Customer Ratings & Reviews

My favorite Godzilla Film and best looking Godzilla...

Finally glad to have this sequel to the original film

As any Godzilla fan knows, The Return of Godzilla is widely known as Godzilla 1985 to most of us. I've been looking for this to come out on something besides the ol' VHS for years and my prayers were finally answered! It's not quite the same, but it still enthralls nonetheless. As the name implies, this film is supposed to be the direct sequel to Godzilla, King of the Monsters, taking place 30 years after the supposed death of G'man by the oxygen destroyer. Apparently Godzilla survived and has been holed up in a volcano all this time, but a violent eruption has set him free. After 30 years in slumber, he's headed back to Japan to feast on some nuclear reactors and return to Tokyo! For anyone that's seen Godzilla 1985, the difference is immediate if you're watching it with the English audio. I was under the impression that the only real difference was going to be that there was no Raymond Burr, but nearly every single voice-over is different compared to 1985. It's been several years since I've whipped out the VHS tape, but I'm pretty sure that the only voices that stayed the same were the American and Russian ambassadors trying to get Japan to allow them to use nuclear weapons on Godzilla. The script is a bit different as well along with a few scenes that weren't in 1985. What stayed the same? Good ol' Super X getting crushed by that building! In terms of the story, as others have mentioned, this film certainly has a darker atmosphere. There's no kung-fu or humanity-saving Godzilla to be found. This behemoth takes it upon himself to track down individual humans in Tokyo! Pretty sure that this movie induced quite a few nightmares back when I was a kid in the 80's as I would dream that he was watching me through the windows no matter what room I ran to! Really want to rate this one 5 stars, but I just can't with the slightly disappointing English cast compared to 1985. The BD conversion actually holds up very well, though. While the film has that "older" look to it, the picture still comes in nice and crisp. Lastly, I didn't buy from BBY :/ It wasn't carried in stores and it was on backorder when I tried to buy it.

A previous review of this film on this site said it better than I can and I agree that it is a well done and presented version of the original. I want to emphasize again that this is NOT the Raymond Burr addition that was showed in U.S. theaters. For now, the American 1985 version is still mainly available on VHS or Laserdisc. If you have the choice, get the Laserdisc version as these were the early stages of dvds and have much better quality sounds and pictures versus VHS. Enjoy!

Here to just tell you this is the Japanese version of this movie without the American actors. Still one the best Godzilla movies still

This movie finally gets a DVD release! A solid entry for the franchise.