June 12: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie — is sword and sorcery.
Yes, now I can say that I have seen all four Deathstalker movies.
Rick Hill, who played Deathstalker in the first film is back (John Terlesky had the role in Deathstalker IIand John Allen Nelson (Killer Klowns from Outer Space) was the protagonist in Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell) and he’s in a tournament where the queen wants to commit assault with a friendly weapon on all of the male combatants. He’s also looking for his sword, which means sleeping with plenty of barbarian women, but such is being a sword and sorcery hero.
Also, for some reason, lots of footage from the original film gets re-used.
Maria Ford (Burial of the Rats) is a major plus in this, but you know, after four Deathstalker movies, I kind of feel like just looking at the poster art and imagining a much better film. Brett Baxter Clark — Nick the dick from Bachelor Party, Bruiser from Teen Witch and Shane from Malibu Express — plays Vaniat, one of the fighters, so there’s that.
I was hoping that the last Deathstalker was going to blow my mind, like how the Ator series suddenly becomes an insane MTV musical with Iron Warrior. That said, even the worst sword and sorcery movie fills me with happiness, so I didn’t hate the time I spent watching this.
“My friend Joe put on anti-radiation clothing and tried to stop the female enemy agent! My friend Joe, I repeat, put on anti-radiation clothing and tried to stop the female enemy agent from stealing the weapons from the base.”
If you’re wondering, why is that line repeated, perhaps you should steer as clear as possible from Alien Beasts, a movie that has no story, no meaning and no real reasons to recommend it to you, dear reader. To call this a movie is the most charitable and kind thing I’ve ever written.
This movie is constant repetition broken by moments of absolute weirdness and gore, then replaced once against by computer generated titles that appear to tell us “Security camera inoperable” while that is voiced over and over again.
And then it happens all over again.
Carl J. Sukenick wrote and directed this movie, in which he also plays Carl J. Sukenick, the commander of the CIA, which mainly consists of sending his friends to do backyard chopsockery while his bored father stays behind in the security center, which one can only imagine is the family couch.
The film claims that it gives you the opporunity to “See the ultimate action-packed adventure of a lifetime as Earth is attached by hideous, evil creatures from an extradimensional universe.”
Yeah, sure.
An agent named Neal was sent out to deal with the terrorist threat, but he was a traitor and has been mutated by radiation. So Carl must send Sara Shell, her husband Mark and their daughter Sheila to deal with things, but they’re all killed as well. Hell, they cut off poor Sara’s hand!
By the end of this, well, film, Carl must kill all of his friends before hunting down the hideous extra-dimensional being, which we are to assume comes from a place beyond our understanding, a universe of claymation.
Look, you can talk down on this movie all you want, but somehow Carl was smart enough to somehow get it out into the world and charged people $31.95 to see it. People bought it. Some people may have even rented it. Heck, I just wasted 74 minutes of my life watching it.
You can consider this a successful art project on many levels, the least of which was completing it. The foremost amongst it is that in the scene where the female enemy agent is caught and is forced to strip and have her breasts touched while someone says, “I must punish you,” Carl sent his friend Joe LaPenna home and did the stunt work with a masked and half-nude woman. Carl knew what he wanted and did it. He’s pretty much an auteur. Or aa maniac. Maybe both.
If you’ve ever wanted to hear narration of a film by someone who seems like they’re instead attempting to do their remedial reading homework instead of dialogue we are to assume that they have written, all while numerous people are horribly killed with some of the most homemade effects you’ve ever witnessed, then sit on down for some Alien Beasts. Here’s hoping you survive the experince.
Have you ever wished that a bunch of Category 3 Hong Kong maniacs would make their own Terminator mixed with RoboCopmovie and fill it with gore, sleaze and utter craziness? Good news! That movie is Robotrix!
Under the name Chien-Ming Lu, this film’s director Jamie Luk appeared in Lady Exterminator, Crippled Avengers and many more films. This is the first movie of his I’ve seen but definitely not the last as it’s packed with sheer maniacal ridiculousness.
