Godzilla: Monster Planet (2017)

Giant monsters rose up all over the Earth, with the final one being Godzilla, and destroyed the planet. Two alien races showed up at the last minute to help—one of them religious fanatics—but they failed. A single spaceship escaped, with a mixed crew, looking for a new world. Twenty years later, overly emotional and always annoying Haruo throws a tantrum and is arrested. While in the brig, he comes up with a way humans could have beaten Godzilla. As the crew can’t find a new planet, they decide to return to Earth, where 10,000 years will have passed. On returning, they find Earth to have changed wildly and worse, Godzilla is still alive. A team, including Haruo who is still throwing tantrums, lands on Earth in an attempt to kill Godzilla.

Note: English Version

I’d welcome a Godzilla movie that was thematically meaningful, with an interesting plot and intriguing characters. We got one of those in 1954, but since then, pretty much the only reason to watch a Godzilla movie is because giant monsters are cool. So if that’s the point, and you’re making an animated movie where scenes of giant monsters don’t cost any more than scenes of people walking around or spaceships flying, wouldn’t you have Godzilla show up before 55 minutes into an 88 minute movie? And then keep him around? He’s on screen for around 5 minutes.

So, like the live-action movies before it, most of the film is filler with unpleasant or uninteresting humans (and near-humans) talking and talking and talking. And wow, do they fit the description. Haruo is unpleasant on an epic scale. I don’t mean unpleasant like so many captivating cinematic characters of the past, but unpleasant to watch and listen to. Unless you love toddlers kicking their feet and screaming, he is the definition of non-entertaining. The rest of the always-talking characters are either impossible to tell apart or just boring. Do you like a lot of empty religious murmuring? Well, you’ll get it.

The animation is nothing special—with differing styles not always fitting together—but by anime standards, it is passable. It is neither a reason to watch Godzilla: Monster Planet or to avoid it.

I cannot figure what the people behind this video (should I call it a film?) were thinking? Why would you make THIS Godzilla movie. Go for character or plot, or go for monster fun. But they didn’t. The only way I can make sense of it is if these are the cut scenes from an unfinished video game.

The “film” doesn’t have an ending, but just pauses in the middle of events. Godzilla: Monster Planet is planed as the first part of a trilogy, so, there will be two more videos you don’t need to watch.

You can find my reviews of other Godzilla films here.