I can genuinely say that, without exception, I love each and every Godzilla film Toho has ever made. Even the stupid stuff. Hell, the number of Japanese sci-fi and monster movies I don't like can easily be counted on one hand with fingers left over for flipping people off who run them down for being "fake" or cheesy. It was the goddamned 1960s, you dumb-ass! American special effects were ten times worse than their Japanese counterparts, and I still like a big ol' rubber-suited monster kicking scale models around than I do watching some computer generated shit.

But of all the Godzilla films of my youth, one stood out among all the others as my absolute favorite. And though these days my favorite tends to be Godzilla Versus Mothra, I still have a warm and open spot in my heart for the most bad-ass of all Godzilla films, Godzilla Versus MechaGodzilla.

And I mean bad-ass. From the opening scene of Godzilla's buddy, Angilas, getting his mouth ripped open, you know this is some serious ass-kicking shit. When, later in the film, Godzilla is wounded (son of a bitch!) and blood goes spurting like a geyser or a Lone Wolf and Cub film, you know this isn't a straight-up kiddie film. You're not going to get kindergarten students in micro-shorts dancing a jig with a pot-bellied baby monster. Everything about this movie is bad-ass. The music is bad-ass. The women are bad-ass. Godzilla is even more bad-ass than usual. And MechaGodzilla -- don't get me started! Ghidrah may be Godzilla's most frequent foe, but MechaGodzilla is the only baddie bad enough to go the full twelve rounds with our favorite thunder lizard.

Our action begins with the aforementioned mauling of poor Angilas. What's even more shocking than the buckets of blood gushing from his flapping jaws is the fact that his buddy Godzilla is doing the damage. Or so it would seem. A small wound to Godzilla reveals a shiny interior, and we, like Angilas, figure something weird is up.

But that doesn't stop Godzilla from immediately setting out to wreak havoc across Japan. No sir, this film wastes no time in delivering the giant monster mayhem. When Godzilla sets to smashing up a petrol plant, he gets a surprise visit from ... Godzilla! This freaks everyone out as the two Godzillas face off amid the fiery wreckage. This is easily one of the coolest looking Godzilla fights ever, with smoke and flame surrounding the battling lizards.

Before too long, the impostor Godzilla is stripped of his skin, revealing a sharp looking robotic body. MechaGodzilla! Turns out a race of green space monkeys intend to conquer the planet, and they are using MechaGodzilla to do it. I never understood why, if these space guys are so smart they don't just hit us with a big neutron bomb or something. Instead they always build robots and send monsters. Oh well. It's more fun for us that way, so I suppose it's more fun for them as well. Anyway, these haggard space monkeys aren't nearly as sexy as the space ladies who try to conquer us in Destroy All Monsters, so this time around I have no issue with Earth trying to prevent the take-over.

But rest assured, marauding sexy space ladies in metallic clothes, when you come for the Earth, I will be first in line to sell my race out and do your bidding.

MechaGodzilla is a tough son-of-a-bitch, and the humans feel Godzilla could use a little help. Thus, they summon King Caesar, the ancient mythical guardian of Okinawa. King Caesar won't wake from his slumber until a cute island girl runs down to the beach and sings a jazzy go-go tune to him. Can't say I blame him. When he does awake, he is supposed to be one of those Foo Lions you see dancing in Chinese parades and stuff.

King Caesar isn't really much help. He mostly snarls and shoots rainbow beams out of his eyes before just settling down for his inevitable ass whuppin' at the hands of a superior foe. This means, of course, that Godzilla has to get the job done on its own. To do this, he whips out a super power no one knew he ever had before.

The effects in this film are top-notch, especially after everyone seemed to be just sort of slumming around in the last couple of films. MechaGodzilla is nearly as cool and tough as his own theme song, which is one of the best monster songs ever. King Caesar's song is okay because a cute island girl sings it. And as for Godzilla? Well, what do you think? As always, he's accompanied by his traditional Akira Ifukube originated tune, a song that will dominate monster music forever, in much the same way Godzilla dominates the monster movies.

One of my most vivid memories is of watching this film with my friends from down the street, Roman and Mandy. When Godzilla gets jabbed by MechaGodzilla's finger missiles and spurts blood and falls down, we were all devastated. "Godzilla's down!!!" I remember us yelling in horror. And when the Big G gets back up to kick some cyborg ass, we were cheering wildly. This movie still makes me feel like that.

