The year is 2007. Being an officer for Pi Sigma Alpha – the honorary honor society for political science majors – gave me a key granting me access to the group’s office in Beering Hall. I actually don’t know why, but we would staff the minuscule little room fairly regularly, a sort of “office hours” situation, though no one ever showed up for anything, and I’m hard-pressed to come up with a reason for anyone to do so. I didn’t mind, though, ‘cause it provided a quiet, secluded place to read or study, complete with a computer. I mostly spent my “office hours” working through whatever book I was reading or typing up something short for class. Sometimes, though, I had no work to do, so I would make good use of the computer’s DVD drive. One such afternoon found me with Godzilla vs Megaguirus, a recent arrival from either Blockbuster or Netflix (I had both mail plans going at that time, the absolute madman). I stayed on in the office until the film was complete. I wasn’t pleased then, but maybe a new viewing will produce a different result?
Just as with the previous entry, this film disavows all previous franchise installments save the very first. The story follows the Japanese military’s development of their newest anti-Godzilla weapon: a black hole cannon. Yup, a big gun that shoots miniature black holes. I guess if you’d present any military with a seemingly indestructible monster for long enough, they’d probably develop some kind of ridiculous weapon to take it down, so, sure, why not? During a test, though, a prehistoric dragonfly-like insect comes through the resulting wormhole (my grasp of advanced physics isn’t strong enough to either support or refute this, so let’s just go with it and understand that creating a black hole also creates a wormhole). The bug, as one would expect, multiplies like crazy, to the point that a swarm is able to bother the King of the Monsters and draw some blood from him. This blood is deposited into the queen, the titular Megaguirus, creating a massive death-bug monster that takes on Godzilla. (Spoilers: the black hole cannon doesn’t prove very effective against the Big G. Who’da thunk?)
Sadly, a second viewing hasn’t helped this film earn any extra points in my eyes. It suffers from many of the same visual problems as the previous entry, especially some dodgy compositing and digital effects work. What’s worse is that things seem to have devolved back into the goofiness of the Showa Era, just with a more modern sheen. The most memorable bit from this film involves Godzilla leaping high into the air and basically body-slamming Megaguirus into some buildings. It already looks pretty ludicrous, but the icing on the cake is the look on Megaguirus’ insectoid face, its eyes even warping to present a sort of perplexed and worried expression milliseconds before impact. Everything runs similarly, over-the-top and cheesy as hell. Just as over a decade ago, I couldn’t get into it this time. It’s not a bad entry, definitely not the worst, but it’s nothing to write home about. Just as before, it’s likely gonna be the first I forget about by next week.
Next time out, the continuity is reset yet again, this time with some metaphysical ramifications. Stay tuned, kiddos.
Allusions of Grandeur 