Is it possible for a film to contain some of the best and worst scenes in a series? Godzilla's third movie in the Heisei series dares to pose that question. It's a bold move to be sure, but then it's a bold kind of movie. Reckless, striking and even sometimes blundering just like the title character. In some ways it's a greatest hits collection because of the way it re-introduces old concepts and creatures, but then in other ways it's a big radioactive mess. An initial viewing of the story is quite an experience and it gains a lot of kudos just for being so outlandish. But in retrospect it's an uneven story that doesn't really hold up in the same way as the previous instalments. But let's take a closer look into this prehistoric soup and see what exactly is going on.
The story begins with a writer doing some research on Godzilla for his latest book, during which he uncovers a strange tale of Second World War troops in the Pacific. During the invasion of a Japanese island it seems that a living dinosaur was seen, and that it helped the native forces repel an American attack. So you can see the immediate problem here; in one way this is an interesting look at Godzilla's origins... but in another way this is a weird sequence that dissolves the dramatic potential of this reveal. This dual sided issue pervades a lot of the narrative as things unfold, some parts interesting and dark, others nonsensical and juvenile. Links between the big guy and the war like nature of humanity are always a great aspect to explore in a film like this. But on the other hand this is a story about time travellers and androids.
Would be author Kenichiro (KÅsuke Toyohara) finds out about this incident while reading reports of a man shouting about dinosaurs in front of a natural history museum. For some reason this guy thinks a protest will make everyone believe his story, even though Godzilla in a way is already proof of this idea. The man was part of a platoon lead by Yasuaki Shindo (Yoshio Tsuchiya) who is now a wealthy corporation head in Tokyo. Despite running an exhibit full of dinosaurs and working from an office full of prehistoric models, he initially denies this ever happened. But of course he eventually caves, not only admitting the story is true, but also claiming that the dinosaur saved the lives of his men. There's also a good case for the same specimen being irradiated by nuclear testing on the island chain; becoming the original Godzilla.
Why would a dinosaur be so patriotic and fight only the occupying forces? How could the current monster be that first mutation of Godzilla if it was killed by scientists in 1954? If the 1955 sequel never happened in this series timeline why is Godzilla back at all? These kind of questions are best left well alone, otherwise you'd be here all day with charts and diagrams. Which have of course been drawn and published by people taking this all far too seriously. The fact is that this this is just an excuse to have a time travel story, which was a popular idea after the Back to the Future trilogy. Toho also wanted a way to bring back old favourite King Ghidorah since Biollante brought in lacklustre box-office returns. So now the dragon from space is in fact a trio of genetically engineered pets... taken back in time and mutated on that same island.
Confused yet? Well we're only getting started. Things get weird when a band of time travellers from future Earth arrives to warn everyone about Godzilla destroying Japan. Admittedly this isn't much of a prediction. Their alleged plan is to join up with Kenichiro since his book was published at a future date. They need him to join them on a trip to 1944 to certify that Shindo's dinosaur is the same creature he is researching, and then they will remove it from the testing site and prevent disaster. But secretly they have other plans for Japan and leave a group of creatures called 'Dorats' at the location. How these mutate into Ghidorah and why he hasn't been terrorising the country since 1954 as a result is never explained. It's all just a way of reducing the gold plated planet destroyer into a puppet of the time travellers.
Does this make any sense? Not really. Is it entertaining? Well sure I guess so. Both the dinosaur island set piece and the entrance of Ghidorah in present day Tokyo are done well. The suits are detailed and the battles are well staged. Elsewhere things get bogged down with melodrama, but even this is often interrupted by evil schemes and laser battles. It's just a shame that the bulkier designs for the creatures aren't that dynamic when the showdown finally gets underway, and even when the ridiculous Mecha King Ghidorah finale arrives it's all pretty slow and laborious. Still, it deserves some credit for the darker moments in a film where the title character is still a villain. This is particularly notable when Shindo refuses to evacuate and thinks that the big guy is an old friend of his. 1970s Godzilla this is not.
However there is a sense that this an intentional call back to that earlier period in the series, perhaps too much in places. It's not exactly a child friendly outing, but it's more colourful despite some drab 1990s production design. However it lacks the charm of the Showa period and they would have been better sticking to the tone of the prior films. Akira Ifukube's classic themes make a come back after being absent in those previous instalments, but the result is just a score that feels uncreative. By trying to get audiences back in theatres they've lost what could have been a more interesting take on the subject matter. Instead it's a strange mixture of violent monster destruction and bad robot effects that feel like out of place attempt to copy Terminator 2.
Overall this is a story that is sometimes poignant and sometimes has dialogue like 'take that you dinosaur!' during the action. They even have random references to Steven Spielberg during lines from English speaking characters. Maybe in an earlier iteration there was a commentary here about industrialisation or corporate greed going unchecked, but it's mixed up and lost under so many other random elements. Some characters from the future want to stop Japan being an unrivalled world power, while others love it too much to care about the possible dystopian problems they've seen. It feels like motives have been muddled both on screen and behind the scenes. At the end of the day this is a weird cheesy film full of odd moments, but it could have been more than just the sum of these parts. There's certainly fun to be had, but any amount of critical thinking just raises too many questions.
3/5
