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Released by: Sony
Released on: May 6th, 2014.
Director: Takao Okawara/ Kensho Yamashita
Cast: Masahiro Takashima, Ryoko Sano, Megumi Odaka/Jun Hashizume, Zenkichi Yoneyama
Year: 1993/1994
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The Movies:
Two more Godzilla titles that Sony owns the U.S. rights to debut on Blu-ray, here's what to expect:
Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II:
First up is 1993's Godzilla Vs. Mechgodzilla II, directed by Takao Okawara, in which the United Nations realize that they've really got to do something to take care of their giant monster problem once and for all. Their plan? To dig up Mecha-King Ghidorah and swipe the technology from that mechanical monster to create a MechaGodzilla capable of taking care of business in a big way.
Meanwhile, on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific, Rodan guards a giant egg. Godzilla shows up, a fight ensues, and the egg is stolen. When it hatches under the watchful eye of the army, everyone is surprised when a baby Godzilla pops up. He's pretty friendly too. Those crafty army guys though, they see opportunity here - they can use the baby Godzilla to lure the full grown Godzilla towards them, and then sucker punch him with an attack from the newly created super MechaGodzilla, now fully equipped with some awesome new weapons. What they don't count on is the arrival of Rodan, and before you know it there's a pretty serious monster mash going down and a whole lot of stuff gets destroyed.
This is one of the most enjoyable Godzilla movies of the nineties and while the whole 'baby Godzilla' angle is admittedly really goofy, the film moves at a really quick pace and offers the right mix of plot development, likeable human characters and grand scale monster-based destruction. While it helps to be a MechaGodzilla fan and it helps even more to be a Rodan fan (both of these classic Godzilla foes get quite a bit of screen time here), there's enough of a story to suck you in and keep you involved during the scenes where the giant monsters aren't pounding the snot out of one another.
Some solid miniature work and some great monster suit design ensure that the visuals are as good as they need to be, this one is just a complete blast from start to finish and it stands as a high point in the later films that make up the Godzilla pantheon.
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla:
The second feature was made only a year later and was directed by Kensho Yamashita and while the ideas behind the movie are pretty cool, the execution this time around is sadly lacking. See, some time ago Mothra had to fly into space to stop a meteorite that was hurtling towards the Earth. When she did that, she accidentally took with her some of Godzilla's DNA as well as some of Biollante's DNA. When the particles were let lose in space they were sucked into a black hole and out of this emerged… SpaceGodzilla!
So what would any newly created super space monster do? Head to Earth, of course, which is exactly what SpaceGodzilla does where he runs into regular Godzilla, baby Godzilla and Mogera, a new super-sized robot recently constructed by the G-Force team to assist in situations such as this one.
While the monster battle scenes in this one are admittedly pretty impressive and the creature and suit design on display is nothing short of awesome, the story here is a bit of a mess. It jumps around a lot and we never really start to care for the human element, which is unfortunate because that same human element does commandeer a large part of the storyline. Had there been more monsters at a better pace, this would have worked a lot better than it winds up working. It's hardly the worst of the series but the pacing is very uneven and even the music is fairly flat and boring.
On top of that? Baby Godzilla gets more screen time than most will probably want, and they've redesigned him to look even cutesier than before. Given that this takes place after the events in the first movie you'd think he'd have aged a bit and become more threatening, but no, it's quite the opposite. It seems like by including him here the producers were throwing the studio a bone by offering an option that would appeal to younger viewers, which winds up hurting things more than helping them.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Godzilla Vs. MechaGodzilla II and Godzilla Vs. SpaceGodzilla arrive on Blu-ray from Sony in 1.85.1 and 2.35.1 widescreen respectively in AVC encoded 1080p high definition with each film on its own 50GB disc. These look better than the nineties era Godzilla movies that are being released on the same day but suffer from some of the same flaws, mainly a somewhat flat looking image. While there's no denying that we get a noticeable improvement over past DVD releases, it looks like once again Toho have supplied Sony with some older masters to work with. Grain can sometimes look a little clumpy and black levels more of a dark grey. Detail in the close up shots isn't bad and color reproduction is okay though. These aren't abominations of anything, but you get the impression that they could have looked better (particularly when compared to the transfer we saw on the Kraken Releasing Blu-rays of the older titles).
Each film is given Japanese language options in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and English dubbed options in DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo with optional subtitles (which seem to translate the English language track, so call them dubtitles if you prefer) in English, English SDH and French. There isn't a whole lot of channel separation here to note but the levels are properly balanced. Hiss and distortion are never an issue and while more depth and surround activity certainly would have been welcome (and probably made some of the bigger set pieces a bit more fun), there aren't really any problems here with the audio even if it's a bit underwhelming.
Extras are limited to trailers for each of the two movies and a few promo teaser spots. Menus and chapter selection are included on each disc and inside the keepcase you'll find a download code for a digital copy of each film.
The Final Word:
Both Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II and Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla are a lot of fun and while these transfers aren't reference quality and do leave room for improvement, they offer noticeable upgrades in the audio and video department over their DVD counterparts. It's unfortunate that there isn't much in the way of supplemental material, but both movies hold up really well and are ridiculously entertaining.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
