Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. First case in point: The just-released “King Arthur” was carefully groomed to be a blockbuster but flopped spectacularly at the box office. Second case in point: After I decided to review another movie of this ilk — “Gods of Egypt” — my not-quite-legit DVD froze up halfway through. I took that to be a sign from the gods, who apparently wanted to spare me the sight of Gerald Butler trying to walk like an Egyptian.
OK — No way, no how am I going to buy another copy. But now I had to find another equally bad movie. Instead of traveling to Egypt past, I decided to head to Japan of the future.
Godzilla is currently riding a new wave of popularity. But in the late ‘60s, the Big G had fallen on hard times. He needed a reboot to put him back on top. Welcome to “Destroy All Monsters,” which was made in 1968 but which takes place in the far-distant year of 1999, when all the monsters featured in Kaiju (the Japanese monster film genre) are living on an island called — you guessed it — Monsterland!
In this far-flung future, humankind is so advanced that people regularly receive long-distance phone calls from the moon. (Phone bills are still too high, so some things haven’t changed.) A race of female aliens in smocks decides to put a wrench in the works by taking control of Godzilla and his pals and unleashing them on the cities of the world.
Sounds good on paper — but the budgets for Godzilla flicks are probably less than Chris Christie’s grocery bill. Hence, the spectacle of Godzilla, with his new puppy-dog-looking face, destroying New York, or of Rodan — now resembling a cross-eyed turkey — pummeling Moscow, do not have the impact you would think. To make matters worse, the dialogue is mind-numbing: “Let’s go!” “Right!” “Watch out!” “Right!” “Shoot ‘em!!” “Right!” are what passes for snappy patter here. In fact, if you took a drink every time someone says “Right,” you would soon be as hammered as Larry Tate from “Bewitched.” In the most boring scene, a group of soldiers spends what seems like half an hour trying to remove an alien device from its pedestal with a welding torch. Plenty of time to use the john here.
Yet all may be forgiven thanks to the rousing finale. King Ghidorah battles Godzilla and his cohorts — Anguirius, Mothra and others — in a monster free-for-all. Gorgosaurus performs his infamous kangaroo kick, and even Godzilla’s son, Minya, gets into the act by blowing smoke rings around Ghidorah’s neck. The victorious monsters shake their booties in a victory dance.
Well, sometimes things work out for the best, as our trip to Japan turned out better than our planned sojourn to Egypt. I wonder, though — has ANYONE ever made it through “Gods of Egypt”? Gerald Butler in the buff was my tipping point.
— Blaise Majkowski
Gazette page designer and B-movie aficionado