Lawbolisted Powerful

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Leofwine_draca Halfway through the '70s, this was the point where the Godzilla series finally ran out of steam - and lay dormant until the big guy's revival as the bad guy in 1984's RETURN OF GODZILLA. I'm happy to say that they ended the series on a high note, with one of the most colourful and spectacular entries I've ever seen. The sci-fi plot is a fun one packed with action and strange characters and devices. Okay, so it may be rehashed and unoriginal, but it's still a whole lot of fun.Following on from the end of the previous year's GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA, this opens with a stunning battle between the two monsters, where Godzilla sprays blood everywhere and gets mutilated before ripping off Mechagodzilla's head. Sadly this isn't a sign of things to come. Once again, there's another alien plot to take over the world, and once again our heroes manage to defeat them. Along the way we have more hilarious dubbing, even more so than usual (I liked it when guards surrounded a prisoner, and said "You won't escape now. Shoot!"), and lots of amusingly bad fashions (this was the '70s, after all), complete with large sideburns and even larger collars. Especially amusing are the Interpol team who act as the film's heroes, who basically epitomise '70s coolness.The violence here is quite strong for a Godzilla film, with a couple of people being gunned down in slow motion. There's also a surprising scene of artificial nudity, a first and only in the series (it was aimed at kids, after all.). The muddled plot takes in a cyborg girl, a dinosaur living under the ocean, an alien base underground, Godzilla, and the return of Mechagodzilla as an even more powerful monster. It's fast paced, and the monster battles, especially the ending, are really spectacular, filled with explosions and many colourful death rays and beams. Mechagodzilla doesn't die when you rip his head off anymore either! Titanosaurus is a rather funny creature, a dinosaur who looks like a model I once had as a kid, no more realistic than that. All together, this is a fun film for kids and adults alike, with colourful spacesuits, costumes and sets, plenty of action and incident, and a great score once again.

gigan-92 Once again, Classic Media releases a G-film I would have never seen without them, the finale of the Showa series, "Terror of MechaGodzilla"!And this film really is one of the best Godzilla movies ever made, seriously. This is obviously due to the returning Honda, his final G-film. Also returning was Akira Ifukbe, thank God. Enough of Masuro Sato's often childish scores. Ifukbe's score was dark and menacing and we finally hear the "Godzilla March theme", which sounded bad-ass. It sounds even better than it did in the original "Gojira" in fact. There were also sad and touching themes, adding to the beauty of score. Honda just has an aura of seriousness that he puts into his work that makes them stand out against the rest of the showa films.I love the human characters and the aliens are better brought to life in this film. No more aluminum foil bases. Kastsuhiko Sasaki (Ichinose) and Tomoko Ai (Katsura) have a beautiful and tragic love story, and the fact she's a cyborg was fresh twist that I LOVED!! Her struggle to maintain loyalty to her father is a well done aspect of the film. However, a weak point is Akihiko Hirata's portrayal of Dr. Mafune (Katsura's dad). Although at times over dramatic and a little too 'mad scientist', the acting is good. Usually Hirata is top rate, but he kinda slacked here. Whatev. The screenplay by Yukiko Tkayama is excellent and I love this movie already.Next, as you should know by now our the monsters. Godzilla looks great, although technically the same suit, but it looks meaner. Therefore, better in my opinion. Not to mention he isn't a campy do-gooder, but more of an anti-hero. He also has some bad-ass moments , such as his first entrance: JUST BAD-ASS, with the appearing out of nowhere and all, just great. MechaGodzilla goes through minimal changes but looks, what else, bad-ass. Katsura being his controller internally was a great idea that added to the drama. Titanosaurus was great, a revelation compared to the onslaught of horribly bad monsters such as Megalon, Jet Jaguar, Gabera and the rest.I think it's messed up he died while being controlled but Godzilla is still the hero here, so he has to win. The end battle was spectacular and one of my favorites of all time. The Tokyo smashing scenes were done quite nicely.Teruyoshi Nakano handled the effects nicely and I'm glad we have comparison shots again, but the monsters are often a little over sized compared to hills and buildings. I also enjoyed all the areal and overhead shots. The U.S. version was all right, but as usual I prefer the Japansese version. Dubbing, was okay but the prelude was unnecessary. Nonetheless, I'm glad it was included on the fantastic DVD. Some might complain about the alien ship scene, not enough back ground and all. On the plus side the stock-footage is limited to an all time low. The story is a little rushed, but what do you expect for a film on such a rushed schedule? The Japansese version is only 83 minutes, but if Honda had had the time and budget I'm pretty sure the film would've been around at least 92 minutes. Still, compared to the films Jun Fukuda was releasing at the time fans shouldn't complain.A revelation after I don't know how many incredibly bad G-films!!!

