~Spoilers~
This was my first time watching a Godzilla film made by Japanese. So it might be me and my overly high expectations but I was expecting something decent. It was so much worse and I actually enjoy that shitty '98 film Godzilla more than this.
At least with '98 Godzilla, there wasn't just an unending feeling of boredom. I am able to sit down and watch that film while laughing at how bad it is and some of the scenes were actually pretty decent. But this Godzilla film is just boring.
Takes 53 minutes of this 1Hour 30Minute film to actually see Godzilla. Hell, That estimate might be off and could've taken longer.
So you must be wondering, What the hell do they do for 53Minutes? Well, a whole ton of nothing. It mostly consists of the MC (Haruo) Bitching and moaning while people praise him for his plan to kill Godzilla.
Haruo honestly is an obnoxious existence. He is the embodiment of cliched Japanese boy. He lost his parents at a young age, He's a rebel and does what he thinks is right and isn't afraid to go against authority. He's also a mastermind Genius that has no faults what so ever.
Actually, When I heard he was gonna nose dive into Godzilla and sacrifice himself, I was actually getting a bit excited hoping this annoying character would die. But sadly no.
~World Building~
So we get this god awful exposition dumb that goes on for about 10 minutes. Pretty much saying how shit Human life is and how we had to evacuate Earth.
As soon as I realized that this film is gonna be about Humans leaving Earth. I realized I wasn't gonna like this film. It's such a dumb thing to do. If you have the power to make long-lasting Spaceships and Warp capability. Wouldn't it just be easier to lead Godzilla onto a Giant ass rocket and send his ass into space? The story tells us no reason as to why or how come they can't. This honestly seems like a way more practical thing to do then Humans abandoning Earth. I also always hated this Plot development in stories.
We are also told that... Fucking Aliens are in this. This shitty new development happened during the Exp dump. It's just like " Hey Yeah Monsters are really being a nuisance, Also there are Aliens" They don't really offer anything and have no special abilities or appearances that are different than Humans. You'd also think that fucking Aliens with would be able to do shit. Such as towing an Astroid right onto Godzilla or something. Not only just one Alien race shows up. But two. I really want to know the chances that they'd just show up at that moment when Earth needed them.
~Action & Weapons~
The action in this is pretty bad. Earth is completely taken over in this new form of mutated plants and Monsters. Barely some ruins still exist of a city. But you get no Godzilla destroying cities or anything. It all takes place in some forest that looks really bad. There is no real scale of the Size and destructive power of Godzilla. It looks like some slightly tall monster is fighting against a bunch of small Robots. The New Godzilla that Is over 300M or about as tall as the Empire state building if I remember correctly. He doesn't look that menacing at all. He's just there and all we see is some tall monster.
The weapons in this are all futuristic. We aren't ever told the power they hold behind them or anything. But let's say you see an Attack Helicopter like an Apache or a Tank like the M1 Abrams. You know that these are powerful machines and are not something to be trifled with. So when you see them doing nothing against a Godzilla then you realize how great of a Monster this thing is. But these futuristic weapons that don't seem to have any power or weight behind them with stock audio sounds. It's just kind of boring watching. How are we meant to know what these weapons are able to do and how effective they are. They just look like stock explosions going off.
Then there are some small things that make no sense. Like why do these Landing Ships have Unguided bombs? Modern Militaries don't even use Unguided bombs nowadays. So when we get scenes where a ton of bombs drop but most of them land nowhere near Godzilla, I can't help but feel annoyed. This wouldn't be a problem if you were using a more precise weapon. There are more examples of annoying small things.
Here is the most annoying thing. The entire time that Humans on Earth were Fighting Godzilla, They never once thought about his weakness? It seems really obvious and when we are told that they dropped an over the top 150 Nuclear Warheads and it didn't even kill him. It makes no sense. It's even more laughably dumb when some edgy kid on a spaceship 20 years in the future can figure that out but not all of the worlds best scientist with the impending destruction of the human race can't figure out.
Hell, We are shown that a bunch of rocks are able to stop the Godzilla that is fought in this film. I really got to wonder if this was just an unstoppable monster or Natural Selection at work.
~Characters~
I talked about this a bit earlier in the review. But let's talk about the Characters.
Haruo- Like I said earlier. He's the cliche Japanese schoolboy with a dark past and is somehow really skilled even with no training or experience in anything. He literally is just a kid on a spaceship. His constant ranting is not fun and his zero regard to human life is annoying.
Memphis- Is one of the Aliens. He is pretty much just an Elf. That's how the entire race is portrayed. An Elf. All wise and skilled with a strong devotion to something.
Mulu- Is also an Alien and is pretty much just a Beastman you see. The "Alien" Races in this are pretty much just reskinned versions of Fantasy roles we see so commonly in stories. Nothing original about them. This dude is no different.
Yuuko Tani- is actually surprisingly the only character I liked kind of. She's the only one that has some interest to her character. It's kind of interesting seeing her question whether or not her Grandfather's shuttle was sabotaged or not. She also is the only one that doesn't do anything obnoxious really. I'd say she is a decent character that you may find in other popular shows and an excellent character in this. I actually think she should be the MC instead of what we got.
~Animation~
Now lets talk about the Animation. It's completely CGI besides the Expo dump at the start and that's in 2D stock images.
The animation is decent. I quickly got used to the weirdness of it. I think Kimono Friends has much more appealing animation than this.
The issue for me is the Environment and monsters look bad. I don't know if it's cause of the restrictions with the program they used to animate. But the Environments all look the same with no detail and has an uncanny appearance. It's kind of hard for me to explain.
Then We get to the monsters. They are just not good. They all have this weird look that just doesn't seem right. The Godzillas now. That's something else entirely.
They look so bad that I almost laughed. They look like a group of muscles put together. Nothing about them looks even decent and I never thought I'd actually say this. But the '98 Godzilla looks better and more like a Godzilla then these things.
Overall, Is this thing bad? Yes defiantly. Is this the worst thing ever? No. But it's not good. It's insultingly boring and bad. This is the first time I've rated a show I've watched this low. I think you are more likely to find interest out of something like Boku No Piku then this.
Edit: i forgot to mention this. But I only remember ever hearing one song throughout the entire movie. It was at the ending credit scenes. So you get a lot of quite scenes that don't fit. The one song we do get I actually think is pretty good and doesn't fit being in this story.
