Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah - 1991

Fuckin sweet bro!  My first Godzilla review.  I love Godzilla.  Like, really.  To the point where, as I watched this film, I went on Amazon and looked at the prices to buy all the DVDs, the toys, the everything.  I think if I was to collect something, it would probably be Godzilla things.  I'm serious here.  As a kid, I remember watching these movies and loving them.  I especially loved the ones like this, the ones that came out in the 70's, 80's and 90's.  The old ones are great too, but I appreciate them more now that I'm older.  These ones were just so much fun for a kid to watch.

Godzilla is a series that everyone knows, but most people haven't seen all of.  I can say with almost 100% guarantee that I've seen every Godzilla film, a lot of them more than once.  And just like everyone else (I assume) I get them all confused as fuck.  It's always the small details, and what fight with which monster took place in which movie.  You see, if you're not as familiar, a lot of the movies actually feature more than one villain going against Godzilla.  Sometimes the movie will be called "Godzilla vs. Gigan" but will also have Anguirus and King Ghidorah, for example.

The most cluster-fuck of these movies have convoluted plots, too much destruction to where we can't really tell what's going on, and the humans in the movies are annoying and there's far too much dialogue from them.  Then the really good Godzilla movies are just awesome.  They're few and far between sometimes, but totally worth it to seek out.  And I am happy to say, this is one of them.  in fact, 4 great Godzilla movies are available on 2 2-DVD packs.  This movie is packed with Godzilla vs. Mothra from the 90's, and then there's the 2-DVD pack with Space Godzilla and Destoroyah!  These DVD's are only $5, c'mon, just buy it duuude.

In this Godzilla entry, we get the most backstory, the most attempt towards a plot and a story that any film yet had given us.  Godzilla in this movie starts out as good, after all he had been good with very few exceptions since Son of Godzilla in 1967.  So he's good, and that's awesome, except that apparently in the future Japan is destroyed and it's due to Godzilla.  We learn this from some people who have come back in time, and they plan on going into the past to stop Godzilla from ever being created.  To do this, they need to go to the island of Lagos where there was atomic testing.  The atomic testing mutated a dinosaur there to eventually become Godzilla - and that's why Godzilla looks like of like a dinosaur.

It's the first true explanation we've gotten for Godzilla's existence, and it makes sense.  It keeps in line with the original Godzilla film from 1954 and the time travel plot makes sense.  So they travel back in time complete with some weird space alien guys called Dorats. (picture)

The aliens stop Godzilla from being created successfully, however this time the Dorats get mutated when the atom bomb goes off, so instead of the bomb creating Godzilla, the bomb creates King Ghidorah.  King Ghidorah is of course Godzilla's greatest and best known adversary.  So we travel back to the current day and Ghidorah is destroying Japan in Godzilla's place.  And since they stopped Godzilla from being created, there is no Godzilla now.  So in order to stop Ghidorah, they have to re-make Godzilla.  Except he's not friendly this time!  So then once Godzilla destroys Ghidorah, Godzilla starts rampaging, and then they have to mechanize and bring back Ghidorah to stop Godzilla!  It's enough to make your head spin.

Despite that plot that sounds like a series of WTF moments, it's easy to track, makes sense, and is covered by enough dialogue with enough action in between to keep us watching and interested.  This is actually one of the best paced Godzilla films, which makes it a contender for one of the best Godzilla films in general.  The villain is pure evil and awesome.  When he's re-integrated with robot parts, the new Mecha King Ghidorah is one of those badass villains (although he's actually a good guy) that's extremely memorable.

My favorite Godzilla films are the ones that stand out, not the ones where I wonder if I've seen that one or not.  Some of the older ones feel so interchangeable, I honestly keep rewatching some not because I want to see them again but because I don't remember which one it was.  This is one I remember.  I even had a friend who had the Mecha King Ghidorah toy when we were kids (wow, some of those are selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay).

This movie would be watchable by anyone even remotely interested in Godzilla.  In fact, as I watched, I contemplated in my head a top 5 Godzilla films (not in any particular order):
1) Godzilla - 1954 (not the American one with Raymond Burr)
2) Mothra vs. Godzilla - 1964
3) Godzilla 1985
4) Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah - 1992
5) Destroy All Monsters - 1968

It was hard for me not to include my love letter Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla in there, but I honestly should've done a top ten list.

6) Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla - 1994
7) King Kong vs. Godzilla - 1962
8) Godzilla vs. Megalon - 1973
9) tie between Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. Biollante
10) Godzilla 2000

There we go.  Reminder, this is just my favorites, this list is not like a really best of.  Although, it does include some of the best ones also.  And also a reminder, I like the weird ones.  Like Biollante and Hedorah, those two are bound to not be on anyone's list of the best Godzilla films.

Anyways, this movie is awesome.  I didn't WANT to give it five stars...but, FUCK IT!