Part of my series of reviews of the Heisei era Godzilla movies. Spoilers within, but we’re talking 80’s Godzilla movies here.

Spoiler alert: Godzilla fights a giant plant monster. Again.(!!!)

This and Return of Godzilla could almost be a mini-series unto themselves. Not just because this one picks up moments after the end of the last one, but because they both share a certain “feel” that is hard to describe but lands very well for me.

This is another dark, somber Godzilla movie. As dark and somber as a movie with a giant plant monster, international assassins, psychics, and rogue American biotech companies can be, anyway. This movie is not as “small” as the last one, but still feels more focused and deliberate than the rest of the Heisei series.

Biollante herself has a very unique (for a Kaiju) backstory, though I wish they would have done a little more with the “soul of my dead daughter in the monster” thing. Biollante’s origins are interesting, but her actions and role in the narrative don’t do enough with the concept. It would have been very interesting to see a creature torn between her human soul and her monstrous cells. This is hinted at, but I wanted more.

The human characters here are all great. The scientist father, Genichiro Shiragami, was a different kind of “jaded scholar”, and while not outright villainous, was certainly flawed in interesting ways. The two government agents, Sho Kuroki and Goro Gondo, were particularly enjoyable, and added a kind of “buddy cop” vibe to the movie which largely worked. I really like Gondo and can totally see him and Yuki from vs SpaceGodzilla as brothers, making that addition to vs SpaceGodzilla pay even more dividends in retrospect. (And now I want to write fan fiction about their earlier adventures as bros…)

We also meet Miki for the first time in this one, and while she doesn’t have the most depth of character, I liked seeing her at the start of her journey as a student, knowing how she’ll grow and change and become a teacher and advocate herself.

This movie does have some of the worst English acting I’ve ever seen in a Godzilla movie - not the dub, but the non-Japanese actors playing American characters and speaking English just utterly suck.

The final confrontation between Godzilla and Biollante was particularly enjoyable. Biollante’s final form was great, the battle was intense, and while the anti-nuclear bacteria plot that got us to that point was a little convoluted, I liked how the all the different plot threads came together to be resolved through some hot kaiju-on-kaiju action.

This one is hard to find, but worth watching any way you can.

Rating: 4/5
Watched: 21 March 2024

Okay, (deep breath) NOW onto the Americans…