If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I wanted to but couldn't!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)** 1/2 (out of 4) A UFO lands in Tokyo and it turns out that time travelers are on board. They've traveled back in time to warn Japan that their country is going to be reduced to rubble. One is due to pollution but the big issue is that Godzilla is going to be coming back and he isn't their friend.GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH is obviously going to appeal to those die hard fans of the big G. But how does your average fan going to take it? I think for the most part it's an entertaining movie but there's no question that there are some flaws in it including keeping the big guy off camera for so long. It takes thirty-minutes for a dinosaur to briefly appear, fifty-minutes for King Ghidorah to appear and Godzilla doesn't show up until the hour mark.Obviously there's a lot of stuff going on here and some of it is campy enough to where it could hold its head right up there with some of the sillier entries from the 70s. I mean, there's one man who is a robot and the scenes of him running fast through the streets are really bad. The effects are extremely cheap and laughable and they bring the film down a notch. I'd also argue that the WWII footage was also poorly done and looked incredibly cheap. With that said, the Godzilla costume looks pretty darn good and I thought it was realistic enough for the film. The King Ghidorah was also good looking, although not quite as good as Godzilla.I actually thought the story itself was fairly good and the use of the time travelers actually paid off very well. The biggest problem with the film is the fact that it clocks in at 100-minutes and there are way too many moments where there aren't any monsters on the screen and the dialogue and story aren't good enough to make up for that. Once the final battle starts to happen we're treated to the action and destruction that fans have come to love but it's a long way getting there.

Let's be honest, the plot makes this one of the best entries in the entire franchise. Aliens come from the future (goddamn, taking it up a notch are we?) and warn Japan about the arrival of Godzilla's demise on Tokyo and offer to help get rid of him. As they proceed, they set a new monster in his place and it becomes King Ghidorah: Godzilla's biggest, baddest foe in the saga. When Godzilla gets reborn, he destroys it but then proceeds to not only destroy the time travelers, but devastate Tokyo too. See where this is going? A vicious pattern. Luckily, King Ghidorah is repaired and sent to kill Godzilla in a giant climatic battle that makes King Kong fighting the snake in 1976 look like a sizzle stick. For a Godzilla movie, this one really pulls out all the stops and goes for an awesome story. Still set within the Heisei era films, it dives deep not only in the origin of Godzilla, but also fascinating ways to bring fantasy within the realm. The idea of time travel meant Toho decided that it was time for new ideas and to integrate a clever story around the concept of how the creation of Ghidorah could be related to Godzilla in a certain aspect. The film does have a controversial view point of the Japanese side of WWII, but it is overlooked by the awesomeness of the movie itself. If I could recommend any Godzilla film to a newcomer to the series, this would definitely be at the top of the list. It represents the franchise as a whole. Cheesy but inventive.

Suddenly finding myself determined to watch a loony Toho kaiju extravaganza from beginning to end, I caught 1991's "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (hereafter "GVKG")on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 8:15 p.m. on Encore. I am indebted to many of the posters who have already meticulously explained GVKG's contorted "time travel" plot. They probably did a better job than I could. Crazy as it is, that plot at least provides a semi-believable origin for both the atomic-powered lizard and the three-headed electricity spewing dragon. They were both mutated by the fallout of American H-Bomb test blasting during World War II, though not at the same time. Godzilla was originally the dinosaur Godzillasaurus, and King Ghidorah was a giant fusion of three cat-sized flying dragon things call dorats. As usual, it takes more than half the movie for the two behemoths to meet, but meet they do, not once but twice.Until the monsters' cataclysmic clash, we have to endure the usual, somewhat effeminate English dubbing of not only Japanese scientists, military personnel, and corporate CEOs, but also that of futuristic time travelers (including a Terminator-like android called M-11) who arrive in '90s Japan to offer a seemingly magnanimous chance for the nation to get rid of Godzilla forever - go back to the past before the Godzillasaurus was mutated, let the "imperialist" American World War II leave him mortally wounded, and then transport him back to the present to let him die in the ocean. Of course the aliens are not benevolent; fearing the rise of Japan as a conquering superpower, they resurrect and manipulate King Ghidorah to destroy Japan without any interference. The Japanese then decide to mutate the dying Godzillasaurus to help save them, but a nuclear sub explosively beats them to the punch. Godzilla is back but, as they say, the cure is worse than the disease. Now the Japanese must hijack an alien time travel ship to go back to the future to reanimate King Ghidorah, cybernetically fit him out, even give him a human-operated mechanical neck and head to replace the one Godzilla severed in the first battle, and send him back for a rematch. Which monster wins? Does it matter? Is Japan doomed anyway? Oops, I guess I regurgitated the plot again! :S GVKG is goofy typical Toho monster mashing, enhanced somewhat by the nuclear genetic mutation and time-spanning plot, and sometimes remarkable special effects, including a pre-Jurassic Park animation of the Godzillasaurus which "saves" a "noble" Japanese regiment, and especially its deeply grateful commander, from American naval annihilation. Also lurking in the movie is the ambivalent regard Japan has of itself as both a nationalistically and technologically proud but also reckless and potentially destructive (economically and ecologically) Japan. GVKG seems to view America that way as well. Godzilla is the "unfriendly" undying symbol of that country-conquering spirit.

First off, I should point out the 7/10 rating I am giving this movie is not by the same standards I would any other film. It is a 7 out of 10 for a Godzilla movie. I look at is as "what was the film maker trying to do, and did they accomplish that?", now that I have made that clear, I will get into the review.The story of this film revolves highly around time traveling, but this is where the plot of the film has the biggest set back. The time travelers came back from the 23rd century to stop Godzilla from destroying Japan, or so they tell the people in 1992 Japan. The problem is, when they find Godzilla and remove him from history they go back to 1992, and Godzilla has never existed, yet people remember him. Not to mention it actually creates a paradox. It would take me forever to explain the flaws in this film based solely of the time travel aspect.Once you get past that, it is a well put together movie. Higher production values then most other Godzilla films. Good characters, some funny scenes and very good action sequences. King Ghidorah looks good in both normal and mecha forms and creates a believable(for a Godzilla film) opponent.The film has been critiqued for being anti-American and pro-Japanese, but the only person who would see it that way would be a jingoistic individual to say the least. The reason it was critiqued for being anti-American is because you see Godzilla(as a dinosaur, not yet mutated) attack American troops during WW2. Funny, because Godzilla had only been attacking Japanese troops in the past movies and in future movies. The attacking American troops is even worked into the plot, as Gdzilla later destroys a ex Japanese soldier who thought Godzilla had saved them from the US troops. The other part of the criticism of it being anti-American is that the people from the 23rd century say that Japan becomes the dominant global power of the world. Pro-Japanese, yes. Anti-American is stretching it. The reason of Japan becoming the dominant global power works in the context of the story they are telling.As a Godzilla movie, this is one of the more memorable ones, if you can get past the time travel plot holes.