The next thing released on Netflix lately I’ve decided to
check out was Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters. Since being a little kid, I’ve
always loved the idea of gigantic, pissed-off iguanas trampling puny cities wrought
of plastic and cardboard. I enjoyed the comics I managed to pick up at the time
about one of Japan’s most famous exports, and since then, I’ve been able to
catch the original Toho movies, from the dark and surprisingly well made 1954
original, to the gloriously cheesy nonsensical 60s instalments about
mecha-cockroaches that cough up bombs or whatever.
Recently, kaiju material has made something of a comeback,
starting with Del Toro’s fun mecha/monster throwback Pacific Rim, and then the
flawed but earnest second 2014 American Godzilla reboot helmed by Gareth Edwards.
Toho has also bought back their own series in Japan courtesy of Shin Godzilla
in 2016—which, amusingly, was partially the Japanese version of Yes Minister
crossed with radiation-spewing lizard action. Both those instalments I liked
fine enough, and now its time to check out this animated one courtesy of Kobun
Shizuno.
The premise is an atypical one for these sorts of
stories—here, monsters arose worldwide, and instead of being beaten back by
plucky Japanese scientists or screaming kids piloting giant robots, they
basically won, trashing human civilization in the process. Godzilla in the past
has ranged from a vindictive scaly bastard, to just a big animal, to a
guardian, and when the opening has him casually vaporize an evacuation ship for
the hell of it, you can guess where this version lies.
I really enjoyed the opening showcasing all of this, and it
leads into an interesting concept, with the remains of humanity fleeing into
space to find a new home. There’s also some aliens tagging along, though they
basically look and act identically to humans bar some specific hair trimmings,
so they may as well have just been some cultists for all that bought to the
plot. In any case, we soon get introduced to this deteriorating colony ship, with
food running low and some outright jumping ship.
Here we’re introduced to our protagonist, who, like many an
anime protagonist these days, is a young man that mopes and yells a lot, and
then is suddenly thrust into getting command of things. He’s joined by riveting
people like Young Lady, and Guy That Is A Bit Passive Aggressive. Yeah, none of
them are particularly deep or interesting, but in this sort of thing, you’re
looking out for the monster action and all the metal-crunching destruction that
goes with that. Unfortunately it takes a while to get there.
There’s a lot of time spent on the ship discussing their
situation, and all sorts of technobabble about electromagnetism and warp
fields, and it’s honestly not that interesting. About here I’ll get into the
animation, which I wasn’t too hot on either—it’s all done in CG, and while
technical things like the ships and machinery are fine, the characters look
like mannequins out of Max Headroom. You aren’t going to find something as
fluid or expressive as Akira here, sorry to say.
Finally, we return to the titular planet, our Earth now
millennia in the future, where the ecosystem has been transformed by the
presence of titanic terrors. After wrangling over commands and encounters with
lesser critters, we finally get to what we’ve been looking forward to—the fight
with Godzilla himself. It’s decent, with all sorts of action with flying
motorcycles, mechs, and tanks, though it’s hampered by the music initially
sounding like a SNES on crack. However, it mostly takes place in a forest,
making it a little hard to get a good sense of scale like you could with the
normally city-set battles in previous outings.
After all that, we get to the final scene—and let’s just
say, despite my complaints, this is where things get good. In fact, the last shots are awesome enough that despite my
misgivings, I’m willing to check out the next part. And let’s just say you can
forget my point about the scale above.
For the most part, despite a strong opening, it’s not that
interesting, although you can skip to the climax and go from there if you’re a
creature feature fan as I am. So maybe I won’t be entirely agreeing vith Blue Oyster Cult that Godzilla’s
got to go, go go Godzilla…
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