Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)
Plot Summary
The underground kingdom of Seatopia sends out Megalon, a giant beetle, and Gigan to destroy the above ground dwellers. In an attempt to stop them, an independently thinking robot brings Godzilla into the fight.
That really cool US release movie poster is the best thing this movie's got as it's quite literally the worst Godzilla movie ever. Yes, I've watched a couple of really bad Godzilla movies over the course of this project but those movies at least tried something different with the format and one of them was a (misguided) attempt at bring a house cinema sensibility to the franchise. This movie however has no such excuse.
First bad omen was the fact that Toho did a bit of fan service by having the children of Japan come up with a new character said new character was supposed to have its own feature but the suits felt that it wouldn't be able to carry a film and be marketable enough on its own so they shoehorned Godzilla into this dreck. The character would be the robot Jet Jaguar, a shape shifting robot invented by Goro Ibuki who takes care of his little kid brother Roku and who is in the company of his friend Hiroshi. Anywho Jet Jaguar is part of the Seatopia plan to take over the upper world as they hire a couple of guys to take control of the robot so that it could lead Megalon around.
BTW here's Jet Jaguar in all his glory:
The next thing that was completely wrong with this movie was just how mind numbingly boring it was. This was definitely geared for kids and aside from a few utterances of the word "damn" it's pretty inoffensive. The movie dwells FAR too much on the human characters and they're dull as dishwater. Goro is a stoned face, monotonous character who wouldn't know charisma if it smacked him in the face, his kid brother is annoying as hell and Hiroshi is actually pretty entertaining (he does some kung fu moves while tied up in order to get to Goro and Roku who have been taken in a container to be dropped into Seatopia) but it's drowned out by the crap of the other characters.
This movie shows so very little imagination except in two areas (which i'll get into) that it doesn't even have any kitsch factor to make it fun even in a mocking way. The fights are a chore to go through and Godzilla is so inconsequential to the whole film that it's almost an insult to call it a Godzilla movie. The Godzilla suit used in this movie is pretty cheap and doesn't hide the fact that it's all rubbery. Hell, they didn't even bother to fix the eyes on this new suit!
Despite this movie being abysmal there are a couple things that are genuinely praiseworthy. One is the dam scene when Megalon totally destroys a dam which looks so realistic that you wonder if it came from another movie! It's probably the best special effect in the entire movie. The other thing of note in a positive manner is Megalon himself. He's a pretty interesting beetle like creature with drills for appendages. Unlike most of the monsters in Godzilla movies he doesn't even move like a humanoid but is rather bouncing and bounding around wildly appropriately like a creature out of its element.
Here's Megalon:
So all in all, this movie was a piece of crap which is one reason why I didn't bother with making my own caps. Godzilla doesn't play much of a role in it and the superhero robot Jet Jaguar just doesn't mesh with the whole Godzilla mythos. I mean it's one thing to have him be part of the story but he's ostensibly the reason for this film being made in the first place besides, the image of a humanoid looking Godzilla shaking hands with Jet Jaguar just doesn't sit well with me.
* star
Oh and here's the handshake
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