable child does not make it amusing, enjoyable, or good. Skip it unless you're showing it to the children in your lives and also hate them.

Next: Godzilla vs. Hedorah!