Terror of Mechagodzilla 1998 Horror Movie Review

In 1974, Inoshiro Honda, the original and best Godzilla director, returned after a five-year absence to direct this 20th-anniversary commemoration to Gojira (the original Japanese name for Godzilla, before the West Anglicized it).  This is the fifteenth film in the Godzilla series, and the eleventh by director Honda.  Yet again the aliens (from the third planet of the black hole, whatever that means; they don’t really provide directions) stage a takeover of Earth, this time with the aid of Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus (they’re just what they sound like).  They owe the mad scientist Mafuni for the use of Titanosaurus, who in turn owes the aliens for resurrecting his daughter, Katsura, badly hurt in an accident, albeit now as a cyborg with the ability to control their two mecha-monsters.  It shapes up as the fight of the century when Godzilla is pressed into service for our side.  The battling behemoths afford the most dramatic and vivid fight scenes in all of Godzilladom in this one.  Let’s hope the aliens don’t win; they’re so smug.  —Jim Gay