Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (Gojira vs. Desutoroia) (1995)
Directed by: Takao Okawara
Starring: Takuro Tatsumi, Yoko Ishino, Yasufumi Hayashi, Megumi Odaka, Sayaka Osawa
From: Toho
Surprisingly poignant… and “inspired” by the entire Alien franchise.
A recent mutual on Letterboxd liking and commenting on my list of Godzilla reviews was the inspiration to finally watch one of those films for the first time since Godzilla vs. Kong April of last year and the first Toho entry since… October of 2019?! Yep, it was LONG overdue. Given how much I enjoyed this conclusion to the Heisei period of Gojira pictures, shame on me.
The gimmick is that Godzilla and Godzilla Jr. (that’s what I like to call him, anyhow) experience a high dose of uranium and the former starts a nuclear meltdown (!) as he has a heart like a nuclear reactor… admittedly, some of the science here is of a dubious nature, but at least it’s entertaining as hell. An invention similar to Dr. Serizawa’s Oxygen Destroyer-one of several nods to the original Gojira, which also includes photos of Akihiko Hirata and Takashi Shimura-causes organisms from Earth’s earliest history to resurrect and tear s*** up.
I’d say the human element was largely what you’d expect-but that would not entirely be truthful. There are actual emotional moments and heart-wrenching bits, which is unrelated to Godzilla’s fate. The character of Miki Saegusa-the psychic who has been around since Godzilla vs. Biollante-has her final appearance here and for some there will be tear-jerking bits. Anyone can agree that there’s nice miniature work-whether or not those buildings get wrecked-bitchin’ kaiju action, and that the score from Akira Ifukube (the final score he ever did; not a bad way to go out for the legend that scored the original Gojira 40 years beforehand) was pretty epic. Personally, it was amusing that there were nods to the then-trilogy of Alien films-yes, all three of them.
The entire Heisei Series of the franchise (Return of Godzilla to this film) was rather weird, sometimes especially so. Discussing all of them through the years has been a good time even if I didn’t care for some of them. I promise it will be before 2025 that I dive into the Millennium Series.
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