Godzilla X Megaguirus (2000)

Godzilla vs a Giant Dragonfly and a Black Hole Weapon. Honestly, sounds a lot more exciting than it was.

In this story, Godzilla didn’t die in 1954, only re-appearing in 1966 and 1996. It’s the same rubber suit from Godzilla 2000 though the stories don’t appear to be linked.

The scientists can’t figure out why Godzilla resurfaced after Japan went to completely clean energy sources eschewing nuclear and plasma energy. We as viewers know that Godzilla doesn’t come rampaging into town without a reason, but the afore-mentioned scientists decide to build a logic defying black hole weapon that is fired from space. I’m no scientist, but the “logic” behind a 2-meter black hole fired from a satellite would be enough to send real scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson on his own rampage.

I don’t need a rehash of Japan’s role in WW II and the US nuclear testing in the Pacific, but I do need a character to have a critical eye toward the bonkers deadly high tech they created to deal with Godzilla-a miniature black hole weapon fired from space that would contain him in another dimension? Forget Godzilla, think of the damage that such a weapon could cause to the planet or against other people, especially if something goes wrong or it’s enhanced. It’s the same dangerous hubris that caused Godzilla and his buddies to be created yet that point is completely ignored in this movie. Where is Dr. Serizawa when you need him? Godzilla didn’t come into town doing the Monster Stomp for no reason, better check out the secrety secrets going on with this version of the G-Force.

The miniatures were fine, there were creative miniature underwater scenes, and an aircraft that defied the laws of physics. The mix of regular scale, miniature scale, and CGI didn’t always transition smoothly but it was less jarring than other aspects in this movie.

One of the things I like about Godzilla movies is that there is usually a female character featured, sometimes sadly they are the reckless female reporter or someone added for scream affect. Kiriko was cold and emotionless and out for revenge against Godzilla, but a step up from said reckless reporter that has to be rescued type. Kudo, the tech geek was cute if not a great thinker outside of his inventions. I didn’t find the humans particularly interesting and honestly couldn’t root for them as they sought to kill Godzilla when it was their recklessness that caused him to attack in the first place. And any group stupid enough to unleash black holes as a weapon really needs to be eradicated. My loyalty is with Big G on this one.

A test black hole created a wormhole which let through Godzilla’s and Earth’s next foe---a giant dragonfly and/or egg. Again, no one asked whether the danger of using the weapon, letting something worse than Godzilla in, might be reason enough to not use it. While Megaguirus made a devious villain, the queen dragonfly didn’t get much screen time and neither did Godzilla. Her minions, the meganulon or smaller dragonflies made an appearance until Big G played Kaiju bug zapper to them. (They looked like the creatures from the original Rodan which killed a bunch of humans and also made a tasty treat for the hatchling Rodan.)


Aside from disregarding Godzilla’s past and the completely ridiculous pseudo-science, this movie made the cardinal sin of making me look at my watch wondering when it would be over. There wasn’t enough action or enough compelling human stories to keep my attention for much of the movie. Godzilla initially being swarmed by a bunch of the plane-sized dragonflies is annoying, I get it. How many times have I wished that I could fry mosquitos with my mind when they come after me? It took too long to get to the real menace and the real action. Once it did, the movie picked up but by then it was mostly over and the human’s smug use of an abomination of a weapon was all that was left.

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