Shin Godzilla (2016)

In many respects my standard review opening paragraph, which relates a film's basic storyline, is unnecessary here. Shin Godzilla is the latest feature film in Toho's long-running Godzilla franchise, and the general destructive formula of the series remains largely unchanged. The continuity may be completely rebooted, and some new ideas thrown in around the titular monster's design and abilities, but the standard narrative remains. Godzilla comes to Tokyo and destroys a lot of expensive real estate, and the Japanese government and military scramble to stop him from doing it.

Shin Godzilla is Toho's first new Godzilla movie in 12 years, following the rather over-the-top and deliberately silly Godzilla: Final Wars. While both films are clearly works of the same franchise, they could hardly be more different. While Final Wars presented a string of wrestling-style fights between Godzilla and a host of rival giant monsters, Shin Godzilla is a slightly odd political satire with no rival monsters in sight but a seemingly endless string of meetings, briefings, press conferences and diplomatic negotiations. It is a film less about giant monsters and a lot more about the inefficiencies of bureaucracy and the obfuscation of politics. I loved it. I strongly suspect most international viewers are going to hate it.

Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991)

I usually start reviewing a film by providing a short synopsis. There is not short synopsis I can write for Godzilla vs King Ghidorah. It begins with Japan being visited by time travellers from the 23rd century. By the end history has been changed, then changed again, then changed for a third time, and in between several Japanese cities get crushed by Godzilla, the three-headed flying dragon King Ghidorah, and as collateral damage during fights between Godzilla and King Ghidorah.

It's all a charming nonsense, but then charming nonsense is often the raison d'etre of the Godzilla movies. This was the 18th film in the series, and the third in the Heisei period following 1984's The Return of Godzilla and 1989's excellent Godzilla vs Biollante. After Biollante under-performed, the decision was made to abandon new giant monsters (or "kaiju") in favour of old favourites. As a result King Ghidorah, last seen in 1972's Godzilla vs Gigan, makes his return. The character was originally an alien, but for this film he is a mutant created by nuclear radiation on three genetically engineered pets from the 23rd century.

Godzilla: 60 years on

Godzilla, the king of giant monsters, turns 60 years old today. It was on 3 November 1954 that Godzilla was released across Japan in all Toho cinemas. It was released, with some additional footage, in the USA two years later, and has since spawned numerous Japanese sequels and two American remakes.

The original Godzilla (or Gojira, to use its actual name) was inspired by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 as well as the accidental irradiation of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru fishing boat during a US nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll on 1 March 1954. The horror of the atomic bomb understandably carried much weight in Japanese culture, and writer/director Ishiro Honda personified that horror in the shape of a giant mutated lizard.

Rebirth of Mothra (1996)

I do wonder what the producers at Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros must be making of Mothra. It was announced some time ago that their upcoming Godzilla sequel would likely feature the famous giant moth as a co-star, which does make me wonder somewhat if those producers have seen a Mothra movie in their lives. In the hands of director Gareth Edwards Godzilla was a deadly serious, some would say somewhat tedious, epic, with every effort made to make the inherent absurdity of a giant radioactive lizard believable and rational. Mothra doesn't fit any of those things.

Mothra, for those who aren't familiar with her, is a giant rainbow coloured moth. She's from another planet, but arrived on Earth in our prehistory. She lives in an island in the Pacific Ocean, where the local indigenous tribes worship her as a god. She is assisted by the Cosmos, two small alien fairies that sing to her when they require her assistance. She shoots laser beams from her antennae.

What I'm basically getting at is that Mothra is pretty much as knowingly and wilfully absurd as Japan's kaiju (giant monsters) get, and thus the worst possible fit for gravitas-addicted Hollywood blockbusters. Back home in Japan, however? She fits like a glove, as is evident in her 1996 reboot Rebirth of Mothra (just titled Mothra in Japan).

