Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)
aka Gojira vs. Supesugojira
Article 5692 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-3-2019
Directed by Kensho Yamashita
Featuring Megumi Odaka, Jun Hashizumi, Zenkichi Yoneyama
Country: Japan
What it is: Kaiju

A space monster mutated from Godzilla cells arrives on earth and begins wreaking havoc. Can Godzilla and Moguera defeat him?

I try to be forgiving to these movies when the special effects aren’t quite up to scratch; after all, Toho didn’t have the equivalent budgets of many American movies. However, the scene that remains embedded in my memory for this one is the shot of SpaceGodzilla flying through an asteroid field that obviously consists of a bunch of rocks hanging from strings; it’s so unconvincing that it makes the whole movie look particularly chintzy. A meandering story line certainly doesn’t help (a scene involving the Japanese Mafia has very little to do with anything else in the movie), and the final battle is so protracted that it starts to get quite dull. On top of the creatures mentioned above, we get a fairy version of Mothra making what amounts to a cameo appearance, and a few scenes with toddler Godzilla. All in all, I think this is the weakest entry of the Heisei series.