While Godzilla’s much hyped rebirth into the realms of Japanese cinema had kicked off in entertaining fashion, you could hardly describe Godzilla 2000 as being particularly deep or thoughtfully written. In fact, director Takao Okawara seemed dead set on going back to the broader, more action/sci-fi orientated beats of the earlier, Showa movies rather than trying to match what had come directly before. A more breezier tone and less mentions of nuclear power gave this new era of Godzilla a more casual feel as the redesigned King of the Monsters squared up to a marauding UFO.
This carefree mix of sci-fi and monster mashing carried over to Masaaki Tezuka’s Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus which continued matters by introducing multiversal, gremlin-faced, dragonfly, Megaguirus into the mix and then also threw in a re-jigged origin story and a subplot involving a Godzilla vanquishing black hole cannon.
After understandably getting sick to the back teeth of Godzilla’s attacks upon their nuclear power stations since 1966, Japan tries to find alternative energy solutions which prove to be woefully inadequate. However, after cracking clean plasma energy in 1996, it seems that the big brains of Japan have sorted out how to sort out the country’s energy issues once and for all – or at least, they thought they did as Godzilla returns to metaphorically shit in their cereal and trashes their new form of energy production.
Deciding that this is the Kaiju that broke the camel’s back, Japan’s anti-Godzilla force – the unfortunately named G-Graspers (what, was G-Gropers already taken or something?) – hatch a plan to dispose of Godzilla once and for all by creating the Dimension Tide, a weapon that creates miniaturized black holes and launches them at a target in the hope of transporting Godzilla to another dimension.
With the vengeful Major Kiriko Tsujimori taking point of the mission in order to settle an old score with the humongous lizard and rebellious genius Hajime Kudo brought on to do the science bit, the plan seems to be rather solid. However problems arise when during a test run (what, something went wrong with the creation of a black hole within earth’s atmosphere? What are the odds?), an insect emerges from the temporary tear in dimensional space and lays an egg which hatches to reveal a swarm of smaller bugs. As this freaky life cycle progresses the smaller bugs (aka. Meganulon) who consume hapless people and subsequently become the winged Meganula who go out to provide the swarm’s queen, Megaguirus, with the energy needed to grow and jump start a winged rampage. Of course, one of the sources they try to drain it from is Godzilla who has his own problems trying to deal with scientists who are desperate to shove the king of the monsters into their man-made hole (steady now!) with no chance of escape.
While the humans hope to nail two Kaiju with one stone and blast both monsters with a single shot, Godzilla matches his brawn with Megaguirus’ super speed in an effort to swat this bug for good.
To put it bluntly, I absolutely hated, Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus after a first viewing, finding it rather uninspired as it tried to bolt together two separate plots bolted into one epic but empty mishmash. A major issue is that almost everything that occurs here is something that previous Godzilla movies had already tried before – and better. Megaguirus – aside from having the special skill of being a bit zippy – is just another insect monster in a franchise already stuffed with likes of Mothra, Megalon, Kumonga, Kamacuras and Battra and its craggy look is far too similar to the winged version of the latter first comfort. Matters are made a little worse when this new foil for Godzilla shows that its main method of attack is to simply push Godzilla over when he’s not looking like a spiteful toddler. Elsewhere, the movie seems unsure as to which plot line it should be focusing fully on. One minute we’re with the G-Graspers (Christ, I hate that name) as both Tusjimori and Kudo awkwardly flirt as they perfect the Dimension Tide weapon, the next we’re following Megaguirus’ complicated life cycle through the eyes of a young boy who causes something of a mess when he tries to dispose of the insect egg in the nearest sewer.
As a result, the two plot threads wrestle for dominance with more ferocity that the actual Kaiju do and while they do merge at points, it feels like the movie has set its creepy, compound eyes on too many plates to spin.
However, after something of an overdue appraisal, Godzilla Vs Megaguirus actually isn’t that bad at, especially if you see it as yet another nod to the wackier years of the Showa era. The moment when Kiriko rides on Godzilla’s spines is magnificent and while Megaguirus is still one of the more forgettable rogues in Godzilla’s gallery, her complex life cycle allows for some Aliens-esque moments where people on the street are stalked by insidious invertebrates and, if you don’t take the final battle too seriously, it’s good, dumb value for money as the filmmakers remember the days back when Godzilla did happy dances and floaty drop kicks and allows the Big G deliver a gargantuan flying body splash that would make a luchador proud.
However, in it’s most interesting move, Godzilla Vs Megaguirus chooses to tinker with the Godzilla origin story, replays footage of the 1954 classic but with a modern looking Godzilla and omits any use of the Oxygen Destroyer that killed the original monster. This creates rather an interesting precedent that the subsequent Millenium Era chose to follow, constantly reshuffling details about in order to give Godzilla new goals and different motivations. While this meant more variety in storylines and altered the goalposts of what Godzilla could actually be, it also meant that almost every modern entry was from now on, technically, a complete reboot and thus meant that anything any entry did would be somewhat undone by the next installment. Now, while this is good news to anyone who disliked the broader, more populist tone of Godzilla Vs Megaguirus, anyone missing the sprawling continuity of the Showa Era would simply have to make do with the films simply starting again with every new release.
Muddled in parts and silly in others, Godzilla Vs Megaguirus isn’t anywhere close to being as bad as you may have heard, however, it does stand as one of the most forgettable and disposable adventures of Godzilla’s entire career, even though the big guy himself busts out all manner of Kaiju flexes like biting off insectoid stingers with his bare teeth and squaring up to a miniaturized black hole.
However, the one-and-done nature of the Millenium Era leaves this bout of bug bashing feeling too ineffectual to make much of a buzz.
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