Cast member Vincent Lyn told Richard Myers — in the book Great Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan — and More — “Now that was one wild shoot. The cast and crew were all over the place and you were lucky to find out what you were doing before the cameras rolled. I spent more time laughing on the set than anything else.”
This is the kind of movie that features full-frontal male and female nudity, as well as numerous murder scenes with beheadings and a wire work martial arts battle between cyborgs.
Oh man, so what is it about anyways?
A mad scientist named Ryuichi Sakamoto (Chung Lin transfers his mind into a robot (former WKA champion Billy Chow, who did not show his dong in Fist of Legend), which frees him to do pretty much everything he’s always wanted to, like kidnapping an Arabic businessman and killing his bodyguard, Selena Lin (Chikako Aoyama).
A non-mad scientist named Dr. Sara (Hui Hsiao-dan) transfers Selena’s mind from her dead body into a cyborg named Eve-27. She rejoins the police force, bringing along the doctor’s robotic assistant Ann (Amy Yip). They’re soon on the trail of Sakamoto, who is leaving behind dead prostitutes pretty much everywhere he goes.
Sadly, I was hoping that Amy Yip and Chikako Aoyama would end up punishing the villain for the way he has treated women the entire movie, but nope. The Shiek ends up taking care of him. Other than that, this movie is filled with a disregard for human life — a scene where the evil cyborg repeatedly runs over the chubby comedic relief and then the cops shoot him hundreds of times before he laughs and runs over their friend’s dead body is my favorite part — and the cinematic equivalent of eating ten bags of Takis. Or Fritos. Or Doritos. You know what I’m saying!
Based on a short story about Nie Xiaoqian from Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling’s Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio and inspired by the 1960 Shaw Brothers movie The Enchanting Shadow, A Chinee Ghost Story inspired more than just two sequels, an animated film, a television series and a 2011 remake. It also created an entire genre of folklore ghost stories.
Its director, Ching Siu-tung, studied in the Eastern Drama Academy and trained in Northern Style Kung Fu for seven years. His father, Ching Gong, was a Shaw Brothers director. While producer Tsui Hark got most of the credit for these films, Siu-tung has done well for himself, also directing The Swordsman series of movies and choreographing House of Flying Daggers and Shaolin Soccer.
In the first film, tax collector Ning Choi-san (Leslie Cheung) fails at his job and must sleep in a deserted temple. There, he falls in love with Nip Siu-sin (Joey Wong), yet discovers in the morning that she is a ghost forever enslaved to a tree demoness. When Ning tries to save her and fails, her soul goes to the underworld.
This film is a gorgeous meditation on unrequited love. Even with the help of Taoist priest Yin Chik-ha (Wu Ma), the best our hero can do is secure a better afterlife for his one true love.
1990’s A Chinese Ghost Story II starts with Ning and Yin parting ways, with Ning heading back to his hometown that has been overrun with cannibals. After being jailed and condemned to die, an ancient scholar reveals that he has dug an escape tunnel. He gives Ning a book and a pendant, then shows him the way to freedom.
In this film, Ning joins with Autumn (Jacky Cheung) and the rebel sisters Windy (Joy Wong) and Moon (Michelle Reis) to battle a demon that has taken over a mansion. And by demon, a mean a gigantic centipede that requires fighters to separate the souls from their bodies to defeat it.
Recently, Apple pulled the theme song of this movie from the Apple Music Store, as it features a reference to the masscre at Tiananmen Square Massacre:
“The youth are angry, and heaven and earth are shedding tears,
How did the rivers and mountains become a sea of blood?
How did the road to home become the road to ruin?”
Why would Apple pull a song that rightfully condemns China for their role in killing protesters? Well, you know how money works.
1991’s A Chinese Ghost Story III brings back the tree demon from the first film, a creature that is destined to return in a hundred years. This film is also about Monk Shi Fang (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) and Swordsman Yin (Jacky Cheung), named after the original Taoist. The tree demon also has a ghost in its thrall, Lotus (Joey Wong).