It was followed up with the inferior Terror of MechaGodzilla, which we will get to soon enough. That movie wasn't much, as far as I am concerned. But it does have Godzilla running in slow-motion, so it's not a total loss. In the 1990s, MechaGodzilla was dusted off one more time, with a new, curvier look that isn't as menacing as the old, spiky model. He was also controlled by mankind instead of marauding aliens. The movie was pretty fucking good, the best of all the new Godzilla films, but the old Godzilla and MechaGodzilla still rule the day in my mind.

Point is, I don't know a lot about video games. It's just not a medium that I have ever gotten into. So I can't comment very authoritatively on anything that was made after, say, Crazy Climber, but I have never the less seen a lot of video game related movies. In fact, I've seen just about all of them. And while some video games really do have a rich enough mythology or back story to serve as a decent foundation for a movie (Resident Evil, Silent Hill -- even if you don't think the movies were good, the games at least provided enough meat for the framework), many others do not. Of course, that doesn't stop them from being made into movies anyway.

Such is the case with DOA. As best I can gather, DOA started life as a beach volleyball video game, with the hook that all the characters were hot cartoon chicks with tiny bikinis and huge tits, and you could somehow set the jiggle rate on their boobs. Then somehow the DOA games became fighting games, with the attraction being the same. The approach was twofold in its success. First, it was simple, sleazy titillation. I mean, hot chicks with bouncy boobs in tiny bikinis, engaging in lots of activities that require their jiggly parts to jiggle? What's not to like? Secondly, the games tap into the fundamental desire of just about all guys to, at least for a while, be a really hot chick. I'm pretty firm in my belief that most men harbor this fantasy, and I think nowhere is it more obvious than in the tendency of men to always play the hot chick character in a video game. Chun Li is nothing if not a symbol of ten million wanna-be gender-benders.

You can support or detract from my theory all you want, but what's most notable about DOA is that "hot chicks play volleyball and fight" as a plot is pretty much the single greatest plot ever invented and the sole reason the technology of cinema and video games was invented. Thousands of years of intellectual evolution and technological innovation has finally resulted in my ability to watch a movie with the plot, "hot chicks play volleyball and fight."

DOA the movie was directed by Hong Kong action director Cory Yuen, who has a track record that boasts more high points than low and who specializes in turning attractive women into on-screen kungfu bad-asses. Under his tutelage, Cynthia Rothrock, Joyce Godenzi, Michelle Yeoh, and Shannon Lee were all transformed into believable martial arts powerhouses (OK, Rothrock was already a kungfu powerhouse; he just figured out how best to choreograph her). And while Hsu Chi, Karen Mok, and Vicky Zhao may not have been 100% believable as ass-kicking superwomen, that doesn't change the fact that Yuen's So Close was completely awesome. Yuen is also one of the few Hong Kong directors to have a big hit as a director in the United States, that hit being the Luc Besson-produced The Transporter starring Jason Statham.

When news that there was going to be a DOA movie produced first hit cult film fandom, there was a lot of eye-rolling and "yeah, whatever, man" reaction. But when it was further revealed that Cory Yuen would be director, ears (among other things) pricked up and a lot of action film fans were suddenly a lot more willing to give the film a try, even if the inevitable PG-13 rating meant it would be all tease. If anyone was going to be able to direct a dumb fun "hot chicks play volleyball and fight" movie, it would be Cory Yuen.

So people waited. Trailers played, and the reaction was tentatively positive after the initial negative reaction. Sure, the movie looked colossally goofy, but it also looked like it would sport high energy and be a lot of fun. And then the release date came and went, and there was no movie. DOA vanished, bumped from the release schedule and shelved for any number of reasons, the most likely of which was probably, "Wow, this movie is awful." Which is a shame. I mean, how bad could the film possibly be? They released Norbit, for crying out loud, and Epic Movie. And those had to be worse than DOA which, if nothing else, at least would feature hot chicks playing volleyball and fighting.

DOA eventually began to trickle out to theaters in other countries, though it still remained absent from American theaters, and fans of Cory Yuen, action movies, video games, and hot chicks in bikinis started looking to foreign DVD releases to see the movie.

Was it worth the wait? Or the trouble to see it? Yes and no. DOA is pretty much exactly what you would expect it to be from the elements listed above. It is dumb. Extremely dumb. It is full of cheap titillation and gratuitous bikini ass shots, which always gets the Teleport City seal of approval. The script is paper thin, and what little story there is makes no sense anyway. Most of the cast doesn't even seem to realize they are supposed to be acting in a movie. The fight choreography, involving almost no trained martial artists, is heavy on editing, camera trickery, and computer manipulation.

And yeah, it's all a whole lot of gloriously stupid fun.

