Original title: Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidorâ: Daikaijû sôkôgeki
Another Millennium era Godzilla film and another reboot. Again it’s a direct sequel to Gojira (1954), ignoring all the other films, including its immediate predecessors and although it isn’t suggested that it’s set in another timeline, the only way to make sense of some of the wholesale changes to the monsters is to see it as another alternate history. As the title suggests, it’s a return to the multi-monster films of the late 60s and early 70s (that English language title doesn’t mess about).
Godzilla returns and destroys a Japanese Self Defence Force nuclear submarine while an earthquake unearths Baragon, who doesn’t make it into the title and was first seen in Furankenshutain tai Baragon/Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) before joining the fun in Kaiju Soshingeki/Destroy all Monsters (1968). Elsewhere Mothra attacks a group of teenagers at Lake Ikeda in Kagoshima, and an old man warns that Godzilla is returning and that “the guardian monsters”, Baragon, Mothra and King Ghidorah must be revived to counter the menace. In an extraordinary and hard to swallow twist, he later reveals that the souls of those killed by the Japanese in World War II have possessed Godzilla which is trying to destroy the country in revenge for Japan’s wartime atrocities.
How you react to Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack will largely depend on how you react to the wholesale changes that writers Keiichi Hasegawa, Masahiro Yokotani and director Shusuke Kaneko (who had overseen Daiei’s hugely successful reboot of rival the rival monster series featuring giant turtle Gamera, Gamera: Daikaiju Kuchu Kessen/Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995), Gamera Tsu: Region Shurai/Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996) and Gamera Suri: Irisu Kakusei/Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris (1999)) make to the monsters. The idea of Godzilla being possessed by the dead is utterly bizarre and goes undeveloped – it gets mentioned but never resolves as the film degenerates into the usual series of spectacularly staged battles instead.
Mothra is now much smaller – but admittedly spectacularly beautiful – and more like a butterfly than ever and the need to make her an aggressor also means ditching her tiny companions the Shobijin, who would no doubt have been heartbroken by their moth-god’s sudden lurch to the dark side. In keeping with her new found anger, she has a new set of weapons too, chiefly a set o stingers that she fires from her body. Barugon has lost his death ray and his horn no longer glows but the most startling changes were made to Ghidorah who, unbelievably, is a good guy this time. He’s smaller too, notably shorter than Godzilla where in previous films he’d towered over his old nemesis.
The original plan had been to feature a different set of monsters, Godzilla being halted by Baran, from Daikaiju Baran/Varan the Unbelievable (1958) and Godzilla’s oldest sparring partner, Anguiras, who had first appeared as far back as the second ever film Gojira no gyakushu/Godzilla Raids Again (1955). Toho decide that neither monster enjoyed the same public recognition as Mothra and King Ghidorah so, although it meant radically changing everything we knew about them, they stepped up to the plate.
If you can get over these changes – some fans were able to go with the flow, others less so – then you’ll be rewarded with a good looking film packed to the rafters with the sort of mayhem you expect. As he proved with his Gamera trilogy, Kaneko is the master of large scale kaiju destruction and although he’s sometimes let down by disappointing special effects, he does stage some fantastic set-pieces. Kaneko pioneered the idea that there were actual human casualties in the wake of the giant monster rampages – previous kaiju films had simply cut to the next scene once the monsters moved on but his Gamera trilogy lingered on the devastation they leave behind, a trait he brings with him to Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. He does, however, introduce that annoying Hollywood tendency to wobble the camera about whenever a monster wanders past or something explodes, as if we’re supposed to be in the thick of the action being thrown around by the vibrations. It’s never a convincing effect and Kaneko’s wild camera gyrations here are deeply distracting.
But the big battle scenes are undeniably very exciting and more than make up for the usual barrel load of clichés and stereotypes that pass for the human characters. Kaneko can’t quite make the monsters seem as realistic as he would seem to like (Godzilla’s face is noticeably immobile and Barugon looks frankly ridiculous) but he certainly has a knack for giving the kaiju stunning moments in the spotlight. Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack is as close to a genuinely beautiful film as the Godzilla series have ever managed. It has a sense of humour too, the best moment being at the expense of the 1998 Roland Emmerich film. At a lecture on monster attacks, it’s mentioned that one of the Godzilla monsters had attacked New York at the end of last century. “Wasn’t that Godzilla?” asks one of the young soldiers. “The Americans said it was Godzilla,” he’s told, “but all the Japanese scientists denied it.”
The Japanese public didn’t seem at all concerned about the changes made to the monsters and flocked to see the film when it opened in December 2001 on a double bill with the anime Hamtaro: Ham Ham Big Land Adventure. It performed well at the box office, becoming the most financially successful of all of the Millennium era Godzilla films. In the States, the box office disappointment of Gojira ni-sen mireniamu/Godzilla 2000 (1999) had meant that none of the other Millennium films would get a theatrical release and Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack was first seen by the American public when it turned up on the Sci-Fi Channel in August 2003.
The EOFFTV Review 