This is the kind of movie where towers rise to block out all the sun on Earth and Shi Fang’s body is coated in his own golden blood, which allows him to channel the power of the Buddha to bring the sun back. Basically, things get nuts.
If you fall in love with these movies, remember that there was a cartoon and a 2011 remake to keep you watching.
Jack Bauer (Robert Urich) is a workaholic who gets involved in a case of child kidnapping when he returns a doll found in the subway. This ends up finding him get repeatedly abused, verbally and physically, and making you wonder why he even tried.
Director David Greene also was behind Madame Sin; the movie adaption of Godspell; Rich Man, Poor Man; Hard Country and the TV movie remakes of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Night of the Hunter.
Bauer soon joins with the girl’s mother, played by Megan Gallagher, and they do what they can to find her daughter. This, again, involves Urich charging in like an alpha male and continually getting beaten unmercifully.
This looks way better than a TV movie and could have played theaters.
Ripped from the headlines TV movies are my jam. In the world before the internet and the 24/7 news cycle, we had to wait for these movies to get the real story.
This is the tale of Marla Hanson (Cheryl Pollak), a model who moves to the big evil town of New York City but finds who she thinks is a nice guy to help her out. He even puts her up in an apartment and gives her tips to get ahead in modeling. But by the end, he’s hiring thugs to slice her face apart. It gets worse, because she has to defend herself in court despite not being the one on trial.
This was written and directed by John Grey, who created Ghost Whisperer. It’s not the best TV movie you’ve ever seen, but it does get pretty brutal in parts.
The real story of Hanson is shown here though. After resisting the attentions of her landlord Steve Roth, he hired two friends named Steven Bowman and Darren Norman to attack her. They left her with cuts that required a hundred stitches in her face, ruining her modeling career.
Hanson was subjected to brutal cross-examination by Bowman’s defense attorney Alton H. Maddox who was part of several high-profile civil rights cases in the 1980s. He claimed that Hanson had identified Bowman and Norman because she was racist. They got the maximum sentence and the judge told Hanson that he was incensed at the way the criminal justice system treated her.
Hanson would later write two Abel Ferrara films, the short Love on the Train and The Blackout.
Originally airing on February 24 and March 3, 1991, this is based on the book by Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce Henderson. It’s all about a double murder on Palmyra Atol in which Duane “Buck” Walker (Hart Bochner, Die Hard) was found guilty and his girlfriend Stephanie Stearns (Rachel Ward) — defended by Bugliosi and Leonard Weinglass — was found innocent.
You know why I watched this? Because Tommy Lee Wallace directed it.
I’m no fan of Bugliosi — get me to go off some time about how he he lost a court case to the Process Church — but if you’re a big time lawyer and writer, you can get Richard Crenna to play you in a movie. Oh yeah! And getting Susan Blakely to play your wife!
Anyways, our protagonists end up taking a barely seaworthy ship out and about before getting lost and ended up living off the charity of the Mac and Muff Graham (James Brolin and Deidre Hall). Within a few months, they’ve stolen their ship and quite possibly left them for dead. That said, only a skull that may have been Mac’s has even been recovered.
You know, I found myself watching this because of Wallace’s name in the credits, but his talent as a director kept me with it for both parts.
Although cable TV chipped away at their audience, the Big Three networks were still in the theatrical knockoff movie business, with ABC-TV airing this disaster tale on February 18, 1991. While, at first, it reminds of the A-List blockbuster The Towering Inferno (1974), the real inspiration here is Ron Howard’s Backdraft, released that same year. And since we named dropped Jerry Jameson during our “Lee Majors Week” review of Starflight One, we’ll have to mention Jameson’s more timely TV movie lookalike with 1974’s The Blazing Tower, which circulated on the U.S. home video and overseas theatrical marketplace as Terror on the 40th Floor.
The difference between that influential Irwin Allen epic is that this harrowing tale is based on a real life fire that broke out on the 12th floor of the 62-floored First Interstate Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles on May 4, 1988, and raged into May 5. As result of the building’s sprinkler system not operating at full capacity, along with the main water valves that supplied the fire pumps turned off due to building construction, the fire quickly spread upwards to the 16th floor. And not only was there mechanical failure, but human failure at the hands of security guards ignoring smoke alarm warnings.
