Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

Original title: ゴジラ × メガギラス G消滅作戦

As it goes, this second entry in the short-lived “Millennium” era of Godzilla movies ignores most of the Godzilla films that came before apart from the original first movie. While I’m never completely happy with this approach, at least this one has a reason for it, for the film takes place in some kind of alternative Godzilla timeline as well as an alternative history of Japan. So, Godzilla wasn’t killed in 1954 and instead hit Tokyo so badly the Japanese moved their capitol to Osaka. For some reason, it took another attack a decade later for the country to step away from the nuclear energy Godzilla feeds on. This went well until 1996 when experiments with a new form of energy again provoked a successful Godzilla rampage, despite a military unit charmingly named the “G-Graspers” having had a good thirty years to prepare for it. Obviously, that was it with the new-fangled plasma energy, too.

However, Japan really, really wants to get rid of Godzilla, and by 2001, they are in the final stages of developing a weapon that’s supposed to shoot a miniature black hole at Godzilla from orbit. In a classic “I can’t see what could go wrong there” moment, the first test of the weapon also opens a wormhole. Through that wormhole – that the G-Graspers for some reason don’t bother to monitor – flies some giant prehistoric dragonfly (or a normal one gets mutated, the film’s pretty unclear here), and is never seen again after it pops out an egg. Said egg is found by a little boy, brought to Tokyo, and hatches a bunch of prehistoric cow-sized dragonflies that eat energy, which in turn eventually produce a proper kaiju dubbed Megaguirus. Godzilla more or less to the rescue, only to be murdered afterwards by the very unthankful humans.

Masaaki Tezuka’s entry into the Godzilla canon is certainly not a classic of kaiju cinema, but I have seen worse films, even worse Godzilla films, too. Its main problem is a plot that’s often needlessly convoluted, as exemplified by the egg business. There’s really no reason at all for the egg to simply hatch in the countryside and the film being done with that part of its plot. Instead it fiddles around with plot-lines around the little boy and the egg that have no dramatic reason to exist and only slow things down until we finally, eventually, get to the good stuff. Which, if I really need to say it, are giant monsters. I’m also not terribly sure the film actually needed the alternative history angle after all, for after the turn of events has been established in the film’s beginning, there will turn out to be no discernible difference between this Japan and ours apart from its capital.

I do understand the need to have something, anything to do for the human characters beyond fighting against Godzilla (a fight they can’t win), but the old-fashioned stuff with alien invasions or evil spy agencies most other films of the various Godzilla eras get up to really is the better choice here. Especially compared with a film that turns out to have trouble deciding on the metaphorical meaning of Godzilla, and eventually pretends killing off this force of nature that has just protected humanity against its own folly is some kind of heroic act.

Once and whenever we do get to the monster business, the film markedly improves, with much of the monster stuff demonstrating the imagination most of the rest of the film lacks. I’m particularly fond of the final beat down between Godzilla and Megaguirus that heavily nods in the direction of the sillier kaiju eiga from the 60s and the charming way they provided their monsters with personality. Godzilla’s pissed facial expression after he gets up following Megaguirus’s first attempts at sucking his precious bodily fluids, I mean tasty radiation, is absolutely priceless.


Not terribly well used, but at least interesting in how atypical it is for kaiju cinema is the character of Kiriko Tsujimori (Misatao Tanaka), who plays your typical main rocket jock with a grudge role, not the kind of role you’ll encounter many a Japanese film - and a Japanese kaiju film even less – giving to a woman and playing her straight like it would a male character.