Godzilla: Final Wars (aka Gojira: Fainaru uôzu) (2004)

Has any film missed the point so spectacularly as Roland Emmerich's 1998 big-budget, CG-filled Godzilla? Fans of Gojira are a forgiving lot, having watched the King Of The Monsters go from a manifestation of post-Hiroshima nuclear paranoia in the 1950s to a kid-friendly superhero in the incredibly goofy 1970s iterations, but watching Matthew Broderick run away from Jim Henson's Godzilla babies was too much for even the most forgiving Godzilla lover. Thankfully it was only a year later that the Millennium Series of Godzilla films began with Godzilla 2000, eventually culminating in Ryuhei Kitamura's Godzilla: Final Wars, at this point the final Godzilla film that has been produced.

In many ways Kitamura has a similar objective to Emmerich in his approach towards the Godzilla mythos: to combine the elements that people love about the monster (which envelops all of his eras) with high tech special effects and an interesting science fiction story to give the big guy an appropriate (if temporary) sendoff. Of course, Kitamura has a rather distinctive (derivative) style of his own, so there's plenty of The Matrix and X-Men in here for good measure. Also there are lots and lots (and lots) of monsters. Lots of 'em.

Here's the line-up:
Gigan, Kumonga, Kamacuras, Rodan, King Caesar, Angurius, Hedorah, Ebirah and ZILLA (the U.S. Godzilla who Kitamura said took the "God" out of Godzilla", and is totally CGI in this film as well).

We also get the mysterious Monster X (who might have a connection to a fan favorite monster), as well as appearances by Mothra and (sigh) Minilla.

You would be forgiven for not being able to keep all of these monsters straight, and it's hardly necessary except for fans to see some of their favorites tackle with the big green one for the last time. Unfortunately for these fans, Godzilla makes short work of his foes in nearly all encounters, and some fan favorites get a bit shorted.

But what about the story? In the future Earth is protected by the Earth Defense Force who employ the M Organization, a collection of mutants with superhuman speed and strength, to protect the world against massive threats (usually in the form of giant ridiculous animals of some sort). When several of these monsters start attacking major cities at once the EDF seems to be out-matched, until a helpful group of aliens (called Xians) beam the baddies away before landing on Earth to talk of peace and friendship and all that good stuff. The End.

Or, more accurately, they are soon revealed to be EVIL, and threaten the world with monster attacks all over the place. And not only that, they also have the ability to control all of Earth's mutants (except Ozaki, our stoic hero)! Looks like we're screwed. Except Ozaki breaks the jailed, bad-ass Captain Gordon (MMA Fighter Don Frye) out of jail to help, and he comes up with a corker of an idea: Why not wake up Godzilla to take care of the monster threat? Before you know it, it's time to Destory All Monsters, and Godzilla (let by Gordon in his Atragon ship) begins trashing anything in his path. Also, Godzilla's kid gets in some wacky adventures.

Many Godzilla purists, if you can imagine such a thing, have taken issue with Kitamura's kitchen-sink approach to Godzilla: Final Wars, and one can easily see why. While obviously a love letter to Godzilla and its history, it's also comically flashy with modern Wire-Fu and Matrixy effects in nearly every scene. Frankly, it all sometimes seems like a bit much, particularly in a Motorcycle fight scene that manages to be even more ridiculous than the one in Mission Impossible II. It's all quite entertaining, but it takes focus away from the often meandering plotline and, even worse, from the big guy that everyone has paid to see. I give Kitamura credit for trying to beef up the human story in the film, since these scenes are often the dullest parts of earlier Godzilla films, but they sometimes feel like they've dropped out of a different film completely, and grow a bit tiresome.

The monster battles, short as they might be, are really quite impressive. The suits have been re-designed to be lighter and allow more movement, and (generally) subtle CG help helps give the creatures movement and flexibility well beyond that of their initial appearances. In one memorable fight Angurius, King Ceaser and Rodan (all previously friends of Godzilla) attack the big guy at once, Angurius rolling into a ball to attack before being used as a projectile in an impromptu soccer match. Godzilla leaves his former comrades laying in a heap (literally) in a scene reminicent of the lighter battles in the 1970s Godzilla films.

In fact, Kitamura seems to have trouble deciding just how lightly he wants to take the material. There are plenty of wisecracks (mostly from Frye's Captain Gordon), and nothing is taken too seriously, but the tone is inconsistent. One scene in New York city between a police officer and a pimp is eye-rollingly bad, and the acting by english-speakers as a whole is pretty incompetent. Frye seems to be trying hard, and he has a really fun part, but he's much better at looking like a bad-ass than delivering his lines. I suppose it wouldn't be a Godzilla film if there were not at least a few unintentional laughs.