Of course, as with any TV film based on “real events,” dramatic licenses are taken with incidents tweaked and buoyed by composite and fictitious character creations. To that end we have familiar ’80’s TV actors Lisa Hartman and Peter Scolari as two trapped survivors on the 37th floor. Keener TV eyes will pick up on the somewhat lesser known, ’80s small screen stars in the fire brigade with Paul Linke (CHiPs), Ronald William Lawerence (Hunter), John Laughlin (The White Shadow), and yes, that’s the always great Micheal Beach, aka Taddarius Orwell ‘T.O.’ Cross from FX’s Sons of Anarchy, just starting out his long TV career and on his way to recurring roles in Under Suspicion, ER, and Third Watch, but these days, you know his work in The 100 and Chicago P.D. Also look out for a young Angela Bassett just starting her career with support roles in various TV series and telefilms. Lee Majors heads the cast (but everyone else is here a bit more than him), as Sterling, the stoic, no nonsense Deputy Fire Chief working against the endless array of errors exacerbating the tragedy.
Screenwriter Jeffrey Bloom’s career goes back to some late ’70s episodes of Starsky and Hutch (and a couple of David Soul-starring TV movies) and the popular VHS Jaws-knockoff, Blood Beach, which he also directed. In the director’s chair — and in his final TV project — is Robert Day, whose writing and directing efforts date back to Tarzan in the early ’60s. Bringing us a wealth of TV series episodes and movies across all three networks, we know Day best at B&S About Movies for the late ’70s de rigueur witchcraft flick, The Initiation of Sarah.
This is one of those old TV flicks that, while it lacks the dramatic punch of Backdraft or the thespian skills offered by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno, this is, none the less, a well-down film rife with credible, practical in-camera effects on-a-budget that still holds up in today’s CGI world.
Oy! This movie. Once I became sentient, I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Courtesy of Sam the Bossman devising another “Apoc Week,” I came to review Games of Survival, and its psuedo-sequel-cum-remake, Badlanders, which lead to my first learning — and for my first watch — of this post-apoc’er slopper, courtesy of the acting common denominator of martial artist Michael M. Foley (also of Karate Cop and Desert Kickboxer fame).
Musings of a Video Rental Youth
Now, in all my years — and all of my video store memberships and cut-out and close-out VHS dumpster dives — I’ve never encountered Cybernator*. Or maybe I have and, because the covers are so awful, I passed on it? And the cover on the left is the BEST of the covers, trust me. And . . what the hell? Is that a Windows 3.1 “Wing Dings” font on the alternate cover? At least the he-ain’t-Plughead-from-Circuitry Man-cum-Blue Man Group dude with the head hoses and light saber-gun is giving me something to strive for . . . but friggin’ DOS-based “Dingbat” fonts?
Oh, by the Kobol Lords, this is going to rock!
Okay, so . . . Cybernator is the type of film where it strives to be a cross between James Cameron’s The Terminator and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner on a Grandma’s and Auntie’s birthday money budget — where Los Angeles in the far-flung year of our SOV 2010 looks a lot like our Los Angeles in the year of our present-day, late 1980s (when this epic was shot; and probably not on video and actually on film, but it sure do looks like an ’80s SOV’er, Jethro).
2112: After the Fall of Los Angeles: When the best part of your movie is your gouache-on-hot press board matte painting. Hey, is that the Temple of Syrinx in the background? This isn’t Mega City One, Dorothy.
I Am Asking Too Much From This Movie . . .
And soak up that “effects” shot of the big city, because once we get down into those mean streets of L.A., we get a whole lot of red brick buildings and ’80-era Japanese motor vehicle imports. Which begs the question: If you can’t effectively set design your film to look like it’s nineteen years in the future, why not just set your film in the present day? At least the absolutely WORST of the The Terminator-cum-Robocop knockoffs — yes, it is WORSE than Cybernator — 1987’s R.O.T.O.R, had the good common sense to keep it in real time.
