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Film: Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (Gojira tai Megagirasu: Jî shômetsu sakusen)
Year: 2000
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Writer: Hiroshi Kashiwabara and Wataru Mimura
Starring: Misato Tanaka, Shôsuke Tanihara and Masatô Ibu
Review:
This film begins filling us in on the history of Godzilla. We see about the original attack and how the capital was moved to Osaka. We then learn about the second attack on the nuclear power plant and how the Japanese government decided to shy away from nuclear power. They created a plan to go only to natural ways. That was until Masatô Ibu came up with plasma power, which is more powerful than nuclear. We also learn that there is a new weapon that is being developed to defeat Godzilla.
The film then shows us a soldiers fighting off Godzilla in 1996. There is a woman played by Misato Tanaka. She watches her commanding officer be killed and finds his dog tags. She takes them with her and holds on to them, vowing to destroy Godzilla.
There is a man who is entertaining children with a trick. It turns out that he has created tiny robots and using them as part of his gag. He is played by Shôsuke Tanihara. He is asked to join the team in helping create the weapon.
The head of this project is Tanihara’s high school physics teacher, played by Yuriko Hoshi. They have created a weapon that will create a black hole to suck Godzilla through. The problem is that the weapon fires something too big and it could hurt Earth. He is brought on to make it smaller.
They go to test it and a young boy that is interested in insects gets past a roadblock through the woods to watch. The weapon is fired and it makes a whole house disappear. Later that day, the boy hears something outside. It sounds large and it flies over his house. He goes back to the wormhole that is created by the black hole and finds a giant egg. He takes it home.
The boy’s father gets moved around a lot so they move to the city. The egg is leaking water so the boy disposes of it into sewer. There are soon reports of flooding as well as a giant insect that attacks a couple. It changes into a dragonfly and Tanaka sees it. She had befriended the boy after the test and she reassures him that it is not his fault.
This dragonfly is known as a meganula and it is car-sized. More eggs are laid and it actually floods the city of Tokyo. More hatch and there are millions of them. The weapon the government made is ready and when they go to use it on Godzilla, who is on a deserted island; they are blocked by a bunch of meganula. Much like Godzilla, they are attracted to him as a power source.
Godzilla does battle with the meganula and the weapon is fired. It misses though and it takes time for it to cool down. In the process, most of the meganula are defeated as well.
They do latch on to one that is larger than the rest. This changes it into the queen of the meganula, Megaguirus. When she emerges, Godzilla comes for her. Can the people of Japan defeat both Megaguirus and Godzilla? Will their weapon work or will Japan be utterly destroyed by both monsters?
I do have to say that with this one and the one that came before it, they are visually very clean. Part of it is that it came out in 2000 and film is much better than in the past. There is also much better technology at their disposal. I do like that this film is progressing the idea that Godzilla is attracted to the power plants and uses them to draw more energy. I like the idea of the black hole weapon as well as that it backfires, creating a monster like Megaguirus. The interesting thing is are we take away that Megaguirus is from a different dimension or time, or is the side effect of the weapon taking something normal and we are just using the name given to an extinct species. I will also say that the battle scenes are good as well.
I do have some issues with this film though. The first issue being that it is altering the past timeline. There wasn’t a film of Godzilla attacking in 1996 and they used scenes from I believe the film in 1985. They don’t even reference the ‘85 attack in the timeline. I don’t know if they are ignoring that year or just changed when it happened. I think they overused the CGI for this was well. The meganula would be hard to do regardless, but they look extremely fake and that hurt the film for me. I also didn’t care for the ending and how they set themselves up for another sequel, which they did end up making.
Now with that said, if you like giant monster films, I would recommend giving this one a viewing. This film brings up an issue brought up in past Godzilla films of nuclear power and how it needs be used less for safer forms of energy. The acting isn’t bad and is there to supplement the giant monsters. I thought Megaguirus has a scary look to it. Even though they don’t battle much, it is still good. I didn’t care for the overuse of CGI or what happens after the ending, but still if you like the genre, it is worth a viewing.
My Rating: 6 out of 10