It has been nearly half a century since Godzilla attacked Japan in 1954 and he has never returned, many hope he lies dead on the bottom of the sea somewhere. The Americans claim Godzilla attacked New York in 1998 but the Japanese don’t believe it was Godzilla who carried out the attack (heh). The Self-Defence Force fought its only real battle against Godzilla back in 1954, suggesting how willing the Japanese government is to continue funding seemingly pointless organisations when they would have been closed long ago in any other country. Anyway, the threat of monster attack still remains apparently due to reports of monster attacks in other countries (Yonggary? Barney? David Arquette?) and head of the SDF, Admiral Taizô Tachibana, still has regular meetings with his men to talk of the threat of giant monster attack, having seen his own parents die during the original onslaught in 1954. The meeting is interrupted when news comes in that an American nuclear submarine had gone missing off the coast of Guam, and that Japan was sending their special anti-radioactive sub “Satsuma” (maybe with the sub “Tangerine” standing by) to investigate. Satsuma is accompanied by another sub but the voyage does not go well however, Sub 2 is destroyed and the pilot of the other sees something moving from behind some rocks, he stares in disbelief at the sight of the spines of an all too familiar beast lurking in the darkness. Meanwhile we meet Yuri Tachibana, daughter of the Admiral, who is a journalist for a trashy TV channel. She’s at Mt. Myoko in Niigata to investigate into the legendary creature that is meant to reside there. Of course the whole report is fake, as off-camera one of the crew throws a rock into a stream in the background, to which Yuri feigns a shocked reaction. However during their recording they are hit by a minor seismic activity and Yuri sees a scruffy old man staring at them from a distance who promptly vanishes when she looks away for a moment.

That night a group of youngsters are racing along on motorcycles, vandalising a small old statue as they race past. Overtaking a truck and heading into a tunnel, another tremor hits and crushes the young motorcyclists to death in the tunnel while the truck driver looks on in horror as he sees the head of an enormous creature stomp past. Yuri is intrigued by what happened, telling her boss how the epicentre of the tremors moved, but he tells her to drop it because they do fiction, not real TV. Another group of rebellious youths are seen breaking into a small shop by a lake, looting it for booze and snacks, when they encounter the owner’s dog tied up at the back. They decide there can be no witnesses (the dog’s testimony would surely sink them, well in the wacky world of Godzilla it might anyway) so they throw him in a box and decide to drown him, grabbing a small statue much like the one that was damaged earlier so that they can weigh the box down and dump it in the lake. A group of the youngsters hop into a rowing boat but something underwater capsizes the boat and the kids are dragged underwater. The rest watch from the land not knowing what has happened, but they’re given little time to think as something that resembles a giant caterpillar emerges from the water to attack and they are never seen again. Yuri later discovers the same old man she saw in Mt. Myoko has been arrested for vandalising an old monument and when she goes to see him he tells her that Godzilla is coming back to get his revenge on Japan, but there are three other monsters, the sacred beasts of the Earth, that can be awoken to protect Japan from this menace. Godzilla is no mere monster, it would seem, but is in fact the physical manifestation from the souls of millions of people who died during World War II. Is Godzilla coming to destroy Japan like he did 50 years previous? Do these guardian monsters truly exist and if so, can they withstand the terrible destructive force of Godzilla, and what terrible price will be paid by the people of Japan?

After creating what many believe are some of the best daikaiju films ever with the three 90’s Gamera pictures, Shusuke Kaneko is given a chance to breathe some new life into Godzilla, a dream come true for the long-time G-Fan. Has he brought the same vitality, polished production and excitement to the King of the Monsters? Well, yes, and no. Godzilla’s new look has caused a stir, after the exaggerated look of the 2K Big Green, this one goes back to the roots of the beast being some sort of big ol’ dinosaur. He’s not as spiny and stands less up-right, his posture is more like the one suggested the Tyrannosaurus Rex had which actually does a good job of making him look a little less like just some guy in a suit. This feels more like some sort of prehistoric creature come back to haunt us, and just so you know how evil he is his eyes have no pupils, they are totally white and I’d have to say that this most be the most menacing and evil Godzilla has ever looked. Baragon has seen something of an update in look too, he too looks more dinosaur-like too with a tough scaled skin, though his head is fairly close to the original. As for Mothra and King Ghidorah, they’ve not really changed but really, how can you improve on perfection? The monster battles themselves are a little different to what many have become used to also, the emphasis is more on the special powers of the creatures such as their energy attacks, there is very little of the goofy monster wrestling seen in the previous films, once again they feel less like people in suits and more like monsters fighting on primitive animal instinct. They use teeth and claws, and blast each other with blasts of extremely impressive blasts of energy, though it is still a largely bloodless affair, it’s more believable than Godzilla sliding hundreds of feet on his tail to kick a monster, or lifting King Ghidorah by his tail and repeatedly swinging him into the ground, and the special effects and the scale of the battles and the destruction they cause are extremely impressive. Kaneko gave Godzilla more personality too, he made him damn sneaky, a couple of moments show Godzilla seeing what his opponents are trying to do and being able to counteract them, actually using some strategy. Its little touches like this, attempts to actually tell the story, which make the battles very pleasing to watch.

