Despite being burdened with one of the most needlessly unwieldy titles in movies history, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (for the sake of both my sanity and my typing finger I’ll refer to it a GMK from here on in, yeah?), managed to place some much needed weight on the glowing dorsal spikes of the Millenium Era of Toho.
Up until that point, that particular era had only had two entries – Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus – which had proven to be genuinely entertaining but ultimately rather shallow affairs that lacked the impact of the Heisei Godzilla movies from the nineties.
However, GMK proved to not only be a radioactive breath of fresh air, but a perfect jumping on point for newbies to the world of grown men in rubber lizard suits enthusiastically kicking over prime real estate. The chief reason for this is the presence of Shusuke Kaneko, the man who gave us the absolutely stonking Gamera trilogy from the nineties that still remain three of the greatest Kaiju movies ever made.
Ever since Godzilla’s first attack back in the mid-fifties, Japan’s miltary sphincter has been ever clenched as they await a belated encore. However, while some agree with Admiral Taizo Tachibana’s desire to remain ever vigilant, the public general feeling is to treat it much in the same way that young people currently treat the war in the Pacific – not their business. However, after a submarine goes missing near Guam, it seems that a returning Godzilla is going to make it everyone’s business…
Elsewhere, Taizo’s daughter, Yuri, makes a living making docudramas on the cheap, but as she host her latest, questionable production at Mount Myõkõ, a string of earthquakes tee her up to stumble across the legend of a trio of Kaiju who supposedly protect the earth named the Guardian Monsters. This monster garage band is made up of the tunnelling, puppy-eyed Baragon, giant hippy bug Mothra and the Three-Headed dragon, King Ghidorah and the fact that they’ve all started to make their presence felt doesn’t bode well for mankind.
The reason for these monsters awakening is, of course, Godzilla, who has returned to deliver yet more itemized pain to the people of Japan, but while, in the past, the King of the Monsters was a giant irradiated creature, now he’s become super charged with the souls of all the innocent people killed during the and is itching to lash out on a country willing to deny their past crimes.
Before you know it, Kaiju are rampaging everywhere with hundreds of people caught in the cross fire as the Guardian Monsters try to stop a rampaging Godzilla who, to be fair, looks a couple of cans short of a six pack.
Caught in the middle, Yuri attempts to document the carnage while her father tries to figure out a military solution to the problem of a giant moth and a golden dragon fighting a nuclear lizard to the death.
What with Kaneko working wonders on the Gamera trilogy, the expectation for GMK was absurdly high, and yet thanks to the director attacking the material from an entirely different point of view than any director that came before him, the third entry in the Millennium Era stands a one of the greatest Godzilla movies ever made.
Stripping away nearly forty seven years of accumulated history that’s seen the King of the Monsters veer between being a hero or a villain more times than a professional wrestler, GMK not only casts Godzilla decisively as a bad guy, but goes on to make him by far the nastiest he’s ever been by far. No longer painted as a google-eyed saviour of mankind, indifferent force of nature or metaphorical scourge on humanity, the Godzilla of GMK is a milky eyed, prehistoric fanged, fucking serial killer of a Kaiju, mercilessly killing innocent people in fits of pure spite and maiming every single living thing that moves. He’s a bit of a sadistic prick too as evidenced by a scene where a patient trapped in a hospital stares in horror as this multi-storey motherfucker slowly stomps towards a collision course with the building she’s in only to turn away at the last minute – however, as the poor woman breathes a sigh of relief, the radioactive bastard swings his tail round and obliterates her room and everything in it! It’s not like Godzilla hasn’t been a villain before but to be this much of an utter bellend is unheard, of and yet the results bear so much fruit. Alongside this, another cracking example of the King Of The Monsters being a massive, psychotic dickhead is his mid-film scrap with Baragon, whose floppy ears and big eyes have her sitting on the cuter end of the Kaiju spectrum. Being hopelessly out-monstered, Baragon has her butt unapologetically handed to her in a fight that’s as unfair as Warrick Davis Vs. The Undertaker and twice as fun. The sight of the Godzilla we know and love curb stomping his opponent against the side of a mountain almost feels like It’s like he’s had a sizable nervous breakdown and has decided to behave like late-career Mike Tyson to process it. In fact, at times, his malicious nature almost feels like something out of a horror movie.
While Kaneko’s radical reworking of Godzilla and his motives sounds maybe a bit too dark to pass as blockbuster entertainment, he loads the movie with plenty of amusing moments and a cheeky sense of gallows humor to balance out the fact that the rampaging monster is punishing the Japanese for not taking responsibility for the atrocities committed. While this means we get the occasional comedy side character and some reaction shots from bit part actors that veer into Troma territory, everything is carried out with such enthusiasm it’s impossible not to get carried along with the sheer energy of the batshit premise. Plus, for no extra charge, we also get two of Godzilla’s most consistent foes for the price of one with Mothra looking more trim than usual as she heroically throws herself in front of Godzilla’s radioactive breath like a winged secret service agent and a rare protagonist turn from King Ghidorah who updated look is more gold and shiny than Tony Montana’s bathroom fixtures.
Watching everything fall down and go boom is Chiharu Nilyama’s female lead, who proves to be a suprisingly solid human character to witness all this destruction with as she cycles after the monsters armed with a camcorder. But with all the ramped-up devastation and heightened carnage, GMK has a noticably spiritual centre that teams with the superlative monster stuff to make something truly special.
While an aversion to giant monsters suits will not be cured by this movie any time soon, Shusuke Kaneko’s spectacular and radical shake up prove that you really can teach old Kaiju new tricks.
This killer Godzilla proves to be one hell of a thriller.
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