Featured Creature Kaiju File: The one that's supposed to be the best Godzilla movie

 

 

Title: Godzilla Vs. Biollante

What Year?: 1989

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Mashup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

With this review, I’m at the end of an off-week which I’ve spent going through a lot of material, including some very good films and one or two that are easily among the worst I have ever watched. In the middle of it all, I got to one I had backlogged for a little while, after a long, intermittent quest to find it, and I knew I had a winner. It not only suited my needs, but offered a gateway to some other material I’ve been meaning to get to with this feature. I present Godzilla Vs. Biollante, a kaiju movie that very possibly saved a franchise and the genre, and happens to have been nominated as the best Godzilla movie ever.

Our story begins with a recap of the last sighting of Big G, in which the military actually won after a fashion by driving him into a volcano. In the aftermath, bits of Godzilla tissue are discovered and collected by the military, a scientist, and a shady corporation that will try to expand the movie’s thematic range. The scientist is the one who makes progress, using genetic engineering to hybridize the kaiju DNA with plant cells, which might conceivably solve world hunger or just eat an unspecified Midwest city. But his grief-ridden backstory drives him to try to resurrect his deceased daughter by spicing her DNA into the mix. The result is an utterly terrifying plant/ Gojira/ human hybrid called Biollante. Meanwhile, Godzilla escapes from the volcano, and the army is back to being completely ineffective even with the hardware that defeated him before. The fallback for Japan is to send the rapidly mutating plant monster against its sire. It all comes down to a rumble between Big G and the Jolly Green Monster, and the best hope for humanity is that neither of them wins!

Godzilla Vs. Biollante was a 1989 science fiction/ kaiju film by Toho, written and directed by Kazuki Omori. It was the direct sequel to the 1984 film Return of Godzilla, itself conceived and promoted as a “reboot” of the franchise. Godzilla was played by Kenpachiro Satsuma, who had first appeared in the franchise as Hedorah in Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster. The soundtrack, including a new version of the Godzilla theme, was composed by the late Koichi Sugiyama, previously known for video game music. A U.S. theatrical release by Miramax was reportedly planned, but failed after a breakdown in negotiations with Toho. An English dub was released direct-to-VHS in 1992. The film was not an immediate success in Japan or with western audiences, but gained greatly in popularity. In 2014, the film was chosen as the best Godzilla film in a poll by Nihon Eiga Satellite Broadcasting Corporation. It is currently “out of print” in the United States, with no known availability on digital platforms.

For my experiences, this review really built up from a correspondence that maybe escalated into an argument. The upshot, as I previously vented back in the Smog Monster review, is that I grew up loving the idea of Godzilla without having access to the films or really getting into them on the few occasions I met them in the wild. (I can think of a very specific film that definitely contributed to that, but that’s a rant that can wait for another day.) When I did finally get a chance to look at a good sampling of the series and the kaiju genre, I was mature enough that my interests evolved in other directions, which I will definitely cover as this series goes on. The big exception was certainly the present film, which I found on a used tape that I watched once or perhaps twice and quickly traded back in. I wouldn’t have counted it especially good, yet it was certainly different and interesting (enough that I had the Evil Possum fight the damn plant). Of course, it was this movie that proved almost impossible to find at a decent price, but after a few years, I finally got hold of a copy that was pretty much certain to be a bootleg, and after Allegro Non Troppo, I was impressed enough that it actually played on my equipment.

Moving forward, most of what can be said about the movie is by way of comparisons that will hinge on familiarity with the genre. It is front and center a very serious film, to a degree perhaps not seen since Rodan. It also brings in some more specific themes and subtexts of earlier films, particularly the spy/ espionage element of Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla and the environmental “message” of Smog Monster. A further good word is in order for the music, which gets very random yet hits just the right vibe when working from the franchise’s theme. The downside is that there’s no corresponding improvement in the story, which leaves us with the same muddle of pseudoscience and silliness that Toho already had down by the 1960s-‘70s transitional period. One more thing that I find more intriguing are certain parallels with The Thing, which also came up with Lily CAT. A good part of this can be put down simply to the modernized suits and effects. When the slime and tentacles are flying, however, more direct comparisons become difficult to avoid. It leaves me wondering if Carpenter’s film was more successful in Japan; still, the strongest feeling, as with Lily CAT, is a culture taking back what was theirs all along.

That brings me directly to the monsters. Godzilla as shown here is back in his role as “anti-hero” at best, and the most immediate effect is that we really don’t see much of him. When he does appear, he tends to look mysteriously and vaguely disgruntled, with some visible rough bits in the suit. Biollante, by comparison, is a beautiful, horrifying masterpiece. We see two forms of the creature. The first and (as usual) more interesting is a column of vines topped by an eerily beautiful flower, to me like a cactus blossom. Even here, the stabby, bitey tentacle-vines are already in evidence and clearly lethal. The first engagement ends with the plant seemingly disintegrated by Godzilla’s blasts, another moment of weird beauty. Once the plant reassembles for the finale, it’s 1000% terror. The final form makes me think of nothing so much as the colonial superpredator in Deep Rising. Its crocodilian central face is a bit underwhelming in execution, though it’s big enough to make a credible effort to bite Big G’s head off. It’s the secondary branches that remain the primary threat, snapping viciously and purposefully enough to suggest independent life and perhaps the ability to fission off into new plant-monsters if the main mass is destroyed. This is truly a creature where the only safe option is nuke from orbit.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one that introduces Biollante. Around the first -second act transition, we come to the doctor’s lab after hours, to discover that two guys whose affiliations aren’t clear have broken in. They’ve already evidently found what they’re looking for in the doctor’s files. Just then, a shady character we’ve met before arrives, a mysterious operative so cool we don’t question why he’s wearing sunglasses inside an office building at night. They’re clearly after the same thing, and the other guys have brought their own guns, so a fight breaks out. The regular burglars are clearly not in the agent’s league, so they quickly retreat to cover. (By the way, I got this with subtitles, but these two speak English anyway.) As they argue over their options, a tentacle-vine smashes through the door behind them; it’s a comical moment, with a real element of surprise even if you know what’s coming. Of course, the amateurs are quickly lunched, then Biollante goes for the agent, and what’s impressive is that it proves to be an even fight. In short order, it’s morning, and we find the doctor gazing out a hole in the wall. It’s a side trip that doesn’t really contribute anything to the story, but it’s exactly the kind of things that makes the franchise and genre fun.

In closing, what I come back to is how I really feel about this series. If I had grown up with the movies and not just the idea of Godzilla (and my Dormei Genericzilla), I’m sure I would love them as much as anyone else. As it is, I certainly enjoy the Godzilla movies, and there are some that are among my favorite kaiju movies. To me, it all comes down to perspective, and to me, Godzilla feels like what would happen if the most popular 1970s sci fi movie had been Starcrash. Yes, they’re fun and even great, but there’s better things out there. If I was doing my own kaiju lineup, I’d go with The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Rodan, any of the 1990s Gamera series (definitely incoming), and one or two of the 1970s Godzilla movies on the side. (And heck, why not House… if sleeping is optional.) That’s the proper place of the series, as a gateway to better things. With that, I for one am moving on.