Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
aka Gojira vs. Mekagojira
Article 5843 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-9-2020
Directed by Takao Okawara and Kazuki Ohmori
Featuring Masahiro Takashima, Ryoko Sano, Megumi Odaka
Country: Japan
What it is: Godzilla movie

When a baby Godzilla is hatched in Japan, Godzilla shows up to claim it. This gives the military its chance to battle it with their new weapon – a giant robot known as Mechagodzilla.

The II in the title is there only to differentiate it from the similarly titled 1974 movie; this is not a sequel to that one. Rodan also shows up in this movie, though in some ways the role he plays feels like it might be more appropriate for Mothra. The baby Godzilla is far less cloying here than in the earlier series; nor is it as cutesy as the one in the immediate sequel to this one. I’m a little disappointed by Mechagodzilla here; I prefer the pyrotechnics of the earlier versions, and I miss the finger missiles it used to launch. The story is a bit of an improvement, and it manages to give the girl with the ESP connection to Godzilla a little more to do than is usually the case. Overall, it’s one of the better entries in the Heisei series, but I do find that whole series seems to melt together in my mind in a way that the original run of Godzilla movies doesn’t.