You might have noticed from my plot synopsis that something was missing from the story line, a Kenny! Yes, Kaneko has done us all a favour and spared us the horrors of irritating whining children running around screaming “Mothra is our friend! Yay Mothra!” In fact, the emphasis is placed on some more believable adult characters particularly Yuri Tachibana who is played as a pretty and engaging heroine by Chiharu Nîyama, and her father Taizô Tachibana played by Ryudo Uzaki who is haunted by the first Godzilla attack but still hides behind the stoic façade of a military officer. Their relationship is quite interesting, as they both know they are putting themselves in danger but have too much respect for each others’ wishes to stop them, knowing they must do what they must do. Another interesting aspect of this film is that Kaneko has put far more work into showing the effect of Godzilla’s reappearance on the people of Japan. Many are too young to remember the original attack and don’t believe that he will truly come, not believing their elders and their crazy stories of a giant creature destroying Tokyo. One could draw parallels between that and the nuclear bombings of Japan in World War II, forever etched in the memories of the survivors, but an almost unreal part of history to the younger generations that came since. The actual physical destruction of Japan is shown from a more grounded perspective too, showing actual people disappearing under the rubble of falling buildings, rather than other films’ portrayal of such events as if these vast cities are more or less totally evacuated before the giant monsters arrived. Whether its intentional or not, this actually leads to some moments of very dark humour where characters are briefly introduced for the sole purpose of having a giant monster smash them into oblivion. One particularly amusing moment comes when Godzilla first stamps into full view and comes crashing through a city – a woman in a hospital room sees him coming but her leg is in a cast and is held elevated over her bed, and she is unable to free herself from the sling! She looks on in terror as the monster approaches, but he just walks on by, the woman looks relieved until we see Godzilla’s tail smash the building to pieces. This has to be one of the smartest screenplays written for a Godzilla movie for quite some time.

The writing is not without its weaknesses however. Firstly and most importantly, as has been the problem with some Godzilla films in the past, there is too much emphasis put on the human characters over the giant monsters. To make matters worse, apart from the Tachibana clan, the remaining characters are shallow and uninteresting and usually seem to just turn up to help with plot exposition every once in a while. The plot itself has some odd ambiguities too, why the spirits of the Japanese who died in WWII would want revenge on Japan is poorly explained, and there is some sort of special role for the small statues we see disturbed early in the film but are those what triggered the appearance of the guardian beasts or was that caused by Godzilla arriving? Or did the old man release them? A touch confusing. Another problem is no matter how much danger Yuri gets into, there is never any real feeling that there’s actually any threat to her life, there’s little suspense there. Also on some importance is that unfortunately the monster fights all seem rather one-sided, and are never long enough Not giving away who ends up winning (not that its any great shock mind you) the three guardian beasts are, sadly, total wimps! Brave wimps, but wimps none the less as Godzilla is just so ridiculously powerful that the three good monsters look rather pitiful in comparison, which is a shame because they did a great job of making King Ghidorah in particular look incredibly cool and powerful at first. The ending is also a tad anti-climactic and doesn’t really satisfy those who might have taken the Giant Monsters All Out Attack part of the title to heart, the film just loses it towards the end. Unfortunately the impact of the impressive monster battles really is lessened by the inconsistent writing, and a more vulnerable Godzilla wouldn’t have been as impressive, but would have made for some more exciting and suspenseful kaiju battles. Well, at least Godzilla wasn’t killed by the magical tears of a million Kennies or something.

A good, but not great addition to the vast Godzilla Universe. Some impressive special effects and monster designs are sadly under utilised and the writing is uneven and vague. However, Godzilla has never looked meaner and despite the flaws this is still a greatly entertaining giant monster flick, and I’d welcome Kaneko getting another opportunity to see what he can do with the King of the Monsters.