Part of my series of reviews of the Heisei era Godzilla movies. Spoilers within, but we’re talking 90’s Godzilla movies here.

Spoiler alert: White people ruin everything. Again.

This movie tried to do a lot, and while I’m not sure how much it succeeded in most of it, I can’t deny it was enjoyable and engaging.

The plot is overly-complicated, and the time travel doesn’t even hold up to most pop-culture time travel logical standards. The movie really wants to say something about Japan’s complicated relationship with 1) Godzilla, 2) the West, 3) Nuclear power; and while it does indeed Say Things about all of that… I’m not sure exactly what points it’s actually trying to make. But it sure is fun to go along for the ride.

There are a few different ways to structure these kinds of movies, and this one goes for First Half: Characters and Story, Second Half: Monster Mayhem. I personally prefer the structure where the monsters are introduced from the beginning and their presence builds gradually throughout the movie until they dominate the narrative by the end, but in this case, the first-half sci-fi plot is entertaining, if convoluted. And I get why they wanted the first time you see Godzilla in the movie to be his pre-kaiju, dinosaur form. But this one goes in the file of “Godzilla Movies That Could Have Used More Godzilla” (see also, the first Monsterverse Godzilla, and Minus One).

There are a lot of engaging characters in this movie, but none of them are very deep or realized. For some reason the creepy white people entertained me to no end, and the idea of the villains from the future (and from the past) all being weird looking white dudes I believe was intentional and related to the above-mentioned attempts at Saying Things. But man, they were creepy and campy and fun to watch.

Also, that Steven Spielberg joke tried WAY too hard.

A fun movie I would watch again, though it won’t make any more sense next time, I’m sure.

Rating: 3+/5
Watched: 26 February 2024