Better cover . . . worse movie.
As with my argument concerning David A. Prior’s exploits of John Tucker in Future Force and Future Zone: Cybernator is a whole lot of “futuristic” Jeep Cherokees on the apoc-prowl. For if you’re going to set up a 2010-futureverse, rent out the repurposed Death Race 2000 Calamity Jane from Claudio Fragasso used in Interzone or Scorpion’s bubble-topped Camaro from Enzo G. Castellari’s Warriors of the Wasteland. Hit up Charles Band and rent out some of the props from Trancers, and his not-Mad Max-or-Star Wars romps Spacehunterand Metalstorm, from the Full Moon backlot.
Even better cover . . . still worse movie**.
Heck, even Band’s future cop romp repurposed the Spinner from Bladerunner, which was also repurposed in Solar Crisis (1990) and Soldier (1998). Call Universal and borrow a DeLorean. Call Cinema Vehicles or Paramount Picture Cars, for there’s bound to be “futuristic” rides on their lots. Even Don Coscarelli knew to call up 20th Century Fox to rent out their lot of tombstones to create Morningside Cemetery in a park. What’s with all of these four-door sedans and Hondas and Toyotas and panel vans? What’s the deal with my Aunt Martha’s 1950s era apartment furnishings? If there was a cemetery in Cybernator, would it be of the grey-painted plywood grave markers variety? Ed called and he wants his wood back.
Yes, alas, I am asking too much from a movie . . . with gouache-on-hot press board matte paintings and Windows DOS 3.1 poster fonts. But at least the he-ain’t-Plughead-from-Circuitry Man-cum-Blue Man Group dude with the head hoses and light saber-gun is giving me something to strive for. . . .
Los Angeles 2010: The New Gladiators. No, the Vespa doesn’t fly, à la Stallone’s Judge Dredd. “Drokk it!”
Finally, the Plot!
Okay, so between the voiceovers, expositional babble, and newscasts — and video box copywriters — we’re in a world where the economy collapsed, the government has fallen, and riots and violence run rampant across the good ol’ U.S.A. But don’t worry, the bastardly Colonel Peck (ubiquitous screen heavy William Smith doin’ the Eric Roberts put-a-name-on-the-box role) has dispatched his military-trained cyborg assassination squads to kill off all the terrorists and scumbag politicians and corrupt military officials that have ruined America. QAnon! Trump! March 2021! Viva America! Ack! Kamala Harris is a cyborg plant! Governor Coumo’s master plan is to turn Manhattan Island into a prison to dump the enemies of Nancy Pelosi! (And, in that short sentence, I just plotted a better movie than Cybernator.)
Fire up the Gullfire, Hauk, I’m going in! (Courtesy of Grimoo via FunnyJunk.com) Come on, know your Escape from New York trivia!
Anyway, one of the borg’s targets is Senator Overstreet — and his (overweight) collateral damage stripper girlfriend (warning: there’s a lot of gratuitous strippers and long-lingering stripping in this movie, so there’s that). Another borgie target is the tech guru who dreamed up the “Blackhawk” project that unleashed the cyborg assassination squads on the citizenry.
Oh, there’s more. . . .
So, Detective Brent McCord and his partner Jim Weaver are the kind of cops who like to kick back at the local flesh repository for some all-you-can-eat wings and lap dances — oh, right: Blue the Stripper is McCord’s girlfriend . . . and McCord is a “racist” that hates cyborgs (#cyborglivesmatter) — then find themselves in the middle of a Spirit Halloween-dressed cyborg shoot-em up that leads to them — and not the cyborgs — blamed for the murders of our corrupt Senator and the Project: Blackhawk guy.
Yawn.
During an apocalypse, who you gonna call: Dr. Fauci or Maestro Fulci?
So, who’s the “Cybernator,” already? The Blue Man Group hosey-head guy? (Played pretty well by Michael M. Foley in pretty decent, budget-effective make up by Steve Patino — yes, the same guy who did the Silver Sphere’s in Phantasm II, as well as Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond, Re-Animator and the first Predator.) Oh, is it William Smith’s Colonel Peck! Is the big plot twist that he’s a cyborg? (And back to the cars? You had Steve Patino on set; he could have come up with something better than a Vespa and a Toyota two-door.)
