Director: Takao Okawara
Year: 1995
Distributor: TriStar, Toho Pictures
Length: 100 minutes
The Creature's' Story:
Like best rappers, Godzilla spit hot fire now.
Oh wait, Godzilla am glowing all red, boiling water around Godzilla. This not good.
Wha' happened?
Godzilla am dead. :(
The Human Story:
Birth Island (Godzilla's home) is gone! Destroyed!
Godzilla emerges all fucked up, burning bright red, and possibly having an atomic meltdown.
Dr Yamani's (from the original Gojira) grandson, Ken, did his college thesis on Godzilla which G-Force is treating as a possible answer to Godzilla's situation. When he meets Miki, the psychic girl, she worries that Baby G didn't survive the destruction of Birth Island. Ken also theorizes that Godzilla's full meltdown will superheat the earth's atmosphere and then explode the oxygen destroying everything. Intense!
Godzilla, he is adamant, must be destroyed!
It's taken 40 years but someone's finally invented "tiny atoms" and made "microoxygen" which hearkens back to the "oxygen destroyer" of the original Godzilla film, possibly the most dangerous weapon man's ever created. If they have no other option, then the Japan Security Defence Force has no other choice but to attempt to recreate Dr. Serizawa's original weapon. Serizawa's widow implores Ken not to build the weapon Serizawa gave his life to ensure it would never exist again.
In the meantime they try a new weapon that will flash freeze anything. They target Godzilla using the new Super X Mark III flying tank to try the weapon out, with only limited succes.
Meanwhile A microorganism from the precambrian era that eats oxygen was discovered in a soil sample and has already mutated and gotten loose.The microorganism grows into many microorganism and then continue to combine and grow, attacking everything in their path until ultimately it turns into a singular form dubbed "Destroyah". They are effectively the Oxygen Destroyer of the original Gojira come to life. Eventually, it's determined that Destroyah, as devastating a creature as it may be, may be their only hope in saving the earth from Godzilla's meltdown.
In order to get the two creatures together, the JSDF needs to lure Godzilla into Destroyah's path as it rampages through Japan. In order to do so, Miki finds Baby Godzilla is still alive and is convinced to lure it to Destroyah's path, where the mini-titan valiantly but hopelessly confronts Destroyah, and is injured to the brink of death.
As hoped, Baby G's peril brings Papa G a-comin' and the two remaining titans tussle. Even with Oxygen Destroying powers, Godzilla reaches a new level of fierceness in his mid-meldown state and obliterates the other creature. But Godzilla transfers some of his atomic essence to save Baby G, and when he goes full meltdown Baby G absorbs all the ensuing radiation and he grows to full-Godzilla size as a result.
Godzilla is dead. Long live Godzilla!
Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Involuntary foe.
The Sounds:
Akira Ifukube delivers a new score and new themes but also spins the usual Godzilla themes on their head. It's a fitting sendoff and his liveliest Godzilla score since the 70's, but still not as fresh as his 60's work which refused to rehash earlier sounds.
The Message:
Past sins will always come back to haunt you. Back in Gojira, the Oxygen Destroyer was deemed far too dangerous a weapon for man to have in their hands, so its creator destroyed every record and himself in the process to ensure the weapon could never be recreated. But what he couldn't see, just like Oppenheimer, is the monster that would result. Whether it's lingering radiation poisoning or even bigger bombs, man, even in the face of the direst warnings cannot help but push itself towards its own extinction in the name of curiosity.
Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZZ
While it's still not a very cohesive story, and it meanders quite a bit, the looming threat of a world-ending meltdown from Godzilla is a very intense idea. The threat of Godzilla bashing buildings, knocking over bridges, and stepping on tanks, is nothing compared to the visualization of Godzilla fully imploding, with the resulting disaster setting fire to the very atmosphere of the earth. It's like Terminator 2: Judgement Day times 11. (And that's not the only pop culture nod, here as the director pays tribute to Aliens and Jurassic Park among other big even films from the past decade).
For some reason, a second Psychic Girl is introduced into the film, a Japanese ex-pat now from America. It just means some of Miki the Psychic Girl's thunder is stolen by this other woman. But where they could be combative, they wind up becoming easy allies and they help each other out. Miki does get some good scenes being emotional about Godzilla and Baby Godzilla, but I can't help but feel her 6-movie run missed a great opportunity for her to have an actual connection with these creatures as an audience surrogate, not just existing for an expository purpose.
The film uses new techniques in composite editing of the suitmation and live city scenes. It's not flawless, but it's delightful to look at. As well, the final battle sequence is filmed on the biggest miniatures stage yet, and it an utterly impressive cityscape terrain for them to do battle on.
I don't love any of Destroyah's looks, exactly, in any of its forms (it's mid-size scale kind of look like the Brood from X-Men) and its final form gets wings, which, means it flies. As we've seen in almost every film where a creature flies in Godzilla, it looks terrible. I'm not sure why they keep going back to that well.
Godzilla's meltdown effect, though, is incredible. The body suit glows, and there's smoke or steam coming off of him and when he walks in the water it's bubbling around him. It really reinforces that something is incredibly wrong with that thing.
It's a decent finale, and really treats Godzilla with a reverence that I'm not sure any film has captured in this way.
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