Review: Godzilla vs. Destoroyah
Godzilla’s heart is basically a nuclear reactor and
now it’s set to meltdown, which could mean absolute catastrophic disaster for
planet Earth. The folks at G-Force have of course been monitoring the
situation, and believe that Godzilla has re-surfaced to search for his son,
dubbed Godzilla Junior. Eventually it is decided that with Godzilla clearly
unstable, the best course of action is to kill it with what was used back in
1954 – The Oxygen Destroyer. Unfortunately, using this technology has
unexpected and equally monstrous side effects, creating the titular monster. So
yeah…the Earth needs to rely on nuclear energy (i.e. Godzilla) to save the day.
Among the more popular Godzilla movies ever made, this 1995 film from director Takao
Okawara (“Godzilla vs. Mothra: The Battle for Earth”, and the excellent
‘Millennium Era’ film “Godzilla 2000”) and screenwriter Kazuki Omori (writer-director
of the previous “Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah”) has a lot going for it. I do have
to come down pretty hard on it for having too many characters and lacking focus
in that area, however the film’s strengths outweigh the weaknesses. It’s a dark
and more mature film than you might expect, and it contains some of the best
monster battle/destruction footage in any Godzilla film to date. Shot by Kishimoto
Masahiro and Sekiguchi Yoshinori, the lighting in this film is truly
spectacular by this series’ standards. Just look at the gorgeous shot of a
yellow and red sunset matching the colours being emitted from Godzilla. Sights
to look for early on are a plug for Qantas and a cross-eyed pilot. However,
what you’ll really notice here is Godzilla. This is the film where Godzilla is
even more threatening than usual, because he’s a big, red & green nuclear
meltdown about to happen. The ‘good’ news being that Godzilla is dying, the bad
news is he’s likely to take mankind with him. In keeping with that, Godzilla’s
blue fire breath is now yellow and red, and it’s awesome (It has red eyes, too).
It’s a really terrific start as a volcanic-looking Godzilla tears through
neon-lit Japan over the opening credits. We even get a music score by the great
Akira Ifukube, creator of the iconic Godzilla theme. The score is terrific
throughout, but series fans will definitely recognise and love hearing a couple
of familiar Ifukube themes at certain points.
Yeah, it’s another of the
‘G-Force’ Godzilla movies, but for the most part that era (the Heisei era, as
it is known) was pretty good, looking back (“Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah” was a
bit of a disappointment, though). This one even ties in the original 1954
“Gojira” with inserts from that film featuring Akihiko Hirata and Takashi
Shimura. All of the nuclear talk here has the film feeling at once a remake of
and sequel to “Gojira”, if anything. The whole thing is founded on a
fascinating and scary idea: How do you stop a monster that is essentially a
nuclear explosion waiting to happen? It’s unquestionably one of the best
central concepts to a Godzilla film ever. This is even before our other central
monster turns up. Everyone has clearly tried hard to make this a cut above the
norm, and they have succeeded quite well, despite the over-abundance of
characters and talk. The talk is at least interesting, but our leads are sadly
stiff as a board and it does hurt the film a bit. Thankfully, Destoroyah makes
up the difference by being one of the more interesting opponents for Godzilla.
Initially it comes in the form of several creatures that look like Predators
mixed with “Pumpkinhead” that prove a lot of fun just causing hellacious
mayhem. The film definitely has the best FX of the Heisei era (FX being a
problem with the aforementioned “Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah” in particular),
and it’s also one of the darker and scarier Godzilla films, too as Destoroyah takes
the franchise into a more horror-oriented area than it had ever been taken
before. Once Destoroyah becomes one giant monster, takes its fully-winged form
and starts flying…it gets even more awesome. Less awesome is G-Force psychic
Miki (Megumi Odaka), whose cutesy attitude towards Godzilla ‘Junior’ simply
belongs in a different, lighter film than this. Every cutaway to them and
‘Schoolgirl uniform fetish girl’ is a cutesy bummer and unneeded distraction.
This
isn’t my personal favourite film in the long-running franchise, but it sort of
plays at times like a much, much better version of the awful Roland Emmerich
1998 “Godzilla” film. Visually striking, thematically fascinating, with some
terrific action. Only the human characters are a bore, and stop this from being
even better than it is.
Rating: B-
Rating: B-
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