The plot revolves around a group of women invited to compete in a semi-secret martial arts tournament where, of course, shady shenanigans are being engaged in behind the scenes. Enter the Dragon's plot has proved useful so many times, the writers of this film decided there was no reason not to dust it off one more time. We first meet Katsumi, head of a ninja clan with a massive temple complex you would think someone in modern-day Japan would notice. Katsumi's brother disappeared during the last tournament, presumed dead, and she is determined to uncover the truth behind his disappearance, even if it means violating the laws of her clan. She leaves for the tournament with two more ninjas in hot pursuit: the noble Hayabusa, who has a thing for Katsumi, and the vengeful Ayane, herself the former lover of Katsumi's brother.

Katsumi is played by the indescribable Devon Aoki, whose continued presence in the world of cinema is one of the great mysteries of the entertainment world. She's a horrible, horrible actress, completely incapable of anything beyond a single blank expression and a single, monotone style of dialog delivery. On top of that, she's pretty weird looking. How she ever got a part in a movie is beyond me, but how she continues to get parts, however small they may be and however bad the movies they are in may be, I simply can't explain. And despite all that, I kind of like her. Not in a way where I'd go, "Oh, hey! Devon Aoki is in DEBS. I guess I'll watch that!" But more in the way of, "This movie has Devon Aoki in it. I won't not watch it just because of that."

Accompanying her, Hayabusa is played by none other than Kane Kosugi, son of the legendary (to me, anyway) Sho Kosugi, who starred in many of the best ninja exploitation films of the 1980s and then went on to host Ninja Theater and release a ninja exercise video in which he was accompanied by the scantily clad Ninjettes. One gets the feeling that Sho probably appreciates DOA. Kane started his acting career alongside his dad, always playing the son of whatever ninja guy Sho was playing at the time. Kane never developed much in the way of an American acting career, but he clicked in Japan and managed to forge a pretty consistent string of jobs, including a role in a Japanese sentai television series (those superhero shows that get turned into the Power Rangers in the United states), a role in one of those crappy new Ultraman shows, and most recently one of the leads in Godzilla: Final Wars (even though the lead role should have gone to Godzilla). He isn't really that great of an actor, but he's no worse than his dad (although his dad also wasn't a native English speaker), and he does handle action scenes well, which is generally all he's expected to do. As he gets older, he is looking a lot like his father, so much so that I'm beginning to wonder if Kane isn't Sho Kosugi, his revitalized youth the result of some esoteric ninja ritual or something. Oh sure, you say, but what about all those times Sho and Kane appeared alongside one another? Well, yeah. Maybe -- or maybe they just told us that was Kane Kosugi. Honestly, they could have hired any kid.

Anyway, Hayabusa is along for the ride, trying to convince Katsumi that she should return home while also helping her out with her investigation. Ayane is a little more hostile. Despite her love for Katsumi's missing brother, Ayane holds clan law more important, and clan law dictates that when Katsumi abandoned her post as leader, she was marked for death. Ayane is played by Natassia Malthe, who has a string of cult film credits to her name but is probably most recognizable, to people who might recognize such an actress, for her role as Typhoid in Elektra or for her upcoming title role in the sequel to video game based movie Bloodrayne. I may be one of the few people in the world who would think, "Elektra and Bloodrayne II? Sounds good to me!"

Second on the list of DOA combatants is Tina Armstrong, played by Jamie Pressly of My Name is Earl fame. Pressly is pretty much the only person who showed up to this film with the intention of acting, and she steals the movie as a pro wrestler looking for the opportunity to prove she's a genuine fighter. The film introduces us to her as she reclines aboard her yacht while wearing an American flag motif bikini, stirred out of her sunbathing just long enough to beat the snot out of a bunch of pirates (lead by none other than Robin Shou, former star of such movies as Mortal Kombat, and, umm, well, just that and Mortal Kombat II, really). When our founding fathers first set forth the basic premise of this great land of ours, I'm sure that they could conjure up no greater symbol of American awesomeness than a hot chick in an American flag motif bikini beating up pirates. OK, maybe Thomas Jefferson would disagree. But whatever. Fuckin' Jefferson. Ask Ben Franklin. He'd be on board.

Tina's pro-wrestling dad is also in the tournament, play by real-life pro wrestler (there's something...ironic? about the phrase "real-life pro wrestler") Kevin "Big Daddy Cool Diesel" Nash, who is dressed up more or less like Hulk Hogan in a somewhat lame gag I'm sure Nash found amusing. Since Kevin Nash's job in this movie is to drink beer and go, "That's my little girl!" he turns in the second best acting job after Pressly.

