Godzilla has awakened after thirty years and heads toward Tokyo. As the Japanese prime minister deals with U.S.-Soviet tensions and the desires of the superpowers to use nuclear weapons against the giant monster, the military sends in its secret hovercraft. Meanwhile, a scientist, his assistant, her brother, and a reporter try to find another solution.
Note: This review is for the Japanese version with English subtitles. The U.S. release is substantially different.
After nearly a decade off, Toho, the studio behind the Godzilla franchise, wisely discarded all of the juvenile baggage their monster had picked up and went back to basics for Gojira. Gone is any connection to the movies of the ’60s and ’70s. Only the original classic is part of the back-story. Gone as well are the wrestling moves, the slapstick humor, and the giant lizard as a hero. Godzilla is once again a destructive force. The tone is serious and dark. Unfortunately, the metaphor is a bit too sloppy to carry meaning, and while the silliness is missing, so is the fun.
For the return of Godzilla, the big critter returns pretty slowly. He doesn’t show his face till thirty-two minutes in, and then only to pounce on a nuclear plant, and then disappear for almost another half hour. That could work if the time is spent ratcheting up the tension, but most of it is wasted. There’s some potential in the developing conflict between the U.S. and Soviets, and Japan’s refusal to bow to either, but it goes nowhere, and the chance of making Godzilla a metaphor for a new decade’s nuclear horrors slips out of reach.
As would be a problem with all of the “Heisei era” Godzilla flicks (’84-’95), there are too many characters. During the battles, we watch soldiers that we never see at any other time. Outside of battle, we get the prime minister and his cabinet, the wise scientist, his graduate student, her brother who survived Godzilla attacking his ship, and a reporter, and none of them are given enough screen time. Either the reporter or the survivor should have been dumped. Probably both. If they weren’t there, it would also save me the time wondering why the Japanese military allows a merchant seaman to carry out a dangerous helicopter maneuver just so he could be on hand when his sister is in trouble. Is the military short on trained personnel? I’m also curious why the reporter is allowed…well…anywhere. Why does the scientist let him hang around in the lab, and why does he get his own helicopter? What’s he doing in the movie at all? Oh, I remember what he’s doing; he’s taking up a lot of time.
Things improve once Godzilla starts doing that destructive thing he does. He’s never looked better, although he’s far from perfect. The bright eyes are particularly fake, and it is noticeable whenever they switch from a man in a suit to an animatronic head. But if you’ve been able to handle any of the Big-G’s previous incarnations, the faults will be easy to overlook. (Well, easier; they still bug me.) The miniature work has also improved, causing only the occasional unintended snicker.
Without a deep theme, or characters we can care about, the tragic mood of the movie is out of place. If the film was intended to be vacuous (as it turned out to be), then making it an action/adventure film would have been clever. Instead, it is a melodrama.
Gojira underwent substantial adjustments for its U.S. release, under the title Godzilla 1985. Like the 1954 original, chunks of the movie were removed to make room for segments with Raymond Burr, reprising his role as reporter Steve Martin. Also, as this was the height of the Regain era, the Soviets had to be painted as the bad guys, so a scene was changed to make a Russian officer purposely launch a nuclear missile, instead of trying to stop it as he did in the Japanese release.