Well, yeah, Peck is a cyborg. But it also turns out, during the course of his rogue investigation — yeah, our “bad ass” McCord quit the force — McCord discovers, like Rick Dekkard before him (I know . . . I know), that he, himself, is a cyborg . . . cop who’s now forced into destroying the cyborgs — and confronting his ol’ pop, Colonel Peck. Or are they brothers? And does McCord come to grips with his technocratic racism? Is Blue, his stripper squeeze, a cyborg, too? Does Earth become part of the Solar Federation?
Hey, we don’t “plot spoil” here at B&S About Movies. You’ll have to watch.
Wait . . . does Voivod perform “Technocratic Manipulators” as the stripper bar’s band? Does the jukebox play “Cygnus X-1” by Rush? Is “Where’s Harrison Ford?” by alt-metallers Altered State on the soundtrack? Nope, because McCord ain’t no Harrison Ford and this ain’t Blade Runner.
Your resistance to the Cybernator is futile.
See? And you thought this movie was going to suck apoc ass steaks in between all the strippers, cheezy after-effects lasers, long-winding staircase chases, and squishy-scowling face emoting. Oh, and don’t forget the cyborg Samurai . . . or Samuraborg . . . Cyberai . . . or whatever it is. You will watch. For as the black hole of Cygnus X-1, the Cybernator will suck you in.
Who Wrote and Directed and Acted in This Mess?
As it turns out, this was writer-director Robert Rundle’s debut feature film, so ye streamer, cut him a generous amount of slack, okay? For his next movie, The Divine Enforcer (1992), he secured the dual services of Jan-Michael Vincent, Erik Estrada, and blaxploitation vet Jim Brown — and it was written by Randall Frakes of Hell Comes to Frogtown and Roller Blade Warriors fame — so there’s that B-Movie enticement. Then there’s Vampire Hunter (1994) with B-Movie screamer, Linnea Quigley, Run Like Hell (1995) with Robert “Maniac Cop” Z’Dar, and the return of William Smith in Raw Energy (1995). He hasn’t made a film since 2005 and, according to the IMDb, Rundle had a website, but it’s lost in the 404 error-verse.
Lonnie Schuyler, who stars as Brent McCord, actually did alright for himself from such humble, first-movie beginnings by booking a three-year recurring role on FOX-TV’s Models, Inc. and Melrose Place. He later produced, wrote, and directed his own acting showcase with the comedy Bottom Feeders (1997), and is still in the low-budget indie business. Some of the retro-reviews of Schuyler’s work — his debut, mind you — aren’t kind, but hey, the dude is trying and certainly better at the thespin’ game than Richard Gesswein in R.O.T.O.R.
It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed Dr. Coldyron drink a big ol’ cup o’ joe and yank out a tree stump, so guess what I am doin’ later today: watchin’ R.O.T.O.R. And I’ll watch Lonnie Schulyer’s McCord-inator before I watch crazy ol’ Trump-obsessed Mark Hamill in The Guvyer and Time Runner or Slipstream again, because, well, those movies aren’t as fun as Cybernator and Hammy the Ham ain’t no Harrison Ford, either.
Where to Suffer . . . Watch It
Now, if this original-release trailer and clip montage doesn’t deter you (damn you, vanishing embeds making us hyperlink) . . . well, maybe, one day, Mill Creek Entertainment will come up with an “Apocalypse” or “Android Invasion” box set and put this out on a DVD. Tinkers to Evers to Chance, Mill Creek, for Cybernator must be preserved for all hard-digital eternity.
In our DVD reality: Cybernator is out as a standalone DVD and a DVD two-fer with the Phillppines-shot Aliens ripoff Hyper Space and a Troma DVD two-fer with Digital Prophet, aka Cyberstalker starring Jeffrey Combs. As of July 2023, we can eschew the since deleted, You Tube fan-rip and suffer the wrath of the blue man hosehead guy as a proper, free-with-ads stream (of the Troma-released version) on Tubi.