Finally there's Holly Valance as Christie Allen, a posh thief who shows up to the tournament while on the run from the Hong Kong police. Or someone like that. Valance is definitely no actress. I think she was some sort of mid-level Aussie pop star before this movie, and it's unlikely much will change after this movie. She's hot, though, and just bad enough an actress to still be somewhat acceptable in a movie of this nature. And she does the thing where she throws a gun and a bra up into the air, then sticks her arm up so that her bra goes magically on just as she catches the gun and whups the butt of the world's most incompetent bunch of cops. I mean, really, when a kungfu chick, however hot she may be, asks you to hand her a bra, do you really offer it to her as it dangles from the barrel of your gun? And I don't mean that figurative gun. I mean the actual gun, the one she can now kick out of your hands.

Along with a bunch of other fighters you will never care about (and most of whom just disappear at random throughout the movie with no explanation presented anywhere other than deleted scenes), the three ladies head to the island fortress lorded over by brilliant mastermind and DOA tournament manager Eric Roberts. Yes, folks, Eric Roberts, looking like a dude who would hang around the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame a lot, telling young kids about what a genius Jimmy Page was. In a feat of casting not rivaled since the days when Black Belt Jones cast Scatman Crothers as a karate master, crummy movie mainstay Eric Roberts is the lord of DOA, and with the help of his nerdy assistant Weatherby, Roberts aims to use the DOA tournament as a way to inject the world's best fighters with nanotech robots that will harvest their genetic information and make it downloadable to a pair of sunglasses which will then instill the wearer with nigh invincible kungfu prowess.

Seriously, man, that's the plot. All Eric Roberts needs to do for his nefarious scheme to work is, 1) capture each of the best fighters in the DOA tournament, 2) strap them into his gigantic info downloading machine, and 3) manage to keep a clunky pair of sunglasses on his face while fighting. And the end result is that you will be a slightly better fighter than most other people. On the grand scale of nefarious schemes, this one ranks pretty close to the "moronic" end of the bell curve. I mean, how is being a marginally better kungfu guy than most other kungfu guys going prove profitable to anyone other than, say, a guy in the Ultimate Fighting Championship? And then, you have to get the ref to allow you to wear sunglasses while you're fighting. And it's not like Eric Roberts put a sports band or anything on those glasses, so they will eventually just fall off. But it doesn't matter, because were centuries away from the era when being good at kungfu guaranteed global supremacy.

Complicating Roberts' already goofy plan is the fact that the original DOA founder's daughter, Helena, is an aspiring DOA combatant herself and is beginning to suspect Roberts is up to something her father wouldn't have approved of. Oh, and there's Katsumi's missing brother. In between that nonsense and all the awful dialog are a whole bunch of choppy fights of varying quality, a game of volleyball, and well, that's pretty much it. DOA has absolutely no surprises to offer even the most easily surprised viewer. But does that mean this movie is as awful as it sounds? Of course. And does that mean that it's as great as it is awful? You betcha.

The script, such as it is, comes to us courtesy of a trio of writers who actually have, if not a respectable track record writing good action films, then at least a modest record writing halfways decent action films. J.F. Lawton scripted two of the better Steven Seagal films (as odd as that statement may seem to some), Under Seige and Under Seige II, as well as the cult film spoof Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. His big gig, however (besides writing Pretty Woman, but what does that have to do with us?), was as a regular writer for the goofy television series VIP, in which a group of hot chicks run a private investigation service. And when you realize that was one of Lawton's former jobs, the entire look and feel of DOA makes perfect, predictable sense. with a few tweaks here and there, this really could pass as a VIP movie, right down to the three-letter title. Lawton worked on more serious action films like The Hunted starring Joan Chen and Christopher Lambert fighting ninjas, and he worked on goofier action movies, like the Damon Wayans superhero spoof misfire Blankman. So you can pretty much see where the script for DOA came from.

Script contributors Seth and Adam Gross were writers for Bill Nye, the Science Guy. I guess they came up with Eric Roberts' crazy science scheme, although i think the sheer goofiness of it all makes it more of a Beakman thing, really.

