I'm of two minds on this one. On the one hand, this is typical monster fare from Ishiro Honda, especially the early efforts to shoehorn in another kind of film into the first act. On the other hand, this is also the purest kaiju film I've seen so far in this series of Godzilla films as well as Honda's overall efforts at making science-fiction spectacles. It's really captured in the film's two halves, and while I appreciate the continued efforts by Honda to make something other than a kaiju movie while making a kaiju movie, it's the latter half that I embrace more fully.
A giant egg lands on the shores of Japan, and it causes a sensation, obviously. The egg gets purchased by Kumayama (Yoshifumi Tajima), a business man who is a front for another business man, Jiro Torahata (Kenji Sahara). Frustrated at this development is Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi) who wants to study the egg and will essentially be our eyes and ears once the monster action heats up. But, we've got to wait a bit. You see, the start of this film is a corporate satire with Jiro having plans to build an amusement park around the egg. Like much of Honda's efforts to build in other genres into his kaiju films, though, it's kind of thin and doesn't really go anywhere. It's also not really related at all to the monster action because Godzilla just emerges from the ground at one point. Maybe (maybe) it's supposed to have something to do with the effort to clear the land to build the park, but it honestly just feels like coincidence. It's not like the whole film is about how building amusement parks is bad.
So, the egg is, of course, Mothra's, and the two princesses from Mothra (Emi and Yumi Ito) show up to beg humanity to give the egg back (how Mothra lost the egg in the first place is never explained), but Kumayama and Jiro won't allow it, leaving Miura unable to help. However, with the rise of Godzilla, Miura goes to Infant Island to beg Mothra's help. So, the effort to get Mothra to face down against Godzilla is drawn out and distracted (there are also a pair of journalist characters because this is that kind of movie). It's not bad, but it's not great. However, once the monster action starts, the film really takes off.
Firstly, it should be noted that these are the best special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya in this series and while working with Ishiro Honda. We return to the slow-motion efforts to try and recreate scale with Godzilla's steps feeling weighty and terrifying. There's a lot of aircraft flying around doing different things, including dropping nets. There are electric bolts firing from large towers. It's bright, big, and colorful, and there's also an embrace of compositing in real people into shots. That helps blend the two realities of miniature and real life.
And once that action starts, it hardly lets up. The only serious hiccup is the destruction of the dreams of Jiro and Kumayama which turns surprisingly violent, but Godzilla is in the background trudging toward them at the same time. Mothra, of course, shows up, and there's a twist where Mothra will never be able to return to Infant Island because she's going to die out there. Is that predictive? Is she just old? Or, is it just an excuse to have a moment of tension when Mothra lays down to die after a fight with Godzilla, protecting her egg, and the audience wonders what is going to happen next?! It's the latter, of course.
I was wondering if the film was going to willfully forget that Mothra is supposed to have a larval stage, but the film actually leans into it. Two larvae come out and use their unique skills to fight Godzilla. Really, I enjoyed the heck out of this. It's inventive, fun, colorful, and well executed.
And then I remember that the first half of the film is a largely middling corporate satire that doesn't really tie into the action in any more than the most basic of plot mechanical ways. I mean, I get that Honda didn't just want to make monster movies, but that didn't mean that they had to be so completely separate. Even a super basic, "We shouldn't despoil nature or Godzilla will come," would be good enough. Instead, as the battle is won and our characters look off into the sunset for the final seconds, they give a message about how we need to just be better? Whatever.
So, the corporate satire is decent, but it goes nowhere. The monster action is really good, but it barely ties into the first half. So, I'm caught in between. I want to like it more than I do, but I still think it's larger two halves simply don't connect very well. Oh well, it's honestly the best this franchise has been since its inception.
A giant egg lands on the shores of Japan, and it causes a sensation, obviously. The egg gets purchased by Kumayama (Yoshifumi Tajima), a business man who is a front for another business man, Jiro Torahata (Kenji Sahara). Frustrated at this development is Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi) who wants to study the egg and will essentially be our eyes and ears once the monster action heats up. But, we've got to wait a bit. You see, the start of this film is a corporate satire with Jiro having plans to build an amusement park around the egg. Like much of Honda's efforts to build in other genres into his kaiju films, though, it's kind of thin and doesn't really go anywhere. It's also not really related at all to the monster action because Godzilla just emerges from the ground at one point. Maybe (maybe) it's supposed to have something to do with the effort to clear the land to build the park, but it honestly just feels like coincidence. It's not like the whole film is about how building amusement parks is bad.
So, the egg is, of course, Mothra's, and the two princesses from Mothra (Emi and Yumi Ito) show up to beg humanity to give the egg back (how Mothra lost the egg in the first place is never explained), but Kumayama and Jiro won't allow it, leaving Miura unable to help. However, with the rise of Godzilla, Miura goes to Infant Island to beg Mothra's help. So, the effort to get Mothra to face down against Godzilla is drawn out and distracted (there are also a pair of journalist characters because this is that kind of movie). It's not bad, but it's not great. However, once the monster action starts, the film really takes off.
Firstly, it should be noted that these are the best special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya in this series and while working with Ishiro Honda. We return to the slow-motion efforts to try and recreate scale with Godzilla's steps feeling weighty and terrifying. There's a lot of aircraft flying around doing different things, including dropping nets. There are electric bolts firing from large towers. It's bright, big, and colorful, and there's also an embrace of compositing in real people into shots. That helps blend the two realities of miniature and real life.
And once that action starts, it hardly lets up. The only serious hiccup is the destruction of the dreams of Jiro and Kumayama which turns surprisingly violent, but Godzilla is in the background trudging toward them at the same time. Mothra, of course, shows up, and there's a twist where Mothra will never be able to return to Infant Island because she's going to die out there. Is that predictive? Is she just old? Or, is it just an excuse to have a moment of tension when Mothra lays down to die after a fight with Godzilla, protecting her egg, and the audience wonders what is going to happen next?! It's the latter, of course.
I was wondering if the film was going to willfully forget that Mothra is supposed to have a larval stage, but the film actually leans into it. Two larvae come out and use their unique skills to fight Godzilla. Really, I enjoyed the heck out of this. It's inventive, fun, colorful, and well executed.
And then I remember that the first half of the film is a largely middling corporate satire that doesn't really tie into the action in any more than the most basic of plot mechanical ways. I mean, I get that Honda didn't just want to make monster movies, but that didn't mean that they had to be so completely separate. Even a super basic, "We shouldn't despoil nature or Godzilla will come," would be good enough. Instead, as the battle is won and our characters look off into the sunset for the final seconds, they give a message about how we need to just be better? Whatever.
So, the corporate satire is decent, but it goes nowhere. The monster action is really good, but it barely ties into the first half. So, I'm caught in between. I want to like it more than I do, but I still think it's larger two halves simply don't connect very well. Oh well, it's honestly the best this franchise has been since its inception.