It's day six of Godzilla Week 2013 and I'm back with another review of a millennium series Godzilla film.  Today we will be taking a look at the follow-up to "Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (2002)" titled Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S. (also known as Godzilla X Mechagodzilla X Mothera Tokyo S.O.S.).  The movie starts off with both Godzilla and Mechagodzilla recovering from battle at their own homes.  The boss is really angry that it's taking a really long time to repair Mechgodzilla fearing that Godzilla or any other huge monster will take advantage of Tokyo while their hero is down.  The Japanese air-force spot something unknown on their radars and warn it but it won't respond to them so they try to shoot it down but are unsuccessful and the unknown flying object gets away.  The UFO is not a enemy ship of any kind but is in fact Mothera and she is on her way to visit an old friend.  No I am not talking about Godzilla but instead we see the return of one of the characters from "Mothera Vs. Godzilla (1964)" (a soldier that helped rescue Mothera).  He is warned by two fairies (also characters introduced in Mothera Vs. Godzilla) saying that they must dismantle Mechagodzilla and return the bones of the original Godzilla to the sea.  If they don't do it Mothera will declare war on the human race.

The army gets told of this but they refuse to give up the only thing protecting them from being wiped out.  What's worse is that the guys grandson is copping it from his fellow soldiers.  They instead go to convince the Prime Minister and he accepts but on one condition: They must take out Godzilla first.  Everybody is happy with that but Mechagodzilla is still in repair.  The army also find something shocking and that was the corpse of a giant sea-turtle (a possible cameo from Gamera perhaps?) washed up on the beach and it died from fatal wounds to the head from being attacked by Godzilla.  This can only mean that Godzilla is near and is getting ready to wreck havoc on Tokyo yet again.  The army has no choice but to launch Mechagodzilla into battle.  Poor Mechagodzilla, it doesn't matter if he wins or loses as he must be destroyed in the end.  (Click "Read More" to read the full review).

The story in this one was pretty decent and it does leave a huge set-up to the final battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that will peak your interest up and make you very excited.  It was a bit weird how none of the human characters from the film before this don't appear at all but you'll soon get over that.  The new cast was done very well adding a mixture of freshness for the new characters and nostalgia for the classic characters they revive for this film.  The battles in this one were very strong and emotional with some grade-A monster fighting and an ending that will make you shed a few tears.  It's not all perfect though as the first battle between Godzilla and Mother did drag on for a little bit but got back right on track when Mechgodzilla joined the fight.

The acting is not much of a step up from Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla with the English dub and there is also something very weird with this release.  There is a scene where a submarine full of American troops patrolling the ocean and in the Japanese dub they are naturally talking English while Japanese subtitles translate what they are saying, in the English dub they dubbed over the voices of the American actors with their own dubbed actors and it's really bad and cringe worthy to the point where I just switch to the Japanese dub during that scene.   The special effects are also done a little weird with them switching in-between costumes and puppets with computer generated modes in very inconvenient spots.  One scene you will see Godzilla standing in the city with the classic rubber costume and then it cuts to Mothera and then back to a computer generated Godzilla standing in the same spot doing the same thing, cuts back to Mothera, cuts back to Godzilla who is back in his rubber costume form... That use doesn't make any sense at all. Other than that the costumes look great and the computer generate models look okay but nothing too special.

Not only does this DVD include the theatrical trailer but it also includes some very kick-ass teaser trailers that include a toy commercial for the Godzilla line of Hamtaro keychains which you got if you saw the movie in theaters.  Overall this was a fairly satisfying ending to this two-part series and did make me cry due to how sad it got.  Good viewing.


Six days done and only one more to go.  The last film for this special week has by-far the biggest cast of monsters ever seen in a Godzilla film.  So tune in tomorrow as we wrap up Godzilla Week 2013 with Godzilla: Final Wars.  It's going to be great!  Kaiser out! *beam noises*

Title: Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S.
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Starring: Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla
Genre: Action, Science Fiction
Running Time: 91 minutes
Distributor: Madman Entertainment/ Eastern Eye (www.madman.com.au)
Rating: PG (Mild violence, Infrequent mild coarse language)
Price: $39.95 (as part of the "Godzilla - Millennium Series" box set)
Recommended: Yes