There are a lot of Godzilla movies that have come out since 1954. Godzilla fans will agree that, on the whole, the franchise is groundbreaking and Wonderful. Some would even say that Godzilla can do no wrong. Unfortunately that is not the case. Not every Godzilla movie is perfect. Some are even so flawed that even fans consider them unwatchable. After scouring the web and re-watching the movies I think I have an idea of which one is the worst. I will briefly talk about a few Godzilla movies that often come up in conversation and end with the one that I believe to be the worst. Some of the movies are ones that people consider bad but aren't really so. One on my list is bad, yet few people talk about it. A bit of extra time was taken to be as objective as possible with this but some decision may still be fueled by bias. So bear with me as we talk about a few Godzilla movies and figure out which one is the actual worst.
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack
The first few times I asked people about the worst Godzilla movie, two oddities always came up in conversation fairly quickly. This was the first one. When I asked people to figure out which movie is their personal least favorite and the objective worst separately, very few answers. The thing is while it is very easy for people to not like things about this movie, that doesn't necessarily mean the movie itself is bad. Separating your bias from objectivity is a hard thing to do so I can't really blame anybody but this movie must be taken as honestly as possible to find out if it is a good Godzilla movie. On it's own, the movie is pretty good and pretty weird
This movie does have the distinction of being one of, if not the, only Godzilla movie where everything is based off of spiritual and ancestral monsters instead of the traditional more scientific route for these movies. Of course other monsters can be described as more spiritual or mystical, but this movie has that consistent theme for all of the monsters throughout the whole movie. Mothra and King Caesar have these mystical ties but were usually pushed to other themes in Godzilla movies.
The other thing is that some monsters seem to be an antithesis of what we know them as. Godzilla is a purely vengeful monster, King Ghidorah is the good guy, and Baragon is actually relevant! (side note, Baragon is one of my favorite monsters.
I joke but I love that derp)While it is okay for people not to like these character decisions, that does not mean the movie itself is bad. Godzilla has been practically every shade of good and bad before this movie existed so nothing wrong there. As for Ghidorah, why are Godzilla and Mothra the only monsters allowed to go through retcons between movies? It's TOHO's property and they can do with it what they think is right for the movie.
All of this is small potatoes compared to whether or not the film as a whole holds up. I won't review in detail here, but honestly the movie is okay. The story does get a tad confused early on with a bunch of stories, but quickly gains focus and momentum. The idea of the guardian monsters is an interesting concept. The film does have great effects, but drags on towards the end of the big fight. The infamous cliffhanger ending is head scratching to say the least. While many consider this movie as such, it's hard to say the movie is bad. The movie is weird and is sure to draw a few fans away, but it is not bad on the whole.
Godzilla: Final Wars
I'll be honest, I have no idea why so many people consider this movie as the worst Godzilla movie. The movie is stupid, dumb mutant and monster action from beginning to end, and that's what makes the movie awesome. Bias aside, the movie is still fine. For years fans were demanding a remake of destroy all monsters with all of the modern monsters. Toho delivered to the best of their abilities with up to date redesigns of all of the monsters. Most looking great, some not so much. To accommodate the sheer number of monsters the story had to move fairly quickly to keep multiple characters and events flowing on screen.
The story follows a few select mutants after some exposition about a mutant gene that was discovered shortly after the arrival of several monsters some years ago. During this time a team in the arctic even managed to trap Godzilla in the ice. I can understand why some people would be upset with this decision since one of Godzilla's main features is how strong he is and just how useless the military is to stop him. In it's defense, this is not the first time Godzilla has been trapped in ice so the decision still makes sense. Again I must acknowledge that while the scene is a spectacle to watch and leads to a fantastic opening credits scene, the boldness and sheer difference to the norm would easily turn people away from the beginning.
Most of the rest of the movie shows it's main strength as well as it's main fault. The movie is all action. Create choreographed fight scenes, a wonderful monster mash towards the end, easily some of the most fun fights in the late Heisei series and maybe the whole franchise. Unfortunately to go along with these fights we have a very quick-moving and confusing story regarding aliens trying to control the monsters and take over earth. I honestly can't say if the best way to fix the story is to simplify it by just making the aliens hostile from the beginning or not going through the important bits as fast. Once again, we are not here to review.