Cory Yuen's direction is a little uninspired compared to other efforts, though he puts his craft to good use in filming the ladies (Yuen has previous experience with cheesecake kungfu thanks to his turn in the director's seat of Women on the Run, which features some rather interesting, um, kung-nude). DOA lacks the slick polish of So Close, though Yuen is still adept at making cheap films look flashy. But even though the cinematography may be lacking, he misses no opportunity to randomly cut to a shot of someone's ass or cleavage, so he's not totally off his game here. And while Yuen is used to making non martial artists look like martial artists, he really has his work cut out for him in this movie. Aoki and Valance seem to possess almost no athletic ability whatsoever, and so to pass them off as fighters, Yuen relies on gravity-defying wirework and jumpy editing, as well as a dollop of CGI. He does the most he can with what little he has, but no one is going to be mistaking these gals for legitimate fighters. Even Hsu Chi was more believable. Jamie Pressly fares better largely because she has a pretty awesomely athletic build and looks like she really could deliver some punches and kicks and make you feel them. There's a reason why she's the one out of all these women who went on to have the biggest career. She's adept at both the job of acting and the job of looking good in the fight scenes. Sho Kosugi, errr, Kane Kosugi gets to have one fight scene all to himself, which ends up being the only fight scene that looks anything like vintage Cory Yuen, since this is a guy who knows martial arts fighting a bunch of stuntmen. But even though this fight is pretty good, the award for best fight scene has to go to the one between Valance and Sarah Carter, who plays Helena. And that's because that fight is between two sexy chicks in bikinis. On the beach. In the rain. In slow motion.

Yuen manages to wring a few other choice action sequences from a game but largely incapable cast. His skill alone is what elevates this film above the level of, say, an Andy Sidaris action film. Aoki and purple-wig wearing Malthe have a decent wirefu match-up in a bamboo forest, which many people have pegged as a cheap knock-off of the bamboo forest fight in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, even though it has more in common with the same type of scene as presented in Andrew Lau's Stormriders. The finale against a super-powered Eric Roberts (who's acting suggests that if you asked him today, he might not even be aware of the fact that he ever even appeared in this film) isn't exactly solid fight choreography, but it's still funny and exciting because, well hell, it's Eric Roberts. What the hell is even going on? And by this point, Yuen has resorted to his trademark jettisoning of any and all semblances of logic or reality, and believe me when I say that semblances of logic and reality are the last thing a movie like this needs.

Unfortunately, Godzilla's triumphant return to its Japanese roots was a middling affair hampered by a lackluster script, bland human characters, an even blander monster foe, and a dwindling budget. While not necessarily a bad film, it was not the type of thing that could compete with the likes of the recent Gamera series, which set the bar exceptionally high for special effects, story, and characters - and did it for less money. Toho, it seemed, was becoming a cranky old man out of touch with modern fans, unwilling to try anything different, and at times downright hostile to those who would otherwise be supporting them. While Daei Studios rushed to release all the Gamera films both new and old onto DVD, Toho played the stubborn Luddite and refused to put much faith in the new medium, allowing scarcely a trickle of Godzilla's back catalog to get the digital treatment. Fans both in Japan and overseas - a population Toho has never given a damn about in the first place - were even further alienated from the proprietors of their beloved atomic powered behemoth.

When 2001 rolled around, Toho rolled out another Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Megaguiras. The budget was still small, and Toho still seemed to regard their once-mighty franchise with more contempt than support, but even a bad Japanese Godzilla film is still a better time at the movies than a good Meg Ryan romantic comedy or any of those movies where a sincere outsider teaches us the beauty of the human soul while lots of people "smile through their tears" as that emotional "revelation" type orchestration plays. You know the movies I'm talking about.

Godzilla vs. Megaguiras is, in many ways, a return to the wacky spirit of the 1970s Godzilla films. After the relatively dark and somber-colored Godzilla 2000, Godzilla vs. Megaguiras goes for a more vibrant and rich approach, resulting in the revitalization of that comic book feel that permeated so many of Godzilla's adventures a couple decades ago. While certain key aspects are lacking - specifically the cool human characters and the funky action music - it's still a step back in the direction of entertaining audiences after the relatively drab outing that was Godzilla 2000.

But it ain't all wine and roses. Toho has become addicted to stories that immediately establish that none of the other movies ever happened, and this is an entirely new timeline. That's okay once, but they're pressing the reset button after every film now, and that smacks of desperation. For you wrestling fans out there, think of how many times WCW did the exact same thing, ushered in "a brand new era," in the year leading up to them just going belly up. It betrays the lack of faith Toho has in their own films, not to mention the ability of their script writers to pay attention to continuity - at least as much as Godzilla films have ever worried about such things. It's like saying all the previous films were so lackluster, or that the current writers are so unimaginative, that the best thing to do is ignore history completely. Why even bother then? It's not like Godzilla fans are Star Trek fans, people who will boycott an entire series because a character says an alien race came from Delos VII when it was stated twenty-two years earlier in some Trek novel that these aliens came from Delos V. As long as there are some tenuous links, we're happy.

In the timeline of this Godzilla series, which is apparently going to last one movie and probably be reset again, Godzilla has attacked only a handful of times. There was the first time back in the 1950s - depicted in black and white recreations of scenes from the original movie, but featuring the new monster design. Then there were a couple other attacks that resulted in the capitol of Japan being moved from Tokyo to Osaka. It might be a good idea to move your capitol inland, especially when said capitols have a tendency to get soundly trounced by a giant monster who lives just off the coast of your nation. At least make him hike a little rather than simply being ale to swim right up and blast things with no real effort.

