Gojira: Kaijû Wakusei

The animation was fine, the Japanisms in full force. Protect, regain your honor and dignity, die in the name of God or against one, etc, but what annoyed the hell out of me was the sloppiness of the script. One moment an old guy says they have traveled for 20 years and can't take the trip back, the other the ship is taking a one minute jump and it's back where it started. One moment a guy is basically court marshaled, and people are telling him he's insane and asks for too much, the other he is commanding landing forces. There is an alien species that landed on Earth right before Godzilla messed everything up which has no real purpose. There is a scene where they land back on Earth and there is a guy in the leaves, and that's the only scene where we see any people on the planet. There is a conspiracy theory that gets announced, then never mentioned again.

And the characters. They have names and they do things, but you don't know why. There is no character development at all. Who is the shy girl? Why are people referring to her like I should know her. Is this an episode of something? No, it's a part of a trilogy, but it's the first part!

It's just... weird. I can't imagine going through the effort of drawing all of this on the basis of a stupid script. Who does that? I can only consider this a failure, because it is clearly not what was intended to be.

Anyone that has ever watched anything pertaining to Godzilla has things in it that are simply crazy and you must accept in order to enjoy the film. Everyone should also remember that the writing is almost always sub-par. That being said, this movie should be seen within the Godzilla standard of films. *I can say the same about Star Wars films.

Anyone that has every watched a Godzilla movie within its classical format should expect to go, "Yeah yeah, aliens, vengeful scientist, whatever, get to the battle." Anyone that expects more is deceiving themselves. One of the greatest parts about this film is that it didn't fall victim to one of the greatest anime failings ever which is breaking its own rules. This anime interpretation presented some outlandish laws on nature and space and time, but it then continued with those rules, no matter how crazy they are. Which, if you're accepting a giant, atomic-breath wielding monster, you should be ready for some craziness, especially when it's from a series containing an enemy that was friggin Mothra back in the day. A moth. So go into this movie knowing and accepting it for what it is. Do that and you'll have fun. That is why I did not rank it higher though Because it's a movie that you have to step into the Godzilla universe and know that the first half is basically skip-worthy, it doesn't deserve a 10. Within the universe...without revealing spoilers, I was on the edge of my seat with excitement over just how over-the-top they made Godzilla. He's nearly a demi-god in his own right. So that just made me excited beyond my initial response of telling people, "I'm happy. Can you tell I'm happy? Because I'm happy. This makes me happy. I'm happy."

Speaking to my previous asterisk: *(This part might end in me being called a heretic) Star Wars movies are fun but, let's face it, they're not the greatest when it comes to writing, directing, and acting (with obvious highlights). No one can tell me that Mark Hamill was a good actor, especially in Episode IV. I can, however, accept it within an incredibly intriguing universe that overcomes Leia's spoiler-free, space, force shenanigans in Episode VIII.

When we read these reviews we see a mixture of those greatly appreciative of this film, and those who consider it garbage. To the later I can only guess two things apply:

1) They are not aware this is PART 1 of the movie. More to come. 2) Some quite likely don't understand the Japanese mentality or the Godzilla mythos. In such case this will make no sense. Those who understand both Japanese cinema and the Godzilla mythos understood this film and rated it highly.

First regarding the film itself: animation was top-quality, with an excellent mix of anime and realism with computer graphics. The blend is fairly perfect, so much so that one forgets we are watching an animated film-- until something strikes us as particularly well-done.

The story line and plot-- and even the very final after-credits scene-- contrary to some claims makes perfect sense, is consistent and follows a logical flow. It is a well-done story... and I am very critical of films with lousy stories and plots. Of course to understand, one has to understand Godzilla. If one thinks Godzilla is just a "scary monster" or a dinosaur on steroids, they have no idea what Godzilla really is.

So considering the terrific animation, good voice-over acting, well-done story line and consistency with the Godzilla theme, we have a real kicker of a Godzilla movie... one of the best I've seen. I tend to be very critical of movies and don't cut them much slack in the case of sloppy production. This was done well and is definitely worth watching... unless of course, one understands zip about Godzilla. It does help to be acquainted with the concept going in.

The biggest problem of the 32nd entry in this franchise is that it feels like apart of a series, a middle part, yet at the very same time it has almost nothing in common with the previous movies. While it does have references to the previous movies like Mechagodzilla, and obviously Godzilla himself is the main antagonist both his powers as well the world it takes in is completely original and knowledge of previous entries isnt required or even helpful, meaning no matter if you are new to Godzilla movies or not you will go in and leave equally confused.

In this universe humans live together with another alien race, earth is completely devoid of human life while humans themself long ago abandoned their home star system as they poses space faring technology. This weird but never explained society is ruled by some barely described group that refuses to give up power, they are internally divided among factions never described, and there is a some barely mentioned alien church also struggling for power. On top of that there are resource and living space problems, but how serious we dont know, as well as light speed travel capabilities that seem to be breaking down, or maybe not as the movie dosnt bother to cover this field ether.

And yet nothing of this is part of the story, it feels like there is one movie missing setting up the world and the current political situation, its this very lack of setup that hurts the movie the most when complex internal politics get involved. As most of the time we dont know what going on the movie is forced to constantly explain the situation to us in minutes long exposition dump monologues. Characters will often stop what ever they are doing turn to each other and give an info dump for a minute or two filling us in on the lacking world building as well as explain to use what this futuristic technology is capable of and how it will be used in the next scene. While many of s-f movies set in far away future are guilty of this its rarely to this extent.

The action is passable, but the characterization is awful as there is barely any time left for characters whose role isnt explaining to us one thing or another. If you want to know more about those aliens, something that you would think would be quite a game changer for the series then you are out of luck, they play no real role in the movie.

And to top it all off there is no ending. While the movie is supposed to be fallowed with 2 more sequels, its hard to be satisfied with a fade to black in a middle of an action scene as if someone cut the power at your house. We leave the story almost in the same place we start, with not much resolved but with few of barely developed characters dead.

In the end it feels just like another low budget 24 episode s-f anime series only with half the content cut up and sold as a single movie. Its not one i would recommend for ether Godzilla fans or s-f fans.

Its has an interesting approach on the Godzilla theme, and I like the story central idea. Yet I found the execution of it to frail, like if it was done in a rush without thinking it to much. The characters, the dialogues, the way the story unfolds, it´s not bad, yet it lacks some sense in it, leaving you the idea that it could have been easily improved, yet there was not much effort in doing so. Apart from that, The animation is not bad, it gets the point done, but leaves much to improve. The voice acting could be much better, at least in the Japanese version of it, but again, is not a deal breaker. Still, i enjoyed enough that I watch the rest of the trilogy, without regretting it.