Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah (2001)

[abraxas]

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack is a 2001 kaiju (Japanese giant monster) film co-written and directed by Shūsuke Kaneko. It was the twenty-fifth film to be released in the Godzilla film series. This is the 11th film to feature Mothra, 6th to feature King Ghidorah, and 3rd to feature Baragon. It is part of the Millennium series (1999-2004) and is a direct sequel to the original Godzilla.




Wow, just when you think a franchise couldn't go any further downhill they make another film which reduces it to a stinking pile of dog poop. This is by far the worse Godzilla movie that has been made. Lets start with the horrid look of the monsters in this film, I stated in another review that some Godzilla films in the franchise are only saved by the battles and the look of Godzilla, well with this film we don't even have that crutch.




Mothra actually gets a pretty decent make over, with a few exceptions, several shots of Mothra flying were done with computer graphics, they looked like crap........there is just something so wrong about using CGI in a Godzilla film.





King Ghidorah looks horrible in this film, particularly in the beginning of the film, its only after the transformation (having absorbed Mothra's life-force) does he start to look acceptable, but even then, its not all that great looking. For one thing they changed his three faces, the special effects guy wanted to have Varan as one of the monsters who battles Godzilla, but the studio protested, he therefore changed how Ghidorah looked, making it more like Varan.

As for Baragon, he always looked stupid.





Not only did they change their appearances, they also changed their back stories. Ghidorah is no longer a creature from space, but a dragon and a guardian of the earth, he is no longer evil, and he is a lot smaller then normal. This is because the original idea was to have enemies that were much smaller then Godzilla, thus making it seem more like a challenge to defeat him. Since Toho rejected using the original planned characters, the effects guy compensated by making Ghidorah and Mothra themselves much smaller.


Now lets us discuss the pitiful excuse for a Godzilla that appears within this stink fest, to put it clearly.......Godzilla looks absolutely fucking horrible. His neck is way too long, he barely has shoulders, he has a double chin and is hunchbacked and dumpy, oh yeah.....and white eyes? Godzilla's origins are also altered, he is now a creature possessed by the spiritual essences of those who died during the war in the pacific.





The film is full of cameos of actors from previous Godzilla films, so many in fact that its almost as if they spend too much time worrying about who was going to make a surprise appearance in the film, time which they should have used to work on the look of the monster characters, this film is absolutely forgettable.......

1 roar out of 5

[GL]

I'm sorta torn on this one. I’ve never called it a Millennium Godzilla film, the new backstory and self-contained nature, since this one never references Megaguiras nor does Kiryu talk about this one, so I’ve always figured this one was a one-off. There’s also the fantasy elements strongly present in here, from the tone of the monsters to the talk of myths and legends speaks highly of this being more fantasy-inspired than straight-up science fiction like the others.

I’m kinda torn as well on Godzilla. The face is perhaps the best of his incarnations, looking truly like a dinosaur than any other time in his history, and those cold, dark gray eyes are truly chilling, but like you said, the rest of the costume is an aberration and utterly terrible-looking.

The less said about Mothra, the better. I’ve never liked it, it’s defeated easily so that’s a strong point I have with it, but the CGI is sucjh a disgrace to the original I can’t even speak any further on it.

Ghidora’s new back-story is nice, as long as you forget the previous versions. I know it’s supposed to be taking on the role of Orrochi from the Yamato Takeru story, and the fact that it provide the big finale battle in the middle of the city is a good plus.

I’ve always had a thing for Baragon, he’s, in my opinion, the best of the original monster costumes and his design always struck me as cool, but here it’s a travesty. The costume redesigns are a joke and the battle it puts up with Godzilla is pathetic due to the mismatch and it’s utterly suicidal attempt to take on such a bigger, stronger, smarter opponent, and it’s demise is purely happenstance.

So, it’s got a little bit I like, a little bit I don’t like.

[abraxas]

I just cant like Baragon he looks so silly

[GL]

Baragon has always had a special place, mainly because Frankenstein Conquers the World was, right after Rodan and Godzilla vs Mothra, the first giant monster movie I saw as a kid and so it's stayed with me incredibly well. He was kinda cool-looking, he had an incredible fight in the forest, and he has the single best costume the studio has ever done. It hides the actor so well you can't tell it's being done by a person, the flexibility to enable it to stand on two legs or four is a good plus and he's got one of the greatest backstories into his creation of all of the monsters. Then you add in the impressive fighting tactics (the lunging jump/tackle and the flame ray) allowing him to put up a good fight, and he won me over big time.

[abraxas]

Have to admit that I have not seen Baragon in the Frankenstein one, I have it downloaded but have not watched it. Perhaps I should, maybe it will endear the character to me, but that would be quite a feat.

[GL]

Well, like I said earlier, it was one of the first films I saw so as a young kid, he stuck with me a lot more than having first seen it now. I've just always liked him, though perhaps the best part about him, and one I forgot to mention in the other post, is that he's got a much better roar in FCTW than he does in GMK. The one in GMK is just pathetic and adds to my contempt for it in that film, but he's got a much better, deeper and throatier roar in FCTW and looks and moves much better, so it won me over there as a kid.