At the end of the day the monster spectacle is there. If the movie had a simpler or easier to understand story, I imagine it would have been received a lot better by fans. The movie is dumb fun at it's peak. Some would say that's bad, I cannot say that. The original Destroy All Monsters was just as, if not more, confusing. this movie has the decency to know how silly the concept is and roll with it to give us some awesome monster action. Not the best Godzilla movie for sure, but that huge edge of understanding what it is also makes it far from the worst. Not liking this movie does not make this the worst Godzilla movie.
Godzilla (the Roland Emmerich film from 1998)
It is very easy to say that this is the worst Godzilla film. there was a time when I would agree with you. Looking back I can't say that this film is really the worst. The film is absolutely bad, just not quite as bad as I remember it. While Final Wars could be considered dumb fun, this movie is just dumb with a few fun moments. It is no surprise that the biggest draw with this movie is the fact that it was called Godzilla and everything felt like a disconnect or betrayal to what the original film or the character was about. The creators did their own thing for better or for worse.
To one of the films only credits, the story is mostly simple. Giant lizard starts going up the east coast, reaches New York, and it must be stopped before it can reproduce and destroy the city. I did say mostly simple. There is too much character drama that is not handled well at all. Most of it should not have been in the movie. Most of the jokes are groaners that live on in infamy. This does open the door to some fantastic riffing material of course.
Another credit I must give the film is the creature design. Most will agree, this creature is not Godzilla. TOHO even buying the rights back just to rebrand that creature into Zilla. While that is true, the design is still very unique and even a tad threatening. Without a doubt the origins of the creature to the way it behaved and ate were fairly reasonable to the Galapagos iguana of which it originated. I have said to my friends that we would live in a better world if the movie Reptilian never existed, and this Godzilla movie took that title instead.
Credits aside, this movie has too many plot holes and is very dumb. I can't honestly say this movie is good but I also can't say it is the worst Godzilla movie because of one big thing. The movie is unintentionally funny in just how much you can riff the movie. Many have had fun watching this movie and rightfully so. Easily in the bottom five of all Godzilla movies. Unfortunately there are movies that are just worse.
Godzilla Raids Again
Every time I see a mass discussion regarding Godzilla movies this movie is usually absent. The only time this movie comes up is when a few people want to say that this movie is kind of dumb or when people defend the movie along with every other Godzilla movie in a mass umbrella. This lack of coverage of this movie caught me as interesting to I had to give it a watch and quite frankly, this movie is pretty stupid. There are good things in the movie, to be sure but on the whole not so much. I cannot sugar coat this.
The movie takes a simpler approach to the plot, Following to pilots as one discovers another Godzilla with another monster. The first 15-20 minutes of the movie are relatively okay and straightforward. Everything moves at a brisk pace. After preparation and build-up, Godzilla and Anguirus come ashore to Osaka to fight it out and destroy the city...roughly thirty minutes in. One major fault of the movie is that everything seems to happen in the first half and the rest is the people finding something to do.
One thing that has to be said about the movie, is that nobody is taking the threat of Godzilla seriously given the circumstances. The whole thing feels smaller. A smaller scope, a smaller threat and even smaller stakes. Every chance the characters get, they derail the plot to talk about "Mr. Groom" or some random plot device that serves almost no purpose. Right before the Osaka attack, the movie derails to follow a prison transfer where the prisoners escape and eventually drive into a chemical plant starting a big fire, thus drawing Godzilla towards Osaka. This takes almost 10 minutes and leaves the viewer wondering if there was an easier way to write Godzilla towards Osaka.
I won't talk about the effects much since everyone knows that the creature effects for this movie are of lower quality compared to the first movie. This quality shift is of a very wide margin as well. I can cut some slack for the movie being rushed out, but the original was made in less than six months so they don't have a lot of defense here.
This whole movie feels like nobody knew what to film and so much of it is filler. With too much filler, characters joking at inappropriate times and a generally smaller scope it is hard to take this movie seriously. This movie is dumb, dated and just careless. On it's own the movie is bad enough, but as a sequel to one of the best monster movies of all time it fails. With a few genuinely nice scenes it is hard to say this movie is the worst, but it is close. While not the worst I would say it is safe to give this movie the Shitty silver for the title of Worst Godzilla movie.
All Monsters Attack (A.K.A. Godzilla's Revenge)
There are a lot of things that can be said about this movie. Most fans already are aware that this film is a terrible mess of a film. It is no Wonder that this is the absolute worst Godzilla film. The reasons why the movie is bad are actually rather interesting and worth talking about, however. Most fans have the mindset that this movie is a failed bullying PSA. While that is not wrong, after watching it again it's not exactly right either.
