HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 21
1st of 2 Kaiju or Kong films

I know it's kind of rote to say "we don't watch these movies for the human drama" but the fact is, the human drama in the last couple of Hollywood attempts at Godzilla was so shithouse it seems, when done badly, it really can derail these films. By and large, I find the human drama in most Japanese kaiju films to be slight, a little bit silly and largely inoffensive. In the case of Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla things get pretty damn mawkish, but for me, that just gave me a few sardonic laughs as I wallowed in my own misanthropic existence and poured scorn on all things sweet and innocent. Amusing fools!

Some purists don't like these Millennium-era kaiju films because they are a little less handmade, with little moments of admittedly shoddy CGI, etc. I get that, but this movie is still so crammed full of beautiful, tactile creature and mecha effects, I still fell in love with it on that level. In fact, I really liked the designs of both Godzilla and MechaGodzilla in this one, and all the monster on monster action is as good as one would expect of a canon kaiju flick.

Did I say canon? Wrong word, because these Millennium films screwed around with continuity pretty profoundly. I just mean, even though it's late era, this is a real Godzilla movie, and that in itself makes it worthy of my time. This one wasn't quite upper tier from my so far limited experience, and I do love me some MechaGodzilla so maybe that's a disappointment, but it's still pretty damn cool stuff.

Onwards into the Toho maze...