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Even if Tokyo S.O.S. features an entirely different set of lead
characters, it's a direct sequel to 2002's Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla: After Mechagodzilla has fought Godzilla to a
standstill and Godzilla has retreated to the deep sea, Mechagodzilla is in
bad need of repairs ... which is when Mothra's Twin Fairies (Masami
Nagasawa, Chihiro Otsuka) pay the robot's chief engineer Chujo (Noboru
Kaneko) and his uncle Shinichi (Hiroshi Koizumi, repeating his role from
the original Mothra from
1961) a visit, urging them to not continue to work on Mechagodzilla,
instead returning the Godzilla-bones (from the original Godzilla)
the robot is made of to the sea. In return, the fairies promise to send
giant butterfly Mothra to help to protect Tokyo. Shinichi agrees right
away, but Chujo has reserations ... and so do the politicians who don't
want to leave Tokyo defenseless ...
Eventually Godzilla attacks, and since Mechagodzilla is by no means
ready to fight anyways, Shinichi and his grandson call upon Mothra, wich
steps in to defend Japan ... and gets a glorious thrashing. Now the
Japanese gouvernment knows they have to employ Mechagodzilla, ready or not
ready. For a while, Mechagodzila holds his own, but then systems start to
malfunction. Thank god the twin fairies have meanwhile sung one of their
lovely songs to a giant egg, and not one but two Mothras - still in
caterpillar state - hatch before long and immediately take off to Japan
where they try to spin Godzilla into a cocoon.
Meanwhile, Chujo has made it to the fallen Mechagodzilla, enters him,
patches him up and reboots the system and makes the robot operational
again ... but somehow he can't get out anymore. In the meantime, the
butterfly Mothra has died protecting the two caterpillar Mothras, but now
the caterpillars and the robot work as a team to bring Godzilla down, and
before long they have put him out of action and spun him into a cocoon ...
which is when Mechagodzilla stops to take commands from his pilot, instead
just grabs the cucooned Godzilla and flies him to the open sea to choose a
watery grave for both of them, monser and robot alike. Of course, Chujo
gets out just in time ...
The human subplot concerns Chujo, arrogant Mechagodzilla pilot
Akiba (Mitsuki Koga), who detests him, and Akiba's co-pilot Azusa (Miho
Yoshiaki), who's secretly in love with Chujo ... but in the end, the three
of them as a team are instrumental in bringing Godzilla down.
There's much destruction in this film, and - this being a giant monster
film - this is of course great, especially since most of the miniature
effects are well made and some of them are quite inventive. however, as a
whole, the film just fails to convince, the whole esoteric storyline is
little more than annoying and seems to be given up halfway through the
movie while the human subplot about Chujo, Akiba and Azusa is, if
anything, underdeveloped while overly clichéd. It stands to reason now if
one watches a Godzilla flick because of the plot, still, if
one goes to the trouble to inject the film with a plot, it might as well
be a decent one ...
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