It was a Monster Mash!

Shooting laser beams at our balls.

“The flying saucer people are obviously not going to arrive tonight.” The “Flying Saucer People”? Maybe that’s why. That’s one of the more sensible lines in GHIDORAH: THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER, another dimwitted Godzilla movie that brings together four – count ’em, four! – Japanese monsters to try and make a rip in each other’s rubber suits.

I took this movie at face value, said to myself, Let me try something different: I’ll  imagine this is not a “Godzilla Movie” so I’m not constantly expecting him to turn up for no good reason out of nowhere; let me focus on the human story. Watch the movie for its merits without the crutch of being associated with that screeching, fire-breathing culty dragon…

… and it’s STILL crap!

I wonder how these Japanese filmmakers and the cult of Godzilla that support them have enough discernment not to put dogshit in their mouths and chew on it like expensive steak. Because someone who cannot tell that this finished film resembles dogshit must surely be starving to death; how are they able to pay their bills or be trusted to stop at red lights?

Nothing makes sense. Film is written like a 10-year-old making it up as he goes along (thanks to regular Godzilla scripter Shin’ichi Sekizawa): a meteor lands in Japan, births a three-headed golden, batwinged dragon (nee “space monster”) that starts laser-beaming toy cities, and is immediately named Ghidorah (how did they arrive at this name?); scientists visit the meteor, which is intermittently magnetic (which, it turns out, has nothing to do with anything for the rest of the movie – it’s not like Ghidorah is intermittently, or even actively, magnetic); a princess jumps out of her plane and reappears claiming to be a “Martian” who tells us her planet is dead due to Ghidorah, and that Martians have long lived undercover with humans; oh yeah, and they have the power of prophesy (which of course, NEVER comes true – she predicts the Earth is going to be destroyed by Ghidorah – doesn’t happen – yet NO ONE calls her on it). The detective who was assigned to protect the princess sees her pictured in the paper with a report about her being from Mars (front page news when reporters are this gullible!) and ponders, “Maybe she’s trying to elude her assassins!” Yeah, that’s right, by claiming to be a Martian and spreading her face over the front page of newspapers. Now no one will find her!

And that’s why this movie is a shambles – not because of the guys in rubber suits (that’s the fun part!), but because the story that is built around them doesn’t make sense even within its own universe and rules.

Okay, can we dispense with the kindergarten attempt at storytelling and just get some good old-fashioned rubber-suited action up in this dungcastle?

Rodan, an expressionless bird-puppet, appears to terrorize Japan. Godzilla appears (as usual, for no good reason out of nowhere) and fights Rodan. Yay! Summer Lovin’ – Had me a blast!… And then those twin “fairies” – emissaries of Mothra, who speak in unison just to irritate me – call Mothra, to gather all the rubbers and convince them to unite against Ghidorah.

The monsters actually have a sitdown (“rar-rar-rar-roar,” “grunt-rar-ugh-rar”). And the fairies translate for the humans. Has my head exploded yet? American production companies shat on director Ishiro Honda‘s original GODZILLA (1954) by inserting Raymond Burr and a translator to cater to American audiences; seems Honda liked that dogshit idea so much, he used the technique himself to ruin one of his own movies. [To be said with an annoying slap-delay]: “Now Mothra is trying to convince them not to fight each other, and Rodan is saying ‘No’ and Godzilla is saying, ‘What has humanity done for them’?” etc. until I kick my fluffy toys in spastic frenzy.

Mothra isn’t a moth anymore – he’s a slug. In their Sesame Street Cooperation Mode, Godzilla lets Mothy grab onto his tail to help him up a hillside, and Rodan puts Mothy on his back to spray his caterpillar-jizz at Ghidorah from above. And this movie has the distinction of Godzilla being laser-beamed in the balls by Ghidorah – and then later in the ass! It’s so retarded it’s FUN. (Oh, by the way, Mothra is a “she” – I don’t care, I’m still going to call it a he. How can he be female if he carries such heavy loads of jizz?)

Tanks and missiles can’t harm Ghidorah’s hide, but spraying jism in his face calms him down. That seems to be a universal panacea: spray jism in somebody’s face and everyone’s calmer.

So sad – the doctor is played by the magnificent Takashi Shimura (of SEVEN SAMURAI fame), who was in the first GODZILLA (1954), the dark nuclear abuse statement. (The filmmakers still jab in a few snarkers: “We don’t want to use atomic weapons without consulting the rest of the world” –cough-Hiroshima.) Working with director Honda again seemed like a good call. Unfortunately, Shimura must have been unaware that by this stage Honda was actively trying to tunnel his career into a pile of dogshit.

Doubt it? Why then does Mothra the slug look like a trail of dog poo? Moth – or Metaphor ?

I rest my case, yeronner.

END