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Year: 2016
Length: 120 minutes
The Gist:
Something's happening in Tokyo Bay. The AquaLine Tunnel has been breached and is flooding. A not insignificant disaster is in progress. But nobody in power seems to understand the root cause, and thus are helpless to respond. Is it a natural occurrence? Is it a terrorist attack? Something else?
A horrifying amphibious creature emerges in the bay. Officials have no concept of what they are seeing. Reactions around the country are swift, with weight given to both the biologist contingent that are direly curious about the beast, and with the more conservative component who are mainly concerned with the rising amount of property damage the creature is causing. They can't hide this from the public, but there's no need to panic. This thing can't possibly come ashore.
Until it comes ashore, wreaking havoc in its path, leaving a wake of destruction behind it. Until it stops and goes dormant. What to do? Before any official response can be mounted, the creature evolves before the very eyes of anyone observing. New extremities help it manoeuvre better on land, causing even more destruction before it retreats back into the bay. The path of destruction is abominable, as is the remnant trail of radiation.
The government is under fire for their lack of response, their incorrect information and their overall ineptitude. There was only one voice -- Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi, a voice that is supposed to keep silent -- that spoke out during the incursion and seemed to offer the most reasonable, thoughtful, socially-conscious options. So he's assigned to head up a research and resolution task force on the creature, now dubbed Gojira.
The task force digs up intelligence on the creature, including how to track it, with speculation on how to contain or destroy it. They know when the creature is about to return, but even then they're not prepared for its next phase of evolution. As the much larger, far more upright creature barrels through the city, the Japan Self-Defence Force's response is utterly ineffective. The US military wants to have their own say in the handling of the creature and the government agrees. In the process of the attack, Gojira displays the ability to emit powerful beams of radiation expelled from its mouth and or spines. The government is decimated by this latest attack until the creature seemingly runs out of juice and once again, just stops cold in the middle of the city.
With the whole country being shaken to its foundation, US and, independently, the UN are making their own declarations about what should be done, which of course involve nukes. Rando's team is the only hope of an alternative to Japan being on the receiving end of these obscene WMDs for a third time.
Rando and his team orchestrate an impressively effective campaign against the creature that's more about strategy than brute force. Wear the creature down, burn it out, force it to go dormant again, trigger another mutation phase, give the people enough time to inject it with a coagulant that will turn its blood to stone. It's a successful gambit and Rando has succeeded where other politicians have failed, in making decisions in the best interests of the people, not in the best interests of his political career.
Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Ooh, definite bad, bad thing.
The Samesies:
This is a wildly deviant Godzilla movie, taking great pains to not be like any G-film before. That said, it does have a few things it carries over, such as notes and themes from Akira Ifukube's score, the anti-nuke messaging, and the ineffectiveness of the military against the creature (it, of course, has a montage of the JSDF assembling to take on the creature).
The Differences:
While Rando Yaguchi is probably our lead character, this is a cast of hundreds. As a non-native speaker it was difficult to keep up with the subtitles, as they were obviously translating the rapid-fire dialogue on the bottom of the screen but also putting captions identifying the name and role of the person talking at the top of the screen. At a certain point I pretty much gave up on reading those title/role captions.
It's a sprawling political satire that critiques government's ineffectiveness in a time of crisis. It's been noted that this film is a direct response to -- and criticism of -- the government's failures during the earthquake-turned-tsunami of March 2011, and the resulting Fukushima nuclear disaster. Much like many of the best G-films, it has something to say.
While I can't speak to direct influences, there's certainly a West Wing and Contageon style feel to this, stories where there are so many behind the scenes political players as they try to figure out what is happening and how to solve for it, and sometimes the fear and lack of bravery of the people in charge to make decisions in those moments for fear of their political careers. It tackles topics from many angles, not just the creature itself, ala Godzilla 2014, but also the economic fall out, the historical parallels, the political posturing internally as well as on a global scale, with a direct critique at still feeling somewhat beholden or deferential to US interests.
Godzilla here is wildly different than ever before, having at least four different stages of evolution, from the bulging-eyed waddling amphibious creature to a very raw, exposed-nerve look of its final Godzilla form. It's the most deeply unpleasant Godzilla to look at (and we had Zilla in Final Wars to contend with).
This is the first time we've had an evolving Godzilla. I got the sense that it was kind of like the Superman villain Doomsday in that it evolves as a response to the hostility of its environment in pretty rapid order. Which is sharp juxtaposition to how slowly humans evolve to the threats presented to them. Not sure if that observation was intentional part of the commentary, but it's pretty sharp if so.
Anyone worth caring about?
Even as we're basically jumping from person-to-person-to-person, talking head to talking head, there are standout characters among them, some who die, some who live, and the relationships they have and forge with each other, all handled in a verite style, are pretty great, especially compared to Toho's G-films of past.
Of course Rando is out main guy and Hiroki Hasegawa has a great face for reaction shots. He has a pal within the government (I'm forgetting at the moment the character's name) but they had a wonderful dynamic any time they had the opportunity to be in the same room.
The two Prime Ministers of the film are incredible, and you do have to feel for them in the decision making process that they must go through. The amount of information they have to digest in such a swift amount of time in making a decision is overwhelming and they both play it very differently and very well. It does emphasize how much having trustworthy advisors is important to a leadership role, but it's made more difficult when maybe they have their own biases or agendas.
The weakest link of the film is the American side, represented primarily by Kayoko Anne Patterson (played by Satomi Ishihara). Kayoko is the POTUS' Special Envoy in these proceedings, and she's presented as an American-born daughter of a Japanese mother and American father. She's supposed to have all this American swagger and bravado, but it seemed more "on the page" than "on the screen". As well, Ishihara's English-accent was really poor for an American. I'm sure in films where native English speaking actors have to work in a different language that native speakers probably cringe or laugh at their accent as well, so it's a result of casting for your region, not for anyone else. But at least in the western release they could have maybe dubbed her performance?
The Message:
Politicians should govern for the people, not for the continued right to govern.
Rating (out of 5 Zs): ZZZZ
I loved the first act of this film. It's an enthralling political procedural with disaster spectacle backing it up. The second at sort of lulls a bit as it has to deal with the fallout of the creature's initial rampage. While the logical thought would be to focus more intensely on the research into the creature, the storytellers here remain committed to the holistic approach. When the creature re-emerges, it's natural that we'd see the spectacle of the military response, but as I've watched dozens of these tanks-n-planes futilely attacking Godzilla in the past couple months, this didn't thrill me and it felt overlong. But the next phase of planning a specific tactical approach to dealing with the creature, understanding that there would be losses in the process, returns the film to its earlier gripping status.
The creature effects are middling. Sometimes quite good, but more often than not passable at best. There's not a lot of the creature in the film, and seriously Godzilla is not what the film is about so I could let go of the choppiness to the cgi.
Sleepytime Factor:
I did nod off just little tidbit in the middle when Rando's group was having one of their extensive theory sessions of the creature origins. Less to do with the content than my lack-of-sleep condition. I thought I was going to nod off during the military assembles scene but there was enough cross-cutting and jumping to different players, and having a whole different perspective on the deployment of the soliders that it kept my interest.
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