by Hybrid Gojira » Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:29 am
I just finished watching this (and I watched GxMG a few nights ago). It's an ok movie, but I actually liked the previous entry more.
There are some really cool ideas in this film. Throughout the movie, we get the "life should be lived in the time nature allows" bit with references to other mistakes man has made (aka creating Godzilla). We never learn, and to his credit Tezuka wraps the series up by demonstrating that very idea by using the Godzilla DNA scene at the end. It was a stroke of genius and honestly made me crave another film. The score is excellent and is one of my favorite parts of the movie. There some very cool sequences during the fights - Godzilla trips Kiryu and then blasts his face off; the death of Mothra; Kiryu shooting missiles from every direction around the Diet Building. There are tons and tons of buildings that are wrecked, toppled, and crashed through. That said, some of the editing is horrendous. Mothra grabs Godzilla and flies, hurling him down the street, except in one scene he is upright and in the very next frame he is sliding head-first. Godzilla beams Kiryu, destroying his eye, but Kiryu's body is facing the wrong direction one frame later as he crashes to the ground. It's extremely distracting. GxMG had similar issues.
Random thoughts:
I think dropping Akane was a terrible plot choice considering she's still in the film. The new cast is ok, but also feels rehashed. There's no development between Azusa and Chujo's relationship other than a funny line about him only being interested in machines. Kiryu is down for months and they can't properly repair him, but he is fixed within minutes during the the final battle... Hmm. Godzilla's portrayal in this movie irks me. He's boring and lacks expressiveness. The film has uneven effects. As I mentioned before in the GxMG thread, the miniatures here look great sometimes but really lack that color palate to make it suspend my belief. Having just watched MZ, I can tell you that film does a better job with blending the real life scenes with the effects than this movie does. I also found the battle in GxMG to be more entertaining compared to GSOS. Mothra looks great, but some of the matte shots are simply poor.
Overall...I do like this film but it's a middling G flick.