I've been a fan of Godzilla and enjoyed several of the films. I watched both the Japanese and English versions of the film and enjoyed them both, preferring the Japanese. A while ago, I decided to rent this film due to its status as the first Godzilla sequel. I watched the Japanese version and I thought it was a decent film. It was far from perfect, mostly because the story had points that could've been from any other film. Other than that, the story was okay and the characters were as likable as their predecessors (one of whom makes a short appearance here). Of course, you can't judge a Godzilla film without mentioning the monster scenes, which were good here. The under cranking here is weird and doesn't belong, but the monster fighting was still good and a great start of pitting Godzilla against other monsters. All in all, good film. Not perfect and less good than many of the succeeding films and definitely a letdown compared to the original, but this film is worth at least a few viewings.
I'll take this opportunity to say my assessment and my score is for the Japanese version. The American version is absolute garbage. It adds a stupid prologue talking about the history of Earth and goes south from there. The US version has the main character narrate everything, even the things any idiot can clearly see. The voice acting was okay, but a huge step down. The writing that turned the Japanese version into the US version was terrible. All in all, the only good thing about the US version is highlighting the Japanese version's strengths. 1 star for this version, 2 if you're a Star Trek fan as well as a Godzilla fan, as a young pre-Star Trek George Takei was one of the voice actors and probably one of the better voice actors (I'll admit, Star Trek may be coloring my opinion). Finding all the characters he does was the only joy I got out of the Japanese version. If you're not a fan of Star Trek or Godzilla, avoid the US version. If you like Godzilla, watch it once, just to say you saw it, then stay the heck away and stick with the superior Japanese version. If nothing else, remember I thought the Japanese version was flawed and far from perfect. If I'm now calling it a classic and superior, I pray that's a red flag to you about the US version.
I'll take this opportunity to say my assessment and my score is for the Japanese version. The American version is absolute garbage. It adds a stupid prologue talking about the history of Earth and goes south from there. The US version has the main character narrate everything, even the things any idiot can clearly see. The voice acting was okay, but a huge step down. The writing that turned the Japanese version into the US version was terrible. All in all, the only good thing about the US version is highlighting the Japanese version's strengths. 1 star for this version, 2 if you're a Star Trek fan as well as a Godzilla fan, as a young pre-Star Trek George Takei was one of the voice actors and probably one of the better voice actors (I'll admit, Star Trek may be coloring my opinion). Finding all the characters he does was the only joy I got out of the Japanese version. If you're not a fan of Star Trek or Godzilla, avoid the US version. If you like Godzilla, watch it once, just to say you saw it, then stay the heck away and stick with the superior Japanese version. If nothing else, remember I thought the Japanese version was flawed and far from perfect. If I'm now calling it a classic and superior, I pray that's a red flag to you about the US version.