Godzilla's history is recounted through us via one of those newsreel type things that went out of fashion round about the end of World War II, but apparently in this alternate reality, Japan still loves them. There is some cool recreation of a couple famous scenes from the original Godzilla so that we can see familiar destruction with the new monster design.

Each of Godzilla's attacks have come at key moments in the development of the Japanese energy policy. He shows up to smash nuclear power plants, so those are banned in favor of plasma generators. When those too attract Godzilla's attention, they are banned as well, so I guess Japan then converts entirely to a power system based on hamsters running on treadmills. The movie proper opens during Godzilla's final attack on some plasma generators before they are banned, and we meet a group of very stupid special-forces operatives who attempt to combat Godzilla with the use of bazookas. Missiles and tanks leave nary a scratch on the beast, but these guys are going after him with handheld rocket launchers. What's next? Pistols at twenty paces? Stepping into his path and doing that thing where you flip open and shut your butterfly knife to show what a bad-ass you are? Well, the team calls themselves the "G-Graspers," so we have to assume their initial plan was to simply walk out and grasp Godzilla as a way of defeating him. You know, grab it by the shoulder and sternly admonish the monster with a "Look what you did!" Could be worse, I suppose. At least they're not the G-Gropers or the G-Goosers.

Not especially amused with the antics of the ground forces, Godzilla simply squashes most of them, leaving only one survivor, a young woman named Kiriko. Naturally, she swears revenge on Godzilla for killing all her comrades, but stops short of shaking her fist at the monster. At least it gives Kiriko some sense of motivation. Godzilla 2000 had that businessman looking scientist determined to kill Godzilla, but he had no real back story, no motivation to give some sense of depth to his character. Kiriko's story may be cliché, but at least it's there.

Skip ahead a few years, and just when Japan thinks they have everything solved and are on a clean energy source that Godzilla won't feel the need to come push over, their old nemesis shows up yet again. After enlisting the aid of the standard-issue scruffy young computer genius, the G-Grasper team devises a plan that is as idiotic as just about every other plan devised to kill Godzilla. They have developed a weapon that actually shoots man-made black holes! Hit Godzilla with one of those suckers, and even it won't be able to escape the gravitational pull. Once Godzilla is sucked in, the black hole will dissipate, leaving only a very large portion of land completely charred and ruined. The black hole idea sounds pretty daft at first, but weirdly enough there are scientists (up at MIT I believe) working on this very idea. Well, on manmade black holes; not necessarily a gun to shoot them at large monsters.

The team tests their new weapon -- one that could potentially rupture the entire fabric of space-time and send the whole solar system plunging into oblivion - about a hundred yards from a heavily populated area. Frankly, as an inhabitant of Earth, I'm not so wild about the Japanese shooting black holes around just to kill Godzilla. I'm not wild about a bunch of crackpots up at MIT doing it either. It seems the sort of thing that could go horribly wrong and destroy the entire world. It would be nice if they consulted with other countries first, or maybe thought up a different plan, like using bigger missiles than those piddly little things they usually lob at Godzilla. You know, something smaller than an atom bomb but larger than those skinny little frog stickers launched by two F-14 fighters. Why not try, I don't know, fifty fighters and a few bombers dropping those 5,000 pound bunker busters? I mean, I don't go out and attempt to solve every little problem I have by creating black holes and jeopardizing the very structure of existence. I'm just saying maybe they should try something a little more conventional before they go shooting black holes at everything.

With the potential to destroy the entire solar system in their hands, I guess it really doesn't matter that the G-Graspers decide to test the weapon scant yards from a suburb, with little more than a unkempt hedge as a security perimeter. On top of that, they apparently decide the best target is a school building, which it seems is still in use since we soon meet a young lad walking to the school to return a bug collection he borrowed. You'd think they would do this sort of thing on an island or something away from the people. Everyone's probably going to be pissed that not only did the G-Graspers test a potentially catastrophic weapon in the middle of a heavily populated area, they also sucked the local school into the nether regions of reality.

As is par for the course in most Japanese monster films, the little kid manages to breach the tight security of the test site, foiling the whole two or three guards scattered throughout what must be several miles of woods. After they shoot off their little gun and he sees it, Kiriko catches him and makes him promise not to tell anyone he's just seen the government shooting black holes into the local school. Man alive, I thought American security at our nuclear research centers was bad! The kid witnesses one of the most top-secret super-ultra tests ever to be performed a hundred yards from a heavily populated suburb, and when he's caught they make him promise not to tell? Boy howdy, did Wen-ho Lee ever get the shaft!

