Day 27: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S (2003)

The penultimate film of the Millennium era is also the first sequel of the era. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S (2003) follows on directly from the previous film, but effectively just becomes the same film over again. The film also sees the return of Mothra, who opens the film. The two fairies from previous Mothra films also return to Japan to warn humans that they must return the bones of the original Godzilla, which were used to create Mechagodzilla, to the sea as humans cannot capture the souls of creatures. This brings up a quandary for Japan; do they fulfil the wishes of the fairies and leave themselves defenceless or take the risk and possibly lead to further destruction down the line.

That is one of the shortest synopsises I have written in this series, and we will get to why properly later. But it is mostly because the film lacks a real narrative that you can get invested in. I had hoped with the strong narrative and characters in the previous film would be carried on into this one, but we basically have none of the main characters of that film returning. The main character, Akane Yashiro (Yumiko Shaku), is here but only in a cameo appearance, but otherwise none of the major players from the last film are here in any real capacity. So we have to be introduced to a whole new selection of characters, and the film just doesn’t give them enough time to develop any particular interest from the audience. There was quite a cool character addition of Dr. Shinichi Chujo (Hiroshi Koizumi) who is a returning character from Mothra (1961) which ties that film into the world of this one. That is a nice little touch and is a fun moment for fans of that original film, but his character doesn’t really have all that much to do along with all the other characters here.

And the reason for that is that the majority of this film is the final kaiju fight. Seriously, this film is ninety minutes long and the final fight starts around the forty-minute mark effectively making fifty percent of the film the final fight. It is such an odd decision that it took me a long time to realise that was what was happening. At first it is just Godzilla fighting Mothra and I assumed that would last for a little while, end, and then the narrative would build to the climax. But it just kept going and going, and eventually it became clear that this was just the film now. There are a lot of good moments within the final fight. The first section of Godzilla fighting Mothra is a lot of fun and then there is some inventive moments once Mechagodzilla appears, but a fifty-minute fight scene is far too long so it just ends up dragging. In terms of the kaiju themselves, Godzilla is the same as the last film so no complaints there, and Mechagodzilla still looks kick ass. And then we have Mothra who also looks great, but the best bit about her being introduced is her literal introduction. It has a mysterious object soaring through the sky being followed by fighter jets who are trying to work out what it is they are looking at. And then we have little hints thrown in of who it is, through the music and then into silhouettes before we get the full reveal. It is a really good introduction to a monster who I was not expecting to be in the film at all and I liked it a lot.

Overall, this is not a bad film. I enjoyed it for the most part and there are some great moments of action which make it a worthwhile watch if you are interested. But I think it is a lot weaker than the last few instalments so can probably be skipped. It doesn’t even particularly wrap up the last films narrative in a way that feels super satisfying so further reason to only seek it out if you are planning on watching all of these films.