• Directed by Kensho Yamashita
• Written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara
• Starring
  • Megumi Odaka
  • Jun Hashizume
  • Zenkichi Yoneyama
  • Akira Emoto
  • Kenpachiro Satsuma

I’m hitting diminishing entertainment returns in my reviews of Godzilla movies, but that’s not surprising; the heisei series of movies took only ten years to run out of steam and finally pull the plug in 1995. (Here’s hoping that the “Millennium” series, if series it be, can find a way around this roadblock.)

After a high of Godzilla vs. King Ghidora, the plotlines became startlingly derivative of the original series in Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2; continuing the downward spiral, Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla is a carbon copy of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2. The similarities are clear in running down the players:

- Godzilla (thank Ra they didn’t forget him in all the rest of the sound and fury)
- the baby Godzilla, which has transformed from a semi-respectable man in suit in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2 to a Pokemon-like urchin in this outing (essentially a reborn Minya from the old series)
- Mogera, a government-constructed anti-Godzilla robot (and the first one to wear horn-rimmed glasses)
- Space Godzilla, the other kaiju thrown into the mix

What’s the deal with Space Godzilla? Well, he’s a Godzilla-esque creature with plexiglass crystals jutting out of his shoulder like lethal football pads. He’s first noticed in deep space, at which point Mogera is sent into space to fight him in the middle of an asteroid field (doesn’t anyone have any honest-to-goodness missiles anymore?); soundly defeated, Mogera manages still to limp home.

Space Godzilla, meanwhile has naturally crashlanded on yet another of the Pacific islands on which the Japanese are always running into kaiju trouble, and even more naturally, it’s the island on which the Jolly Green Giant and Sprout are playing house. Space Godzilla imprisons Little G in a crystalline pit for unknown reasons, causing Godzilla to spend the rest of the movie playing Mel Gibson from Ransom.

Of course, a Godzilla film isn’t a Godzilla film without the puny humans dancing around at his feet, pretending their storylines will in any way affect the outcome. In this installment, jug-eared Miki (Megumi Odaka) has a larger-than-normal role, which is compensated for by giving her the single most awful haircut since the invention of the chomage. She’s involved in one of two rival anti-Godzilla projects, hers being Project T ( for “telepathy”), in which a transmitter fired into Godzilla’s skin is supposed to let her contact him psychically and let him know once and for all that he’s unwelcome in the greater Tokyo area. (He’s not much for taking a hint, that Godzilla.) The other project, naturally, is more of a “stomp him into the ground and salt his fields” solution, one advocated by crusty old hermit Yuki (Akira Emoto) and the Laurel-and-Hardy team of Shinjo and Sato (Jun Hashizume and Zenkichi Yoneyama — Shinjo’s the smart one, in case you’re wondering).

But both plans are interrupted as the Cosmos contact Miki. Remember the Cosmos? The Thumbelinas that tag along with Mothra? Seems that Mothra, still in deep space (where she was headed at the end of Godzilla and Mothra) sent them back on a spiritual mini-Mothra (or something — please don’t make me think about it) to warn Miki of this big threat from space, which was apparently sent here by an alien race that thinks that, once Godzilla is toasted, the earth will be easy pickings. (Again, doesn’t anybody have missiles? I’m thinking eighty ohmygodzillion megatons up an alien’s keister might prove more than an minor annoyance, but what do I know?)

And what, pray tell, is Space Godzilla anyway? The scientists’ best guess is that somehow Godzilla cells got into space (either from Biollante or from Mothra) and wound up fusing with a crystalline entity in a black hole and then being ejected from a white hole as a wholly new mutated creature. How they worked black holes into their hypothesis is beyond me, unless they thought that working in such cool science-fictiony terms would help them get their funding.

All in all, the movie varies between original-but-lame and recycled-but-lame components. We’ve got the possible ghost of a romance sketched in between Miki and Shinjo, we’ve got people all over the place who really don’t tell us why they’re there (Yuki being a good example), we’ve got the requisite handful of gaijins to show UN involvement (including one who’s a dead ringer for Uncle Forry), and we’ve even got a time-killer subplot about the yakuza trying to get their hands on Miki and the Project T apparatus.

The showdown is a virtual ringer for the conclusion of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2, a three-way bout that pretty much levels a city (this time Fukuoka), and in the end even dedicated Godzilla-hater Yuki decides that the Big G ain’t so bad — he may have set the city back to the Stone Age, but at least he’s better than Space Godzilla, right? (I’m surprised Mussolini didn’t try such a tactic to turn the free world to his corner: “Mussolini: Not As Much of a Turd as Hitler.”)

It’s a particularly anemic outing, made even more so by the complete absence of the classic Ikufube theme music (owing to the fact that he had finally retired, turning the music chores over to one Takayuki Hattori), leaving us with a soundtrack that sounds more like an Indiana Jones movie.

I think I need to go re-watch Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah to remind myself of the heights to which Godzilla movies can occasionally attain.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 4 (plus, of course, all the “invisible casualties” in jet fighters, ocean liners, highrise offices, etc.)
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 127
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0