sveknu Since the original "Godzila vs. Mechagodzilla" was a rather good movie, I guess this was just an attempt to cash in on the whole Mechagodzilla-appearance. Unfortunately, this is just a bad version of the "original". The plot is nearly the same, not just as Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", but as most of the previous Godzilla-movies. I have to say that I'm getting really tired of the "spacemen want to conquer Earth with a monster and Godzilla comes to the rescue"-plot. Time to come up with some new ideas, people (and later they did, sort of). Also on the wrongside: Godzilla isn't nearly in this movie at all. He's only in some scenes at the end of the movie, making this a really boring experience. The special effects are really bad, and they didn't avoid stock footage in this movie either. Stay away.

Paul Andrews Mekagojira no Gyakushu, or Mechagodzilla vs. Godzilla, Revenge of Mechgodzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla, The Escape of Mechagodzilla & the version I saw called Monsters From an Unknown Planet are apparently a few of it's alternate titles, starts with footage from the previous Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Cosmic Monster (1974) showing how Godzilla defeated Mechagodzilla. A team of scientists from the 'Ocean Exploitation Institute' are searching for Mechagodzilla's remains when they encounter a new monster, an aquatic dinosaur named Titanosaurus who promptly destroys their submarine. Interpol Chief Tagawa (Tadao Nakamaru) is on the case & teams agent Jiro Murakoshi (Katsumasa Uchida) up with marine biologist Akira Ichinose (Katsuhiko Sasaki) to figure out what happened to the sub. Just before the sub was destroyed the last radio transmission talked of dinosaurs so our agents make a connection between this & a Dr. Shinji Mafune (Akihiko Hirata) who had previously made mention of a dinosaur named Titanosaurus living in the area the sub was destroyed in, but no one believed him at the time. As our two intrepid agents unravel the mystery it seems that an alien race from the 'Thrid Planet' are trying to wipe out mankind so their race can live here, by themselves. They have persuaded Dr. Mafune & his cyborg daughter Katsura (Tomoko Ai) to help them as they control Titanosaurus, the aliens have also recovered Mechagodzilla's remains & repaired him. The alien's think that Mechagodzilla & Titanosaurus together will be enough to destroy humanity, these guys obviously haven't counted on Godzilla who once again must save planet Earth...Directed by Ishiro Honda this is another fun Godzilla film from Japanese studio Toho & Mekagojira no Gyakushu was the 15th film to feature Godzilla, the last of the 'classic' Godzilla's before the next entry in the series 9 years later & was made between Godzilla vs. Cosmic Monster & Godzilla 1985 (1984). The script by Yukiko Takayama is a little on the slow side at times, after the repeated flashback footage during the opening sequence Godzilla doesn't appear again until past the 45 miniature mark which is just too long without any monster fighting fun. We only get a choice of three monsters here, the main man himself Godzilla, the fishy Titanosaurus whom I actually quite liked & felt sort of sorry for as he is naturally peaceful but those nasty aliens are controlling him & the very cool Mechagodzilla who has to be one of Godzilla's best adversary's complete with metal body, rocket launchers, laser beams & an infinite supply of ammo! Unfortunately none of these monsters are used as much as I would have liked & the aliens taking over the Earth plot just isn't that great. For some reason the aliens wear silver suits & ridiculous looking helmets. Mekagojira no Gyakushu is a little more serious in tone than some of the childish Godzilla films that had preceded it, the character's are a bit more emotionally developed & it even contains nudity, some bare breasts no less. Technically Mekagojira no Gyakushu is as good as one can expect from this type of film, the special effects once again consist of men in rubber monster suits, model cars, planes & buildings. They obviously can't compare to today's mega budget CGI but they have that indefinable charm & personality, I think the effects look perfectly OK even if they aren't going to win any awards & as always I like to think that the filmmakers did the best they could using their imagination & resources available. The familiar sounding music, the cinematography & general production design are all acceptable considering Mekagojira no Gyakushu probably had a small budget. The acting is alright from what I can make out but the dubbing as usual is pretty bad with some terrible accents for secondary character's & some very silly dialogue exchanges, but it all adds to the fun in my opinion. I liked Mekagojira no Gyakushu but then I am a Godzilla fan anyway, it is a little slow at get going but once it does it's good fun & the climatic battle between Godzilla, Mechagodzilla & Titanosaurus is cool. Definitely worth watching monster fans!