The main character has issues at school and his home life since he is not very social and is a cowards. His parents worry for him often, but are away at work most days and nights leaving the main character in the care of a toy maker after school who does a decent job in caring for and spending time with the boy while the parents are away. The boy gets taken hostage after picking up a theif's passport and must toughen up to get out of it and survive until help arrives. Where does Godzilla appear in this? Well Minilla is one of the monsters that inspires the boy to be stronger. During the boy's day dreams he "travels" to monster island to watch Godzilla fight off other monsters and show off how cool he is. As evident, the scenes with Godzilla are just kind of added on to draw attention to the movie, not to mention the poster is a huge lie.
Most of the monster scenes with Godzilla is stock footage from previous Godzilla movies with a few new scenes of the boy talking to Minilla and some scenes with a new monster. Gabara is not a good monster. Everybody knows this. The creature looks like King Caeser lost his hair and tail and suddenly got herpes. Even with the bad design, how the monster's are used is a mix bag. the fight scene between Godzilla and Gabara is traditional monster fun. The scenes before it with Gabara and Minilla are cartoonish and kind of annoying. Monsters are meant to have personality and the only thing we know about Gabara is that he is a coward who likes to pick on little kids.
The human side is a tad better but not by much. While some may describe it as a bullying PSA, honestly there is not that much of a bully in the movie. At the very least, the other kids are not portrayed as "bullies" that well. The movie is more of a self-help PSA teaching people to toughen up when they need to. If the movie was just that, I would see it as just kind of dumb. Unfortunately as a Godzilla movie this movie is extraordinarily dumb. There is no reason for it to be a Godzilla movie when every scene with Godzilla is a dream Sequence. The Godzilla scenes in this movie are about as canon to the franchise as a Godzilla Pinball machine.
Does this movie have anything to offer? I would say this movie has two things in it that people might like. One is the toy-maker and the human story. If you ignore everything that happens with Minilla and Godzilla, you may enjoy the human characters. The other thing is the stock footage from the previous films. At that point you are not saying you like this movie, you are saying you like Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster and Son of Godzilla. Because of this, It is easy to say that the worst Godzilla movie is the one that's only barely a Godzilla movie to begin with.
In Conclusion
Godzilla is a wonderful franchise that has produced some extremely fun and thought-provoking movies for the world to see. Knowing this we can't be blind to the fact that not every movie is a gem and that is okay. Is it possible to enjoy the awful Godzilla movies? Absolutely! Everyone has different tastes in media and enjoys different parts of the movie. Something I plan to touch on in the future is that we as fans must hold the things we love accountable. Being a fan does not mean blindly loving every part of something. We must be aware of it's faults. I'm the Kaiju Kidd signing off!
Before talking about the "main attraction" it should be noted that a lot of good trailers came out this year at SDCC. Everything ranging from animated teasers, to new season reveals of everyone's favorites shows and even some unexpected pleasantries. DC Comics almost completely stole the show this year with two movie trailers that already made a lot of people happy. Aquaman was a personal standout as it looks gorgeous and fun, completely unlike the dark "edgy" feel of the other movies that came before it. Time will tell if this is a good movie, but the trailer was truly excellent regardless.
Despite the Overwhelming good news that came from Comic-Con this year, one trailer really stole the show. One of, if not, the most talked about trailers to come out was the for the Godzilla: King of The Monsters. Kaiju fans went ballistic as The Big G was in the spotlight once more. The trailer showcases the 4 promised monsters to fans of the franchise while building them up in a wonderful way for new viewers. It really is noteworthy and commendable that not much of Mothra, Rodan or Ghidorah is shown outside of brief glimpses and silhouettes. Hype for this movie was built really quick
Before Comic-con was upon us the site monarchsciences.com was up and running to allow us to track Godzilla and look up confidential information. Key sites on the map allowed people to look into some Monarch case files regarding the monsters that will appear in this movie. As people explore they are given more clearance, and after deciphering a code on their twitter they are given the highest level of clearance on the site (at least so far). There is some awesome pictures and easter eggs on that site just ripe for people to explore. The best part about the site is that they are still updating it!
While Comic-con was certainly the main focus of Godzilla news lately, it was not the only thing. Truth is, SDCC seemed to completely overshadow any discussion about the next installment in the Godzilla anime. There is a reason for this. The movie was ultimately left with reviews that range from bad to okay. While this installment is better than the first, it suffers from many of the same problems and even some new ones.