The test goes remarkably well despite having been infiltrated by a pre-teen, up until the distortions in space-time start happening. Even that isn't of great concern to them, but when a small dragonfly darts into the field of distortion, things start to get complicated. The bug begins to mutate and multiply. Why? Because it's a Godzilla film. It also starts to get really big. Meanwhile, a shady scientist has secretly been storing some plasma energy, you know, just in case. Just in case what? Just in case Godzilla detects it? That better be the case, because that's exactly what happens. You can't hide Scooby Snacks from Shaggy, and you can't hide volatile sources of energy from Godzilla. You might not be able to hide Scooby Snacks from Godzilla, either, but I've never seen anything on screen to confirm or deny it, so let's just leave it in the realm of potential fan fiction ideas.

While the G-Graspers rush to get their weapon launched into space so it can target Godzilla, Tokyo finds itself under attack from the swarm of mutant bugs, who are laying eggs in the sewer system and causing the vibrant youth-oriented neighborhood of Shibuya to flood. They're also sucking precious bodily fluids out of people, but that's hardly as big a problem as ruining the Tower Records and chasing away all those looney club kids making the scene. Upset by the flooding of the vibrant entertainment and consumer district, yet no doubt happy about all the soaking wet kogals running into their waiting arms, the Japanese military immediately deploys a crack team of uniformed operatives to tool about in little rubber dinghies.

No one seems all that surprised to find out that it's that damn kid's fault for bringing an egg with him from the countryside when he and his mom moved to Tokyo, then just going and dumping it in the sewer. Despite the fact that this kid has actually caused as much damage to Tokyo as Godzilla, everyone seems happy to just pat him on the head and go, "Get on outta here, ya little scamp!" as if flooding Tokyo and causing billions of dollars of damage was about as serious as the time Spanky was trying to scare Buckwheat and accidentally freed a gorilla from the local zoo. This kid really needs to be chased by those monkey-faced space agents from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

The first chance to use the black hole gun, or Dimension Tide as they call it, comes when Godzilla wanders up onto the beach of a sparsely populated island. Unfortunately, the bugs show up as well, fouling up the targeting computer and generally annoying the hell out of Godzilla as they poke him with their stinger and suck energy out of his body. Dimension Tide fails to hit its mark, and eventually Godzilla just heads back into the water. Luckily, they can track him since, in one of the movie's cooler scenes, Kiriko actually scales his back while they are in the ocean and plants a tracking device on him. Unfortunately, Godzilla decides a more populated area would be fun to visit, and you don't really need a tracking device to tell you when Godzilla has entered Tokyo.

As you would expect, a big bug shows up, the Megaguiras, and has to fight with Godzilla. Godzilla wants that plasma energy, and Megaguiras wants that Godzilla energy. Well, whatever, so long as it gets our pals together for a couple big battles while the G-Graspers ho and hum and try to target their little black hole gun. You should pretty much know the drill from here on out.

All in all, Godzilla vs. Megaguiras is a fun film, certainly a more interesting adventure than the previous Godzilla 2000. I compared it to the films of the 1970s, which of course would make some people groan. I, on the other hand, always loved how full of action, hijinks, and color they were. This movie is a return to that sort of action-adventure spirit. Godzilla is still a menace, but at the same time it's given more of a character than it has shown in most of the more recent films. It even breaks out the classic "Godzilla move that makes you groan with laughter" tradition when Godzilla delivers a flying body press to Megaguiras. There's a lot of monster wrestling in here, just like the good ol' days. The 1990s "heisei" series relied far too much on "beam weapon" warfare, resulting in Godzilla and his foe standing at opposite ends of the screen shooting pretty lights at each other. This time around, we get down and dirty with some solid, old school grappling, and that's a big plus in my book.

Also a big plus is the latest Godzilla design. He looks boss, not to mention bad-ass. Very ferocious-looking. Now if we can just avoid the seemingly inevitable urge on Toho's part to inject a cutesy super-deformed baby Godzilla into later films. While Godzilla may look sharper than ever, the same can't be said for Megaguiras. On the surface, there's nothing overly wrong with the monster design. It's okay looking, based loosely on the Megaguiron from the original Rodan. But it lacks any real character, as all big monsters tend to. Megaguiras is an improvement over Orga from Godzilla 2000, but there's still no real depth to the monster that makes it memorable. I keep hoping for a new Ghidrah (instead of them just always falling back on Ghidrah when all else fails - he's the Borg of the Godzilla universe), or even a new Gigan, but all I get is a bunch of Gimantises and Spigas.

