Day 25: Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Merry Christmas one and all! What better way to celebrate than with our favourite radioactive lizard! And all of his friends have come to join him as well, it really is Christmas. Although, in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) Godzilla is a bit of a Scrooge. After an American submarine goes missing, the Japanese Self-Defence Forces who were set up in the aftermath of Godzilla’s 1954 attack on Japan, searches for it and finds it was destroyed by a new Godzilla. Attempts to destroy the lizard are futile, so earth needs to put it’s faith in the guardians of Earth: Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah.

The millennium era so far has had the opposite trajectory of the Heisei era. Where as that era started strongly and dwindled out (until it’s spectacular finale), this era has been getting stronger and stronger with each film. In starting to write this I found out that this film is directed by Shusuke Kaneko, the director of the 1990s Gamera films, I’m not surprised this one’s a lot better. Narrative wise, it is definitely the most interesting out of the three films of the era so far. It does kind of follow the same general plot points as a lot of the previous films in the whole series, but the characters are far more interesting than in previous films. And that honestly helps so much with the intrigue of the film and keeping it interesting.

But like in a lot of these films, the kaiju action is the selling point, and it is excellent in this film. Ghidorah being a hero is a weird change that I wasn’t sure about but it works in the context of the narrative. I also wasn’t entirely sold on the look of Ghidorah but it’s not terrible. Mothra looks great, and Baragon looks great also. However, Godzilla is the star of the show here and this is one of my favourite designs. He is brought to life in this film by the souls of the vengeful dead from WWII and so he has completely white eyes and it makes him look so menacing. And he is a menacing force in this film, just a complete unstoppable monster and I love it. He feels unstoppable and is shown to be as much. The fight scenes are great fun and just show how devastating Godzilla is. It is one of the best films on the entire series at making him scary.

So Merry Christmas everyone. Usually when I do my Christmas reviews this is when I would call it a day, but there are still 5 films left to go, with 3 more in the millennium era. If that era can keep up this pace it is going to be a fun final few films.