The Sony DVD of Godzilla: Final Wars features the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and the film looks absolutely terrific. Kitamura was afforded a comparatively large budget for the film, and while the effects can sometimes be a little iffy, the money is definitely up on the screen. Some mention must be made of the extremely unusual soundtrack by Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer). The synth soundtrack strangely brings to mind Emerson's work for Dario Argento, and is a strange match for giant monsters, but it's still certainly interesting and only occasionally distracting. There's also a rock song by Sum-41 on the soundtrack that gets pretty primo billing in the opening credits for some reason.

Special features are unfortunately rather sparse. There are trailers for Final Fantasy VII, the 50 Years Of Godzilla collection, Steamboy, Dust To Glory, Madison, and Mirrormask. As well there's 18 minutes of Behind The Scene footage which shows a few flashes of interesting material, but is unfortunately missing any narration to put the material in context. Considering that the film was made to mark Godzilla's 50th anniversary, a bit more effort would have been appreciated.

A supremely goofy and overstuffed mess of a movie, Godzilla: Final Wars still succeeds by being nearly throroughly entertaining, and by showing respect for all aspects of the series' past. Not necessarily a good place to start for those wanting to get into the films for the first time, it marks a successfuly resting spot for modern Godzilla films until the inevitable next series comes along. Flashy and fun, it's certainly worth out for fans of giant monsters and destruction.

The FALLOUT 3 Reviews: Gojira (1954) and THEM (1954) - Little Atoms, Big Monsters

"Did you see that? That was nothing, but that's how it always begins. Very small."

- Egg Shen (Victor Wong) from the John Carpenter classic, Big Trouble In Little China.

Individual phobias may vary, but human beings tend to fear two things universally: the unknown and the notion that one day something may be on a higher rung on the food chain than we are.

Few films encapsulate these elements better than the “atomic fables” of the mid to late 1950’s. In 1954, two significant films from this sub-genre were released nearly simultaneously and their influence is felt even to the present day.

Toho’s kaiju epic, Gojira (better known as Godzilla), and Warner Brothers’ blueprint for the big bug movie, THEM.

You really do have to marvel at the beauty of the respective formulae in both movies. Talk to any High School Biology teacher and they’ll give you a laundry list of implausibilities as to why there should be no such things as giant ants or rampaging radioactive dinosaurs, but these two masterpieces play on the fear of the atom so well that rational science goes straight out of the window.

To paraphrase Stephen King’s musing on Coleridge; disbelief isn’t light, it is heavy and the ability of these two movies to hook you in immediately is nothing short of astounding.

When the atom warps nature’s design, all hell breaks loose.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it but as I re-visited these films recently, I had to wonder if the respective antagonists in these films were products of deliberate irony or just the result of some huge pitch meeting. I’d like to think that more thought went into the concepts, but I do tend to give the movie business credit for being smarter than it actually is.

Take the case of THEM.

Mankind facing extinction at the mandibles of giant ants is one of the best examples of role reversal ever. No one really remembers the last time they stepped on an ant because the run of the mill human being that isn’t an entomologist doesn’t place that much weight on the existence of such a lowly creature.

Respect comes from parity or the acknowledgment of inferiority, so when mankind finds out that it may have to compete for its status as dominant species, it stands up and takes notice.

Gojira is equally ironic. In the movie, our nuclear fire spouting antagonist is called everything from a dinosaur to a monster god, but for all intents and purposes it really does act like the dragons of yore.

The thing to note is that in most Asian cultures, dragons are wise, celestial creatures and Japanese dragons in particular tend to have a role as water deities that preserve and sustain life.

Gojira, however, acts like a traditionally European dragon that brings misery and death, as if to imply that the product of the Manhattan Project had the capability of not only corrupting nature but twisting traditional symbols from Japanese folklore.

One of the films I reviewed earlier for this project (Threads) tackles the subject of the destruction of culture as a result of an atomic war, so it is interesting to see Gojira (possibly without meaning to) pay lip service to this issue head on in 1954.

You also have to admire the frankness of both of these films. One of the most iconic scenes in movie history is the scene where the daughter of the dead FBI agent (Sandy Dresher) comes out of her near-catatonia (induced by watching her parents devoured by the ants) when Dr. Medford (Edmund Guenn) tries to revive the child by giving her a whiff of formic acid. (i.e. ants secrete formic acid as both an attack and defense mechanism).

Not only does Medford succeed in bringing the girl out of her stupor, but smell of formic acid also send the poor kid into a blind panic and she begins to scream, "Them!" over and over again. Absolutely blood chilling.

