Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah (2001)
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Cast: Chiharu Niiyama, Ryudo Uzaki, Masahiro Kobayashi
Extras:
Rating:

’Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack’ is the 2001 film about the resurrection of some of Japan’s most infamous kaiju. While the film still follows essentially the same plot and overall atmosphere as all the other films, with its updated special effects, the monster are also getting more sophisticated while never losing their original touch.

In this film, Godzilla has been re-awakened and as the military is once again helpless against his rampage though Japan, the guardian monsters ’Baragon,’ ’Mothra’ and the three-headed dragon ’Ghimora’ are awakened as well to protect Japan and bring down Godzilla. The result is an all-out monsters battle that leaves everything destroyed in their wake.

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment is presenting the movie in its 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio on this DVD. The transfer is enhanced for 16×9 TV sets and boasts good colors and solid black levels. However, there are a few visible problems with the transfer. Some serious banding artifacts are evident in a number of scenes, such as the submarine scenes at the beginning of the film. It could be that these artifacts are stemming from the original computer-rendered special effects, though, and may not necessarily be a result of the DVD compression. Hover, a number of compression artifacts are also visible in select scenes where the pixelation washes out details in the image. Despite all that however, ’Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah’ is a good-looking presentation and these smaller issues shouldn’t really discourage you.

The DVD contains the original Japanese language track as well as an English dub. Often out of sync, the dub is once again a riot, adding immense retro-flair and unwanted humor to the film. Both tracks are in 5.1 channel Dolby Digital and of good quality with a natural frequency response.

’Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah’ feels definitely updated with some cool-looking computer special effects – I especially liked the Mothra animation as it flies across the cityscapes. However, technology is never taking over and you will still see your man-in-a-suit creatures, as well as animatronic monsters with their jitters. So, in a nutshell, ’Godzilla, Mothra And King Ghidorah’ is a must-see for all kaiju fans. It’s just really cool…