Director: Takao Okawara
Year: 1995
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Gojira tai Desoteroia
Genre: Kaiju
Plot:
After appearing in Hong Kong looking strange, the JSDF calls upon an amateur scientist to determine the cause of Godzilla's strange appearance. Realizing that it's absorbed so much radiation that the creature has started to enter into a meltdown stage, they shift their focus to trying to freeze it to risk triggering an early explosion while a reporter tries to convince a local scientist to recreate the one device that successfully stopped it earlier only to soon find that a vicious crustacean creature has emerged in Japan. With a deadly new monster to deal with and Godzilla's impending meltdown lurking around the corner, they put all their resources together to save the country and the planet.
Review:
This was a massively enjoyable effort that had a lot to like about it. About the only setup from the storyline that works here is the long-running storyline brought to bear here with the final outcome of Godzilla continually gaining energy and entering a meltdown stage. Based on the culmination of various storylines about Godzilla continually seeking out radiation sources throughout the series as well as the power-up he received from both absorbing Rodan and Mogera in previous films, it makes sense that Godzilla has entered a state where he resembles a walking nuclear power plant going around the world and having to make sure he doesn’t land in Japan during the point he goes critical. This setup works incredibly well with the concurrent storyline about rescuing his son from the situation and trying to lead it away so that he can be safe from the explosion by having the psychics lead him away using their powers. By switching it and going to attack Destoroyah offers a rather strong base for their evolving objections later on which has a great secondary storyline.
The special effects here, while hit-or-miss, have quite a lot of positive points here. There's not much to say here about Godzilla, but the Desugoji is basically the Heisei design with molten energy erupting from the chest, thighs, legs, and fins while the eyes glow bright red. This is admittedly impressive as well as a nice bit of storyline continuity within the series as it's the final buildup throughout the Heisei run, continuing that storyline thread not just with the human drama but also this visual representation on his body. It also right a wrong from before with a return to a more realistic design with Godzilla Junior being far more of a realistic-looking creature as he genuinely looks like a miniature Godzilla with the dinosaurian face, proportions, and body shape so it has the kind of logical evolutionary step that comes about here. This all helps to create a sense of pathos involving their scenes together as the two times we get to see them on-screen together lead to some emotionally charged moments.
There’s also a lot to like here involving the creature action as all of them get an impressive showcase sequence. Godzilla’s initial appearance and rampage in Hong Kong is a striking sequence that starts everything on a great note with the chaos and destruction he causes to get this one going. Junior has the battle with Destoroyah in the middle of Tokyo where the different forms battle it out with some creative battle plans putting their surroundings to their advantage before Junior finally prevails. Destoroyah comes off incredibly well with the human-sized variation battling a SWAT team and laying waste to the team in grand fashion with some suspenseful action and generally enjoyable features. The military confrontations, mainly the high-quality encounters with the Super-X III come with some great tactics to keep Godzilla in check including the freezing bombs and lasers to cool him down from overheating but also showing the ground units equipped with similar material to try to cool him down but also managing to work with stopping Destoroyah at the end. Generally, these all manage to bring about quite a lot to like here.
There’s not much to bring it down but it does have some issues. One of the biggest drawbacks here is the main monster Destoroyah, who’s far more interesting in concept than execution. Utilizing the connection of the original Oxygen Destroyer to convey the threat of the creature as well as some bit of fan service to the film but beyond that, there’s not much here. That it goes through five different life stages is incredibly overblown and should’ve been trimmed down since several of the stages don’t get much mention only being available in one scene so it’s all somewhat pointless. As well, the only one that looks interesting is the Crustacean-like crab version that appears twice no less so it all makes the various stages even more pointless repeating something in different sizes so there’s not much need for it to be included. The final form is a logistical nightmare to figure out how it’s supposed to move effectively much less get that bulk in the air in any capacity, while a genuine flying form looks impressive in static but again suffers from the inability to look realistic on camera. Combined with a lack of motivation for what it’s supposed to be doing, there are some big issues here with the creature.
That ties into the majority of this one as it tends to meander around without much focus. Again, most of that is due to the use of trying to make sense of the various stages of Destoroyah as it continually makes its presence felt in scenes that rely far too much on copying other genre films for inspiration as there’s plenty of investigation into the creature’s origins from this start-up. It all just drags with the inclusion of several unnecessary and superfluous characters investigating a creature that’s entirely problematic on its own which also causes this to be quite a slow-going beginning when not focused on Godzilla’s emerging catastrophe. The only other real issue here is the use of some flimsy and outright obvious special effects work throughout, with the one sequence involving the military confronting the Destoroyah as actual toys skittering around a miniature set that it is so laughably bad it comes off as outright insulting at the mere inclusion. It’s a pretty big issue and manages to be enough to drag this one down overall.
Overview: ****/5
One of the better features in the series, this one has plenty to like about it and remains one of the better entries in the series offering up plenty of likable points to just a few flaws that hold it back just enough from the upper parts of the franchise. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of this part of the series or the genre in general while most out there won’t have much to dislike here.
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