It's at that point when you begin to understand that ants as antagonists are great because the goddamn things are hell bent on the survival of the colony at the expense of any nearby humans regardless of age, race, or sex.

If the ants have to eat your children in order to survive, then so be it.

"Them" will not discriminate.

In retrospect, it was a pretty ballsy move on the part of Warner Brothers to simulate putting a child in peril like that, but the concept of "everyone as prey" drives the fright train with terrifying efficiency for many other sci-fi horror gems like THEM, such as The Blob (made in 1958 and featuring Steve McQueen in one of his first leading roles) and The Blob's superior 1988 reboot featuring Kevin Dillon and Shawnee Smith.

The monster known as Gojira is also an equal opportunity destroyer, but the true bravery of this film springs from the honest dialogue concerning nuclear proliferation.

In order to stop Gojira, it dawns on Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (the late, great Akihiko Hirata) that he will have to create a weapon far worse than the one that created Gojira in order to destroy the beast (the dreaded OXYGEN DESTROYER!), and wonders if the mere existence of this new weapon will only serve to hasten the destruction of the planet it is supposed to save.

Serizaiwa’s exposition about brinksmanship seems nearly prophetic when you look at the events to follow in the Cold War. As much as I love the Godzilla franchise, I am somewhat saddened by Toho converting Gojira from a mirror darkly into a superhero, because the first film really is a lot more profound than most people give it credit for.

In Gojira and THEM, there is a lot of message and morale behind the respective threats to civilization.

I suppose the most glaring difference in these movies is the portrayal of the military.

In the 50’s, the US Army enjoyed an unprecedented amount of respect as both World Wars solidified its role as savior of democracy. It was only fitting that the Army should be the ultimate protagonist that faced down any unnatural threat to mankind on the Silver Screen.

No matter if the Sci-Fi Golden Age film threat came from giant bugs, big lizards, or aliens in flying saucers, you could pretty much rest assured that Big Green would come out victorious in the end.

In THEM, you still have the military filling the role of protector of humankind, but by the same token you had Dr. Medford (Edmund Guenn) constantly making sinister insinuations about the ants serving as the US's comeuppance for creating the A-Bomb in the first place.

Bitter commentary, indeed. We had ourselves to thank for our pending doom because the ants were just as much our creation as the A-Bomb was.

In short, we asked to be eaten.

Gojira , on the other hand, takes a very cynical view of the military and conflict in general for that matter. No amount of conventional armed force is capable of stopping Gojira; he becomes less of a rampaging kaiju and more of a walking metaphor.

He is Mutually Assured Destruction given life. A colossal, fire-breathing, self-fulfilling prophecy.

As I mentioned before, there is also the intriguing philosophical undertone concerning the Oxygen Destroyer: the weapon used to kill Gojira.

Dr. Serizaiwa assumes (probably correctly) that the only redeemable trait about nuclear weapons is that they are so destructive that no one is foolish enough to use them for fear of obliterating themselves alongwith their enemies.

Serizawa's concern is that the Oxygen Destroyer will provide the world’s armies with the one thing they want most; a WMD with the destructive power of a nuclear weapon but without the nasty by-product of global annihilation..

Or so they think... After all, the damned thing works by splitting the atomic bonds in oxygen molecules, therefore making air unbreathable and fostering decay in cellular tissues.

It is the central message of "at what price?" that makes Gojira a powerful piece of work.

Regrettably, that message was swept away in the campy goodness of subsequent films in the series, but I'm not really complaining since I watch Destroy All Monsters (1968) at least once every three months.

I can’t imagine any serious schlock film buff not having seen either of these movies, but the uninitiated should definitely check out both of them. For those of you that have seen these films, perhaps this bit of analysis on my part will inspire you to watch these gems with a keener eye for the subtle.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about how this relates to Fallout 3, there is a quest in the game entitled THOSE! where the object is to stop a nest of fire-breathing giant ants from destroying a small settlement close to the DC ruins.

I don't think that it is coincidental that the opposition in the quest appears to be a gestalt of antagonists from two sci-fi movies released in the same year and dealing with creatures mutated by radiation, but again I may be overanalyzing things.

Pulgasari (1985)

PLOT:

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Facing a peasant revolt, the king decides to confiscate all the available iron from a poor farming village so that the local blacksmith can forge weapons. The blacksmith, being a sympathetic fellow, hides the iron instead and blames their disappearance on an iron-loving monster named Pulgasari. The king is understandably upset at this news, and decided to imprison and starve the blacksmith until they get the truth. Before his death he fashions a small figurine, which his daughter eventually comes to own (and, eventually, bleed on). Soon, the figurine has (unconvincingly) come to life and begun to eat everything in sight made of iron! UH-OH! Pulgasari grows rapidly from this iron intake and soon helps the villagers as they revolt against the rich king. Eventually the peasants overtake the leaders, but now find themselves at the mercy of Pulgasari who continues to munch on their farming tools. It's up to the blacksmith's daughter to cry, and cry and cry and sacrifice herself for the greater good.

