Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)

directed by Takao Okawara

Japan

103 minutes

5 stars out of 5

----

I really wish I wasn't posting this review. I'd been sitting on it for a while because I felt like I was posting too many Godzilla reviews (as if such a thing exists), but with the news of Kenpachirō Satsuma's death this past weekend, I felt like it was an appropriate time to post it. Satsuma gives an excellent performance as Godzilla in this film, finding a balance between the aggressiveness he'd brought to the character and the tragedy of Godzilla watching his son die. He was an incredibly dynamic suit actor and will be missed by many, many fans, including myself.

I rewatch every Godzilla movie fairly often, but this is the one that I don't really touch, because honestly Burning Godzilla and the fate of Godzilla Junior is just too much for me to handle, emotionally. But I decided it was finally time to revisit this, which I think was one of the only Godzilla films I rated five stars upon first watching it (I was a bit of a pleb when I was first watching the series and only grew to appreciate it properly somewhat later). It's really, really hard for me to talk about this and do it justice because even though this might not be my overall favorite of the Heisei era, it's one of the most special and impactful.

One thing I said in my earlier review of this film was that it's different from every other Godzilla movie in that it introduces us to a Godzilla who is mortal from the start. A Godzilla who is actively, visibly, and very destructively dying. Prior to the events of the film, something triggers the first stages of a total meltdown in Godzilla and starts a chain reaction that, throughout vs. Destoroyah, characters can accurately track and predict. Once he reaches a certain temperature, Godzilla will go critical and destroy not only himself but possibly the entire world - one projection shows him essentially opening up a black hole by tunneling through to the center of the Earth - and he is literally a ticking time bomb. It alters the playing field a little bit when everybody knows that Godzilla is, at some point, going to die; the effort of the JSDF and various scientists in this film is therefore not to outright kill Godzilla, but to try to mitigate the utter cataclysm that is going to happen when he does die. But nobody has much chance of doing that, really.

So the film begins with the discovery that Godzilla Junior's former home, Birth Island, has been destroyed in an unspecified incident (it really bothers me that we never know exactly what happened; I think it's implied to be some kind of unsanctioned nuclear test, but we never find out), and Junior is now roaming towards another island, Adonoa. At the same time, Godzilla emerges from the sea looking noticeably different, and analyses find that something has gone wrong in the reactor of his heart and his temperature is rapidly rising. At the same time, a life form is found to have emerged from the area where the Oxygen Destroyer was used to kill the first Godzilla back in 1954.

I have seen many instances of Destoroyah being referred to as things like a "stupid overrated crab that everyone treats like a god but is actually just a dumbass lobster", and my personal favorite, a "Satanic Pre-Cambrian life form", but what it represents in the context of this film is actually one of the most interesting and powerful ideas in the whole franchise. Although Dr. Serizawa burned his plans and took himself - the only person who would have been able to produce a second Oxygen Destroyer - with Godzilla when he used his superweapon, the implication here is that because that was done once, even though every possible effort was taken to make sure it could not ever be done again, now that the idea is out there, it's inevitable that other weapons are going to continue to be constructed in a cycle that's probably never going to end. It's really, really grim. And I love the idea of introducing a kaiju that is the physical embodiment of the Oxygen Destroyer because one of the absolute most key points of this whole series is the idea that the use of a superweapon is not just a "one and done" thing, it's something that comes back to haunt humanity over and over. Destoroyah takes that concept and applies it to the very thing that seemed to have once saved humanity. Nothing, no matter how carefully handled, is ever safe when you're dealing with weapons at this scale. Becoming complacent is the deadliest thing we can do.

Another thing I said in my original review is that this is such a potent movie because Godzilla suffers like a human. In the Showa era when Godzilla was beginning to shift towards being a child-friendly character, he very frequently had human-like mannerisms and emotions, but the Heisei era introduced us to a Godzilla who was unknowable and distant. I will again mention one of my favorite moments in the whole series, which is in Godzilla vs Biollante, when everybody's favorite psychic Miki Saegusa attempts to connect with Godzilla telepathically and is overwhelmed by his consciousness. That's the kind of Godzilla we deal with, for the most part, in the Heisei series: a creature who has not lost his sympathetic nature, but who is established as being on an entirely different, unapproachable level, apart from humanity. So for us to see him suffer so much in vs. Destoroyah brings a new tone to this era.

I also just really, really hate the humans in this one. Even my homegirl Saegusa missteps a bit. The plan to use Junior as a decoy to lure Godzilla over to Destoroyah's location so the two can fight it out feels so, so immeasurably cruel. Saegusa and her younger psychic co-worker do have significant doubts, and Saegusa outright refuses at first, but eventually they see no other choice than to use Junior as bait - hoping, of course, for a good outcome, but they are literally chucking a baby at, to borrow a phrase, a Satanic Pre-Cambrian life form. While said baby's father is actively dying, in constant pain, moving slowly and tortuously towards where he can sense his son is, only to arrive and find him already dead. That kills me every time I see it. I refer to Junior as Godzilla's son, but when you think about it, there's something much deeper there: we have absolutely no evidence to prove that Junior is physically the offspring of Godzilla, and most likely he is not, so not only is he Godzilla's adopted son, he's also the only other living member of Godzilla's species. Godzilla is alone, brought unwillingly into a world hostile to and unfit for him, and we throw his only companion to the wolves while he's in the process of dying. Despite our intentions, and despite the fact that this course of action was done in an attempt to stop what would have been a catastrophic destruction event, that remains possibly the single most awful thing humans have ever done to Godzilla. A lot is made of Destoroyah being one of the most genuinely evil of Godzilla's enemies, and how he attacks Junior with active foreknowledge that it will hurt Godzilla emotionally, but, like, we did that. Junior wouldn't have died if humans hadn't been willing to sacrifice him.

And now I must talk about Destoroyah itself. I am quite fond of it. I have a little inch-tall figure of it I'm looking at right now. I like it not only for what it represents but also for the way it goes through multiple stages, somewhat like Hedorah; emerging first as a microscopic crustacean but soon growing into a multitude of large and extremely destructive organisms that can fuse into one enormous being. Destoroyah's power is further established by the monumental score. This movie has some of the most effective usage of Akira Ifukube's music that I've heard outside of the 1954 film, and there's two moments in particular that really gave me goosebumps: the big drums when Destoroyah bites Junior, and when we see Destoroyah silhouetted against mist for the first time, wings unfurled, in full power, and it almost sounds like something out of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. There's an episode of Ultraman Gaia where the kaiju of the week is a revived extinct organism from the Earth's distant past who is fueled by rage at not being "chosen" by the Earth to survive, and Destoroyah kind of makes me think of that. This is a very ephemeral factoid, but apparently a theater program hints that Destoroyah's Perfect Form was not its final stage of evolution, which is an absolutely fascinating thread that I wish were explored further. Also, a second ephemeral factoid is that according to an interview with Akira Ifukube, Godzilla went to heaven when he died. I think about that a lot.

I'm glad I rewatched this even though it is somewhat painful because I just really love and appreciate this film. It is such a good continuation of what the original Godzilla started, and such a loving tribute to everything and everyone who was part of it. I love seeing Momoko Kôchi again. This movie was intended to be the final Godzilla film of the 20th century, but fortunately - and partly thanks to the poor reception of Tristar's Godzilla - we did end up getting Godzilla 2000 in 1999, which I am essentially alone in considering one of my favorite Godzilla movies.