Dr. Shiragami, believing the spirit of his dead daughter inhabits a rose, splices Godzilla’s DNA with the flower’s, creating a giants rose-monster. Meanwhile, a psychic has sensed that Godzilla will return, so a bio-lab starts working on radioactivity-eating bacteria. This draws out American corporate terrorists and Arabic terrorists, who will do anything to get the bacteria. It all leads toward a battle, with the Japanese sending in the psychic girl, a super flying machine with a big mirror, lasers, and huge heating pads.
Most Godzilla films are as dumb as they sound. Some, due to poor costumes, cheap miniatures, and juvenile antics, are dumber than they sound. Godzilla vs. Biollante is an exception, which is a good thing, because it sounds pretty stupid. A giant flower? A psychic girl having a mental duel with the big lizard? Antinuclear bacteria? It hard to get around all that. But this is a Godzilla film, so I wasn’t expecting realism or scientific accuracy. And it does look a lot better than all of its predecessors. Real military vehicles have replaced most of the obvious toys. The city-in-flames looks good, and even the big lizard himself isn’t too bad. On the long shots, he’s pretty cool (why anyone thought that close ups of a rubber suit were necessary is one of those philosophical questions we may never answer). Biollante is harder to judge. She’s a giant flower after all. Still, for being a stiff planet puppet, she’s one of Godzilla’s better adversaries, with a touch of tragedy tossed in which is surprisingly moving.
While the effects and cinematography are generally good, there’s too much going on that distracts from the relatively high production values. There are three major plotlines when one (perhaps with a romantic subplot) would have worked better. You cold pluck out the spies-swiping-bacteria story with no alteration to the rest of the movie. Strangely, you could also remove the big flower. The best parts of the movie involve Big-G and the military. Biollante turns out to be nothing more than a distraction from the real battle of humans vs. lizard, though I wouldn’t have minded her being the center of the A-plot. At least the movie is always active.
To go with the excessive number of plots are an excessive number of characters: the mad doctor, the ideological young scientist, the boss, the boss’s daughter, the psychic, the military officer, the independent soldier, and the spy. None get enough screen time to develop personalities or engage the viewer. Losing a few would have helped immensely. And if the psychic had been dropped, even better. Unfortunately, she would return in the next five pictures.
The characters wax philosophical on the responsibility of scientists and the immorality of genetic engineering, but there’s no vast theme at work. They’re just killing time between battles, chases, or telepathic chats. The one interesting idea is that there are two groups of terrorists, Middle-eastern and American. And on my Japanese print, both groups speak English. It says something about how the rest of the world views the U.S.
Godzilla vs. Biollante is a bad idea done well. It’s fun, which is about all you could ask of it.