You’d think that after getting Godzilla back on his feet with a much publicized resurrection , Toho would be eager to put their largest franchise to work as soon as possible, but after Return Of Godzilla made its bow on the December of 1984, it would be another five years before the King of the Monsters would next grace the inside of a Japanese theatre. Now, while that length of time may not seem that extreme by modern, western standards, when you bear in mind that back in the heyday of Godzilla’s Showa era, Toho were hammering out a film a year, it’s something of a gargantuan gap between movies further marked by the fact that the big G had only just returned from a nine year convalescence.
However, long time Godzilla overseer Tomoyuki Tanaka and director Kazuki Omori vowed to ensure that this latest installment would not only retain the tonal darkness of the previous movie (i.e. Godzilla acting like an utter bastard), but would also return the series to its monster fighting days by introducing a whole new for Godzilla to fight with its genesis come from an unexpected source – a dentist…
Following Godzilla’s imprisonment inside a volcano after his destructive assault, the people of Tokyo attempt to rebuilt in his debris strewn wake, but a fateful discovery among the ruins could lead to far worse tragedies in the years to follow. You see, a goopy blob of Godzilla’s cells at the site kicks off a frantic dash to obtain them that starts with American agents trying to remove the dynamite DNA from Tokyo in a violent firefight and ends with them being swiped by the Saradian republic on the hope that some genetic tinkering by Japanese scientist Dr. Genshiro Shiragami will help them turn their desserts into fertile land – however, this only results in a terrorist bombing of the country’s scientific institute which leave Shiragami’s beloved daughter dead.
Five years pass and we find the grief stricken boffins back in Japan and blending his daughter’s cell with that of a rose in a questionable attempt to preserve her soul, while fellow scientist Kazuhito Kirishima of the JSDF Hope’s he’ll join them to continue work of Godzilla’s cells in order to hopefully find a way of defeating the giant Kaiju, should he ever return from his molten prison.
But what of Godzilla himself? Well, funny you should ask, because global tensions have once again risen from the use of those pesky cells and, wouldn’t you know it, Bio-terrorists are threatening to detonate that volcano and free a still living Godzilla if his Kaiju soup isn’t turned over to them, but if this wasn’t enough, the Japanese government is struggling to get the Super X, a ruined battle platform designed for Kaiju fighting back on line, agents from all over the globe are still up to no good and young psychic, Miki Saegusa, may have the inside track on altering the path of Godzilla’s latest rampage. However, most unsettling of all, Shiragami bonding of the “G-cells” with plant DNA and that genetic material from daughter (yay, science!) has created the monster, Biollante, a giant rose with Dracula fangs and Audrey II vines who immediately throws down a leafy gauntlet to an enraged King of the Monsters. Talk about complicated…
In a something of a rarity for the Kaiju genre, Godzilla Vs. Biollante is strangely guilty of something that’s never really bothered the Godzilla franchise before: an over abundance of plot. Seriously, there’s bloody tons of the stuff as multiple plot threads and a large amount of characters attempt to heave a story along that contains two Kaiju, one metamorphosis, two monster fights, a tragic back story, numerous secret agents, a teen psychic, a flying, high-tech weapon and battles with both the military on both land and sea. Simply put, there’s enough going on in this single, sophomore effort from the Heisi era to fill at least three movies from the Showa era and a massive tip of the hat has to go to all involved by genuinely trying something complex and epic as the filmmakers return the Big G back to the realms of brawling with other monsters.
However, while large, individual patches of Godzilla Vs. Biollante kick serious amounts of ass, the plot is so vast and so labyrinthian at times that it often becomes a tangle of vines that has too many ideas and not enough space to showcase them.
When stripped down to its individual threads, the swollen script manages to not only include some good old political commentary, lashings of international intrigue, plenty of connective tissue to the previous movie and even one of the most involved monster origins that the franchise has ever seen.
The previous movie’s nods to the cold war have now been replaced by the planet’s race to harness genetics, with competing countries willing to literally kill to obtain Godzilla’s promeathian DNA for a variety of reasons and while some of it may be a little heavy handed (the “Saradians” veer dangerously toward stereotype on more than one occasion), it shows that the film wants to be much more than just another smash-em-up. That’s not to say that Godzilla Vs. Biollante skimps on the smashing as the movie unleashes some nicely frantic rampages that utilise the best explosions 80s monster movies can buy and on top of that, new Kaiju Biollante is quite unlike any foe the franchise has ever seen. This was because the story was farmed out in the form of a “create a foe for Godzilla” writing competition which was won by dentist, Shinichiro Kobayashi, which then was soldered into the heavy plot we have to grapple with here. When she’s able to escape out from under the dense story, the plant monster proves to be an impressive beast, boasting more teeth than the entire Jaws franchise and towering above her foe, as she sprays acid from her crocadillian mouth and pierces Godzilla’s flesh with her vines – in fact it’s a shame there’s so little of her as she never made another appearance during the remainder of the franchise.
However, the sheer mass of everything the movie is trying to pass through its system like some immersive burrito ultimately clogs up the works and weighs everything down, meaning that instances like the return of the Super X or some shockingly unsubtle, 80s, agents who scream stuff like “Damn, we are lethal weapons!” clutter things too much.
Other plot threads, namely Megumi Odaka’s ESP sensitive Miki Saegusa, managed to eventually bloom in subsequent appearances, but despite a run time practically overflowing with ideas, its profoundly frustrating that Godzilla Vs. Biollante is never truly given room to blossom. Never overfeed your plants, I guess…
🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 
One comment