Adding to Megaguiras' lack of any real appeal is the fact that after all these years, Toho is no better in 2001 than they were in the 1960s at making a believable flying monster. Sure, they're okay when they are gliding or just lounging about, but the minute those huge wings start shakily flapping at a rate of about one flap every thirty seconds, things start to look silly, even for a Godzilla film. Megaguiras is actually a couple steps back in this regard, and there are several times when he just seems to be hanging there, motionless in the air, not moving his wings even a lick. It's just lazy looking. I know it's a giant dragonfly, and dragonflies can hover like the dickens, but in doing so they flap their wings about a hundred thousand times a second (don't quote me on that). Megaguiras goes for the more laid back "a couple times every few minutes" approach to hovering.

Confounding this is the fact that from time to time, they throw in some computer animation to give Megaguiras super-fast and realistically beating wings. This is his special attack, allowing him to dart to and fro just like a tinier dragonfly, but it looks great, reflects nature, and should have been the rule rather than the exception. I guess a taste of an advance in Toho flying technology is better than nothing at all, but a boy can dream, can't he? The worst part is how Megaguiras can somehow fly right and left without moving his wings at all, topped only by the scene where Godzilla catches Megaguiras' tail, thus causing the big bug to completely freeze in mid-air. Maybe shooting all those black holes around did more damage to the local gravity than people thought.

Speaking of computer animation, like Godzilla 2000, this movie relies on it heavily, at least relative to Godzilla films. The CGI in Godzilla 2000 was pretty bad, especially in the case of the UFO and a few other key parts. Toho may not be ILM yet, but they certainly learned something between films. For the most part, the CGI on display avoids being embarrassing. There are a few weak moments, specifically some very slow-moving and video game looking fighter jets. One of the great mysteries of the world is why people would develop multi-processor supercomputers and $10,000 a user software packages, then devote days upon days of time for some computer programmer to painstakingly render in CGI a series of effects that are nearly as believable as what Eiji Tsubaraya did with models back in the 1960s.

There's also a weird slo-mo effect that looks like that "step by step" sort of slo-mo you get on consumer VCRs rather than actual slow motion. Other than a few weak spots, though, the CGI is pulled off well, which is fitting for a movie that, other than a few weak spots, is itself pulled off pretty well. Sure there is an annoying kid, but he's not that annoying - unless you happen to work in the Akihabara district, that is. The other characters are bland but inoffensive. Kiriko at least has some character, but everyone else is pretty much there to fulfill a stereotype. The sloppy young computer genius. The dastardly old scientist. The benevolent old scientist. The nameless military guy who barks orders into a walkie-talkie for the entire film - you know the cast. I really hope that future Godzilla films continue to rediscover the influences of the previous films and give us some cool characters. Not since the 1970s have we had any human characters worth talking about. There have been no Nick Adamses or Akira Takarada's. There hasn't even been anyone to match the ambiguously gay suaveness of those two guys from Godzilla vs. Megalon or the hippy, karate girl,a nd cartoonish from Godzilla vs. Gigan. There certainly haven't been any Robert Dunhams or Kumi Mizunos. We've had a fairly bland parade of pretty but uninteresting human characters who neither add nor detract from the film around them, which is a shame. Sure, there was Miki the psychic girl in all the "heisei" films, but she wasn't really interesting. She was just driven into our memory through repetition. I'd like to see subsequent films give us a cool cast again.

Okay, so we did have that M-11 android in Godzilla vs. King Ghidrah.

Plotwise, it's business as usual. Toho definitely has the scriptwriters on cruise control here. Characters are, as I said, flat, and there's no real underlying message here other than the usual Godzilla fare of "don't ruin the planet," which is a given. At least the characters this time around are given some sort of motivation, lifting them beyond the characters from the last film, but there's still not a whole lot going on int he plot department -- not that this is a bad thing. Not every movie can be as multi-layered as Citizen Kane or as complex and plot-heavy as, say, Girls Gone Wild: Sexy Sorority Sweethearts, and while Godzilla vs. Megaguiras takes a very straight-forward approach to the plot, it is at least well-paced and exciting, lacking any of the dull, dragging spots that marred Godzilla 2000.

The final scorecard sees Godzilla vs. Megaguiras skewed heavily toward the positive side, however. It's not a work of art, but it's a solid, action-packed monster fest that delivers with gusto and spirit that help elevate it above the obvious short-comings in budget and script. Godzilla 2000 wasn't exactly a misstep, but this film is certainly a step in a slightly different, and in my opinion, more enjoyable direction.