Dear Internet,
With a
title like "Son of Godzilla," it is not a mystery what the focus of
the film will be. For the quick plot summary,
a group of scientists set up a research facility on a tropical island. While they are there, a reporter decides to
parachute onto the island to uncover the reason for their seclusion. The scientists are there to conduct weather
changing experiments in the form of exploding balloons and yellow liquid spray
that seems oddly familiar from "Godzilla and the Sea Monster." Maybe that is because "Son" is the next
Godzilla film in production order. There
must have been a lot of that yellow spray left over from that movie. Oh, I did not mention that in my review? Then either ignore it or go watch it. Anyway, things do not work out well for the
scientists, and they mutate already giant praying mantis into colossal sizes. The titanic bugs go to town tearing up a
mountain and reveal a giant egg that they crack open. Out pops a premature baby Godzilla. Later on there is a giant spider, but I will
get to that or not.
There
are a few things that I take problems with this movie. For starters is the fact that there is a baby
Godzilla. Where did this giant egg come
from? Where is the mate for
Godzilla? Did Godzilla pop out the egg
on his own? Does this make Godzilla a
female? None of this matters because
none of these questions go answered. I
am not even sure if they get asked. All
of this highlights the 1998 version that Hollywood made. While it has some merit as an action movie
and as a big budget visual spectacle, the 1998 version went plenty far away
from being a Godzilla film to the point of the monster only taking on the name
as a pseudonym. I will not go into details,
but the reason I bring it up is that the 1998 version's second half dealt
heavily with the concept of Godzilla having offspring. The 1998 film did this poorly my making it as
generic as possible and so does "Son of Godzilla." "Son" inserts the tyke terror as a nuisance
but attempts to prey upon the audience's love of the cute and adorable. If only the son was. The interaction of Godzilla with the kid
eventually develops to the point where the giant lizard shows how to breath
fire. I suspect that a sequel would
include Godzilla teaching his (adopted?) son how to ride a bicycle. The only time that I have seen a possible
child of Godzilla done well was in the animated series, episode "End of
the Line." There it was admitted
that Godzilla could not have children but was engaged in a foster parent role,
albeit a much more animalistic role than in "Son." The reason I cite that episode was that it
dealt heavily with the themes of parenthood, marriage in the case of the human
characters, and also great loss of the other two, and did it well.
 |
| Was the other parent Kermit the frog? |
Another
thing that I did not care for was Godzilla, himself. With "Godzilla and the Sea Monster"
being the direct predecessor in production history, it makes that suit as the
closest comparison. In "Son,"
the suit is a bit more thick, which is good because it bulks up Godzilla much
more than in "Sea Monster." However, Godzilla is still moving a bit too fast
in my opinion, but that is because this movie was meant to be more lively. Then there is the attitude that pops up again
in this movie. Godzilla here is not a
terror to mankind brought about from a desire to play god but a middle aged
father figure that is being told to spend quality time with his soft headed
son. It is not to say that Godzilla is a
bad father. He is amazingly patient when
his son has a tantrum like a spoiled five year old, but therein lies the
problem. The lizards act like humans way
too much, to the point that they might as well be anthropomorphic with having this
much personality. Is the idea of
tailoring a movie series to a young audience synonymous with trying to dumb
down the well established monsters? Does
Godzilla need to made into a relatable character?
 |
| "Quiet, kid. I spent all day destroying Tokyo. Let me nap." |
 |
| Godzilla needs to get some corrective laser surgery for those cataracts. |
There
are a few things that I do care for in this film, specifically the human
characters and associated plot. Like
"Sea Monster," "Son" features a female native or
pseudo-native in this case making their way into the plot amongst a group of
male characters. What I do like about
the way these two films handle this situation is by not forcing some romantic sub-plot
whilst everything else is occurring. The
men of this film are too busy with science to have a romantic liaison while
trying to determine small scale weather modification. SCIENCE!
Also, the female character acts as more than just eye candy in the
film. She actively plays a role in
showing one of the characters around the island and coming to the rescue of the
men when they become sick. There is also
the return of a cautionary theme that is inherent to monster and horror
films. The same modifications mentioned
are the direct reason that the man-size praying mantis grow into mountain
destroying bugs. This occurs because of
the use of radioactive material to increase the temperature of the surrounding
area. It is reasonable to assume that
the reason that the mantis grew to man sized because of a previous experiment
that occurred before the film began.
"Son
of Godzilla" has only a few problems as a film, but all of them stem from the titular character, who
is actually called Minilla, apparently. I do not remember them naming him during the
movie, but alas. The rest of the film is
actually done well. The climactic battle
features one of the most unique effects that I have seen in a Godzilla film so
far, due mainly to the climate technology that the scientists develop. I enjoyed the real monster of the film and wanted to see more of him, which seems to be a pattern with this era Godzilla films, specifically having a few small time monsters act as warm-up matches. The characters are likeable and have a wide
range of individual desires that are illustrated well rather than making them
generic. One character comes down with a
terrible case of cabin fever whose condition is never mentioned directly by
name. The biggest problem, and it is a big one, is with young
Godzilla that will leave you scratching your head as to how in the world he
came about. I guess there was a giant
Godzilla stork that brought him here.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Next is "Full Metal Panic" the anime.
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