A helicopter sights plumes of black smoke rising out of the sea near Hong Kong. Shortly afterwards, a passenger jet narrowly escapes a collision with Godzilla! Frankly, the giant radioactive dinosaur does not look well: dorsal fins aglow, steam rising from his back, his upper torso ablaze with molten lava. True to form, Godzilla vents his rage by stomping Hong Kong. Boy genius Kenichi Yamane (Yasufumi Hayashi) - the adopted grandson of Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura), the palaeontologist in the original Godzilla (1954) - deduces Godzilla is approaching total nuclear meltdown with catastrophic results for the citizens of Tokyo.
It is not much of a spoiler to reveal Godzilla vs. Destroyah saw Toho studios kill off their iconic monster, partly because the studio promoted their twenty-second Godzilla movie worldwide with the tagline: “Godzilla dies!” (anyone shocked by the ending must have had their head in the sand), but mostly because as we all know Big G’s demise proved predictably short-lived. Which was just as well really since this muddled mishmash was not quite the glorious send-off it should have been. Godzilla vs. Destroyah was the first film in some time to revisit Godzilla’s origin as nuclear threat. With pleasing circularity, the film resurrects the apocalyptic tone of the original film and its themes of social and environmental responsibility and self-sacrifice for the greater good, eloquently surmised in a poignant cameo from original heroine Emiko Yamane (Momoko Kochi). Sadly the subtext does not amount to much given the screenplay by Kazuki Omori - who directed two of the finest entries in the series: Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) - seems deeply conflicted about what Godzilla is supposed to represent and is ambiguous at best about the attitudes and ill-conceived actions of its human characters.
Japan’s anti-Godzilla unit: G-Force, headed by dainty American-trained Special Agent Meru Ozawa (Sayaka Osawa), recruit Kenichi, who refuses at first until he learns cute psychic girl Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka, making her sixth and final appearance in this reoccurring role) is still on the team. While Miki scours the seas for signs of her adopted monster offspring, Godzilla Junior, who has now matured into almost the spitting image of its mighty father, Kenichi enlists brilliant scientist Kensaku Ijuin (Takuro Tatsumi) to help develop a new “Oxygen Destroyer”, similar to the weapon that killed the original Godzilla more than forty years ago. However, in the course of their research, the team discover the original bio-weapon spawned microscopic organisms that have now grown into an army of spidery, semi-crustacean like monsters spreading terror throughout Tokyo. These monsters eventually merge together into an immense, flying, death-ray spewing horned beast nicknamed “Destroyah” (see what they did there?). So now Japan has two giant monsters threatening total destruction. D’oh!
What happens next proved somewhat controversial among Godzilla’s faithful following of family audiences. Agent Ozawa, Kenichi and the rest of G-Force order Miki to use Junior as live bait to lure Godzilla into a fatal confrontation with Destroyah. At the time some Japanese critics felt the film was espousing infanticide, which might be overstating the case but the idea of sacrificing children (even monster offspring) for a greater cause dredged up some psychological wounds from the Second World War. There is also a faintly reactionary undertone to a subplot wherein Miki worries about her waning psychic powers. To which a colleague responds she cannot wait to lose her powers so she can get married and start a family. The implication being if Miki were doing what a woman were supposed to do, she would not waste so much time worrying about the mistreatment of monsters. Nice…
Omori’s script offers some intriguing ideas, but the stoic emoting from the dull cast of cold, even callous characters fails to engage in the so-called human drama. Dorky Kenichi in particular has a heart of ice. When Emiko recounts the tragic tale of how her lost love, Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) sacrificed his own life so his Oxygen Destroyer would not be used as a weapon of war, Kenichi derisively snorts: “Huh, what a waste.” The old woman is visibly shocked. With the exception of the ever conflicted Miki, none of the other characters bring much to the story. Late in the day, the film brings on veteran Godzilla actor Masahiro Takashima (playing a different character from his heroes in Godzilla vs. Biollante and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)) as a tough-talking space pilot (“Let’s go freeze that overgrown lizard. This is going to make my day!”) whose battle with Godzilla evokes no emotional involvement since we barely know who he is.
Special effects director Koichi Kawakita delivers some of the most spectacularly apocalyptic visuals in the series, including visions of Godzilla’s fiery death unleashing a vortex that wipes out all of Tokyo. Destroyah itself and its myriad miniature mutations are all suitably creepy, if perhaps overly lit. The set-pieces are too obviously indebted to James Cameron, especially Aliens (1986), right down to a soldier wielding an oversized gun on a steadicam harness and the worry that discharging their weapons could trigger a nuclear explosion. Nevertheless, scenes where panic stricken soldiers are mauled by the mini-Destroyahs are suspenseful and action-packed, and the film ranks among the scarier kaiju eiga.
Much of the emotional nuances are supplied, somewhat surprisingly, by the endearingly expressive monsters themselves. From Godzilla’s anguish over the fate of his offspring, to Junior’s benevolent gaze upon Miki and Agent Ozawa, to Big G’s poignant final bow (though not really) - a remarkable special effect wherein he disintegrates before our very eyes. While he remains a threat to humanity, the monster is also cast as something of a sacrificial lamb who battles quite nobly to clean up mankind’s mess. Except he doesn’t. In a botched climax that drew howls of outrage from Godzilla fans, it is G-Force’s hi-tech spaceship Super X-III that deals Destroyah the fatal blow. Nobody much liked the Super X-I or II featured in Godzilla 1985 (1984) and Godzilla vs. Biollante, but for some reason Toho felt compelled to trot out yet another uninspired spacecraft, giving Godzilla short shrift during his own last hurrah. Before that misstep some satisfaction can be derived from seeing Godzilla batter Destroyah to a slimy green pulp. “What a monster!” gasps one spectator. He sure was, although three years later Hollywood felt compelled to re-cast him as a mutant iguana in cinema’s first giant monster, anti-French, romantic comedy.