Godzilla (2014)

Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures seem to have a thing for giant monsters - or maybe it's just me. Certainly they made a big deal last year out of Guillermo Del Toro's interminable Pacific Rim, and next year they're releasing Seventh Son - an epic fantasy filled with dragons and other medieval-era monsters. In between they're relaunched the most famous giant monster of all: Toho's Godzilla, refreshed and re-envisaged for a new decade.

This is the fourth time the Americans have tackled Japan's biggest pop culture character. The first two times they simply filmed some scenes of Raymond Burr reacting to the carnage. In 1998 Sony spent a huge amount of money on Roland Emmerich's ode to the last 15 minutes of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Now director Gareth Edwards (Monsters) has stepped up to the plate with a thoughtfully constructed and visually stunning epic that is easily the best American Godzilla film ever made.

Yeah, that's actually a really low bar, and if I'm honest I vastly preferred Emmerich's over-the-top popcorn flick for sheer entertainment value. Gareth Edwards' Godzilla is an interminable bore, clearly respectful of the Toho legacy while simultaneously making one of the most maddening summer blockbusters of recent years.

Daily Links: 20 May 2014

• Godzilla 2 in the works. Based on a $93m opening weekend in the USA and more than $100m internationally, it's little surprise that Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures have started work on a second Godzilla movie. (link)
• DC Comics massacre. There's a bit of a title cull going on at DC Comics, with All-Star Western, Batwing, Birds of Prey, Superboy, Phantom Stranger and Pandora all getting cancelled as of August. (link)
• Original Star Wars blu-rays? It's hard to decide how believable I think it is, but a rumour is doing the rounds online that Walt Disney Pictures are planning a DVD and blu-ray release of the original and unaltered Star Wars trilogy. Of course asking "which original version of A New Hope" is opening a can of nerdy worms, but as far as rumours go it's a likeable one. (link)

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion (1996)

A year after giant monsters trashed downtown Tokyo, a meteorite crashes into northern Japan - bringing with it an alien species with designs on the Earth. They infiltrate the subways of Sapporo, as a massive alien plant grows in the town's centre. With the Japanese military unable to fight back, humanity's only hope appears to be the giant angry space turtle Gamera - so long as he's on the humans' side.

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion picks up pretty much exactly where the last film left off, and pits the titular space turtle up against a new kaiju menace: in this case the electrically inclined Legion. It manifests as a species of human-sized clawed monsters, but also as a massive insectoid monster that towers over Gamera and proves a near-overwhelming challenge.

In terms of story and performances, it's probably not as good as the last film. In terms of visual effects and cinematography it's a vastly superior effort.

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)

The giant monster movie, or “kaiju eiga”, is a peculiarly Japanese construction. It had its famous origins in the legendary 1954 classic Gojira (Godzilla), and a number of copycat and derivative works soon allowed the kaiju film to blossom into its own distinctive sub-genre. The most successful of these giant monsters – other than Gojira, of course – was Daiei’s Gamera. A monstrous flying turtle from outer space, the creature debuted in 1964 before starring in a string of successful pulp monster movies. In each of them, as is the tradition of this kind of film, Gamera was played by actors in large rubber suits crashing through a scale model city.

It’s possibly useful at this stage to note that the original Gamera was one of several monster movies featured on the American comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film, as is the genre, is seemingly ridiculous. It is filled with silly scripts, over-acting and frankly unconvincing models and visual effects. This is par for the course for its genre. Numerous filmmakers – particularly ones in the USA – have tried for years to somehow capture the concept of the giant monster yet produce a slicker, more contemporary version of it. Roland Emmerich famously failed to update Godzilla in 1998, and 10 years later Matt Reeves found great success with Cloverfield – although to make his film he needed to jettison most of the key elements of the genre in favour of contemporary horror movie tropes.

Given the inherent silliness of the kaiju eiga, and the fact that it’s most iconic elements – the rubber-suit monster, the model city, etc – are generally the ones most open to ridicule, it would be easy to assume that a straight-faced, genuinely good giant monster movie would be impossible to create. Then there is Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.