* Disclaimer: Cybernator: The Movie is not be be confused with the 1992 Super Nintendo mecha-game Cybernator. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Those offended by off-color political parodies required to “chicken salad” the review of a chicken shit movie, need not apply. Cyber Samurai Warrior action figures sold separately. Copyright, 2021, B&S About Movies, Inc., P.O Box 0 Boston, Mass., 02134. Sent it to ZOOM!
Until this 18th film in the Godzilla franchise, which also served as the third film in the franchise’s “Heisei period” (1984 – 1995) — begun with 1984’s The Return of Godzilla — the second film in the period, Godzilla vs. Biollante, was the most expensive Godzilla film produced. While theatrical released in 1991 in the Asian markets, the film made its bow to U.S. audiences on home video and cable television in 1998. Sony released a later Blu-ray version in 2014 with Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992).
Just “wow” on this one, for Toho “showed us the money,” and then some.
On top of all of the usual action we expect in a kaiju film, we also get a film with a stronger fantasy element and outer space science fiction. Upon the box office failure of Godzilla vs. Biollante against the time traveling, blockbuster aspects of the Back to the Future franchise, time travel concepts were incorporated into the story.
In 1944, as Japanese soldiers are under threat by American forces, they’re saved by a mysterious dinosaur; that dinosaur later mutates into Godzilla after nuclear testing on his island home in 1954.
In the year 2204, the Earth-based Futurians travel to back to 1992-present day Earth to warn us that Godzilla has utterly decimated Japan. Teaming with the Futurians, Earthlings travel back to 1944 to stop Godzilla’s development.
Of course, nothing is as it seems: never trust a time traveler.
Prior to returning to 1992, the Futurians deposit three small creatures that, when exposed to the same atomic blast that created Godzilla, creates the three-headed King Ghidorah that they’ll use to subjugate Japan — and thus alter their own future to their liking.
Those were the UHF-TV days. . . .
Now, if you know your time snafus of the Back to the Future and The Terminator variety (another one of this film’s inspirations), of course the Big Green Guy comes back. And yes, King Ghidorah dies.
This one has it all: Time-traveling UFOs, alien androids, and alternate-timelines; it’s post-apoc, it’s a WW II epic, and for a bit of the ol’ nostalgia of the Mechagodzilla variety: King Ghidorah returns as Mecha-King Ghidorah. And it’s all topped off with top-notch wirework and puppetry.
Critics — especially the haughty U.S. ones — hated this new and improved, time-traveling ‘Zilla flick. Come one, pseudo-Leonard Maltin, it’s a kaiju flick for Godzilla sakes. It’s supposed to be jammed packed with kitchen-sink gonzo scripting that just keeps on throwing the wild ideas and imagery at the screen not allowing you a moment to take a breath.
Then again, I grew up on these flicks, so I always welcome the sequels that take me back home to my twin cinema youth. But you know how it goes: your own kaiju miles may vary. Films are funny that way.
In addition to the clip below, if you You Tube-search “Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah,” you’ll find a wealth of clips from this popular entry in the Godzilla franchise.
Hey, wait! Do you need a little bit more Godzilla in your Kong?
Then check out our “Kaiju Week” reviews from last March 2020 for Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and Terror of Mechagodzilla(1975), which also ran as a two-fer review during our January 2020 “Ape Week” blow out to celebrate Disney green-lighting their entry in the Planet of the Apes saga.
And that’s why were are here today: To celebrate the release of Godzilla vs. Kong — finally — in theaters on March 25, 2020.
Screw you, COVID!
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Here’s some of the other Kaijus (and sorta Kaiju flicks) that we’ve reviewed. For the rest that we’ve recently reviewed to commemorate the March 2021 release of Godzilla vs. Kong, click this “Kaiju Day Marathon” link to populate that list of films. You may see a few reposted Godzilla reviews, but many new film reviews concerning Godzilla, Kong, and other creatures from the Lands of the Rising Sun.
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