Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) review

(4/10)

   Standing as a grave improvement over Godzilla's Revenge, this movie has a lot more potential to be a great monster movie. However, the movie focuses too much on an overly-preposterous plot and less on the monsters that made the franchise famous, also with a handful of awkward, unnecessary faults in plot execution.

PLOT: After Godzilla destroys Mechagodzilla once more, a group of scientists scavenge the ocean to find all of his scattered parts and discover the dinosaur, Titanosaurus, who's control was harbored by traitorous scientist, Prof. Mafune (Akihiko Hirata), and his cyborg daughter, Katsura (Tomoko Ai). As it turns out, these scientists are actually aliens seeking revenge on Godzilla and the human race, and they're planning on rebuilding Mechagodzilla to ensure dominance over Tokyo. Unless Godzilla steps in and beats the two opposing monsters, Tokyo may be doomed to alien domination. The plot is truly quite preposterous. The writers couldn't leave the plot with the threat of Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla but had to include a nonsensical story for alien domination. The plot, though preposterous, had some potential. However, the possible potential was squandered on too little of the monsters on camera and too much of the drama with the aliens. Katsura, and Prof. Mafune. It makes no sense to focus on a nonsensical plot when one could focus on the action.

ACTING: The performances in this movie are actually pretty okay. Even the American voice dubs are pretty good and well-matched. Unlike Godzilla's Revenge, the American voices matched up to the Japanese mouth movements more accurately and didn't sound so overdramatic. The best performances and voice dubs come from Tomoko Ai as Katsura and Akihiko Hirata as Prof. Mafune; they didn't do too bad. The acting isn't the saving grace of the movie, but it makes it a bit easier to watch.

SCORE: The score in this movie isn't anything special. You get a few dramatic, action themes but nothing unique.

EFFECTS: The effects in this movie were a tad cheesy at times, but suited the movie overall. The flame effects, monster costumes, and blood effects were pretty cool for your basic Godzilla film, only if that's all you tend to expect.

OTHER CONTENT: This Godzilla movie had the potential to become something great but wasted away on the plot and various awkward quirks. Some scenes were awkward, unnecessary, and unintentionally funny. If not for these fatal flaws, this would be a great Godzilla movie, especially with the always-entertaining monster fights that brought in and closed out the movie.

   All this movie ended up being was wasted potential. The performances were good, the monster fights were entertaining, and the concept was excellent, but they over-exaggerated the plot and left out the pieces to making the movie most worthwhile.