REVIEW:

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This may shock you, but Kim Jong Il has been known to get a bit nutty. He's also reportedly a huge fan of movies, particularly Western films, and in the 80s as he was taking over in North Korea as their "Dear Leader" he deemed it incredibly important to kick the North Korean film industry into high gear. Now, he could have opened up film schools or poured money into the technical training of potential filmmakers and eventually produced a solid, internationally renowned cabal of filmmakers (like South Korea has produced since 2000).

But, forget that noise.

Why not, instead, just kidnap a well regarded South Korean director and get him to make movies for North Korea? In 1979, that's exactly what he did, kidnapping Shin Sang-ok and imprisoning him and his wife until they were properly brainwashed and prepared to enter the movie-making machine. Kim Jong Il himself had actually written a book on film-making (he's a renaissance man), and recognized that North Korea needed a bold new vision to introduce themselves to the world cinematic stage.

What was that vision?

A STRANGELY SLOW MOVING AND POLITICAL GODZILLA RIP-OFF.

Thankfully Shin Sang-ok and his wife were able to escape before Pulgasari was complete (which led to his name being removed from the credits), but we're left with a rare artifact that may or may not (opinion seems to vary) have ever actually been screened in North Korea. Have we been denied the North Korean kaiju Godzilla knock-off that we've always wanted?

What strikes the viewer very early into Pulgasari is that this is a film with a point to make. Unlike the dozens of Godzilla and Gamera films, which tend to take place in major city centers, this takes place mostly in and around a poor and repressed village in 14th century Korea. There are no spaceships or science fiction elements (except some out-of-place rockets that appear near the end). But it's difficult to watch the film and not try and uncover its political symbolism, particularly in regards to its views on a poor underclass standing up to a military regime and that the monster (representing capitalism?), once a savior of the people, almost ends up destroying them. Or that could all be nonsense, and it might just be a really good excuse to smash up some neat models.

Also, despite the rather limited scope of locations in the film, there are literally thousands of extras onscreen during some of the battle scenes. While not unheard of in epic Hollywood films, the sheer numbers of extras in the film are impressive to witness, though again demonstrates the power of the political machine behind the film's production.

Pulgasari him(her?)self is an imposing creature once he reaches full size, though his early appearances give off an annoying Son Of Godzilla vibe that had me fearing the worst. The suit seems fairly stable, though the blank eyes give their share of unintentional laughs. Staff from Toho actually worked on the special effects of the film, including Kenpachiro Satsuma, the Godzilla actor at the time who also played Pulgasari in the film.

The special effects as a whole are a tad uneven, though there are some impressive miniatures in the second half of the film. The back-projection Pulgasari attacks have aged badly, and certainly there isn't as many lasers or tanks (or skyscrapers) as you would see in an average Godzilla movie, but when models are employed things generally look good.

The acting is difficult to gauge, though the subtitles are (thankfully) reasonably coherent. The sets often have a bit of a Shaw Brothers feel to them, with a lot of the village scenes seeming a bit artificial. This artificiality is enhanced by the sound, which appears to be post-synced. Direction is rather flat and the non-Pulgasari action scenes feature inconsistent choreography and sometimes resemble bad 60s sword-and-sandals films. Oddly, the second half of the film feels rather episodic, almost like episodes of a television show rather than a movie, with the military coming up with a plan, almost capturing or killing Pulgasari, and then the monster eventually stopping them.

The film, to my knowledge, has not had a legitimate DVD release in North America. ADV films released the VHS in 2001 (following a successful theatrical release of the film in Japan to combat the 1998 American Godzilla film), and the DVD i've procured may have come from that release. The film is presented full-screen, and the film looks much older than the mid-1980s. While the actual quality of the image is quite good, the film stock makes things appear washed out and bland.

Pulgasari is an interesting historical artifact, and an incredibly wrong-headed attempt to invigorate the North Korean film industry. As is often the case, the story behind the film's creation remains much more interesting than the film itself, though there are enough entertaining moments in the slow moving tale to make it worth seeing. Strangely, Pulgasari (with the help of Shin Sang-ok who eventually sued to get his name put back on the film) was eventually remade in Europe in 1996 as Galgameth.

Fans of kaiju, or for those with an interest in North Korean art and culture, might want to check it out.

The whole film is actually available on Google Video (and presented here) for anyone interested.