If I said that Godzilla vs Megaguirus was a terrible film, I’m sure not that many people would disagree. The thing is, I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the Godzilla sequels, which, whilst not deserving critical acclaim, are still enjoyable. Unfortunately, this film is not one of them. Instead, it is a painful 106 minutes that I will never get back. The film suffers from four critical flaws that make it an atrocity. These flaws are: predictability, dreadful acting, gaping holes in the story and insulting the audience’s intelligence.
The predictability of the film stands out in the plot, as well as the background of the lead characters. I’m no psychic, and yet I was able to work out the entire plot of Godzilla vs Megaguirus from the first two minutes of the film and the back of the DVD cover. There were no twists or turns, just a linear progression through the film. As for the lead characters, each conforms to the stereotyping prevalent in bad cinema. We have the heroine Kiriko (Misato Tanaka) whose commander was killed by Godzilla, and now she must seek revenge. She has a tough outer shell, but inside her chest beats a warm heart. There’s the genius scientist, Hajime (Shosuke Tanihara), who is against working for the military, but will do it because he might have a chance with the heroine. There’s even the shifty government official who is only concerned with stopping Godzilla and doesn’t care about the consequences of using untested equipment. I could keep going on about each and every character since they all follow their stereotyped role perfectly.
Next, we move on to the acting, which can be described by a great many words, but we will leave it at terrible. I just don’t believe that you should feel uncomfortable when two characters are speaking to each other in normal conversation. I could understand if it’s meant to be an awkward moment when the hero tries to ask the heroine out but keeps saying the wrong thing, but this shouldn’t be the case for the entirety of the film. Even the star of the film, Godzilla, was performing poorly, and all he has to do is stomp around and smash things. Instead he looked drunk. I understand that it’s hard to act in a big rubber suit, but even the original Godzilla looked more convincing.
A rather frustrating aspect of Godzilla vs Megaguirus were the many gaping holes in the story. The script opens up so many story paths, which are hastily sealed up again without even an explanation. For example, we are told that an insect caught in a black hole mutates into Meganula, which results in Megaguirus. I’m still waiting to find out just how this happens: the explanation given seems to involve some hand waving and nothing more. In addition, we are told that Megaguirus ruled for thousands of years but then got wiped out. By what? Only Godzilla knows.
There’s also a lot of emphasis placed upon the dangers of nuclear energy, in that it attracts Godzilla. To combat this, they develop a clean and safe means of creating energy, but this attracts Godzilla too. So could it be that Godzilla doesn’t actually care about nuclear energy, he just doesn’t like the Japanese? If some of these questions were answered, then perhaps this film could be redeemable, but only perhaps.
To finish off, whilst watching this film, I couldn’t help but feel insulted by what the writers were attempting to pass off as fact. I’m willing to believe in Godzilla, but at no point was I going to believe that creating miniature black holes is a safer or even possible method of destroying Godzilla. Nor am I willing to believe in hard hats that are actually microwave ovens, or even delicate satellites that are still capable of functioning whilst they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
In conclusion, I must say that this is one of the worst films that I have ever had the misfortune of watching, and I usually like watching trashy films! I do believe that this DVD may end up as a burnt offering to the Gods.