Welcome to Tokusatsu Gesundheit, back for Halloween with the final flick in the Godzilla’s Heisei Series, 1995’s Godzilla Vs. Destroyah!
Plot Rundown
Japan and the rest of the world have two major problems coming to a head at once:
- In the wake of a nuclear incident that obliterated Birth Island, Godzilla’s biological nuclear reactor has become overloaded and is well on its way to either a catastrophic meltdown or atmosphere burning explosion.
- Soil samples from Tokyo Bay reveal that ancient microscopic crustaceans, long dormant in our oxygen-rich epoch, were simultaneously awakened and mutated by the deployment of the Oxygen Destroyer to kill the original Godzilla back in the 50s – now they’re big enough to see with the naked eye, and getting bigger by the second.
It’s entirely possible that at least one of those problems will solve the other…but whichever way it goes there will still be highly destructive, Kaiju-sized problem.
Brief Background
After the previous two Godzilla flicks produced diminishing returns for Toho, they decided to the logical thing: Kill off Godzilla. And what do you use to kill Godzilla? The Oxygen Destroyer. Therefore, this movie.
Highlights
- Destroyah (pronounced as the un-trademarkable “Destroyer” in the dub) is one of the most dangerous foes the King of the Monsters has ever faced. He is to the Oxygen Destroyer as Godzilla is to the atom bomb, and Dr. Serizawa was dead-on when he opined that his weapon was more dangerous than the a-bomb: Destroyah’s Micro Oxygen Beam, available in all his various mutated forms, cuts through living things like a hot knife through butter.
- Emiko Yamane, Dr. Serizwa’s fiancé from the original movie, returns – played by the same actress! – to counsel her niece and nephew against recreating the Oxygen Destroyer (prior to Destroyah making its presence known, natch) to deal with Godzilla’s meltdown.
- The Super X3 debuts as the first of humanity’s anti-Kaiju superweapons to survive its battle with Godzilla! It’s a fancy warplane with an emphasis on freezing weaponry, a perfect fit for a Godzilla that looks like he’s on fire.
Review
This flick is a fitting send-off to the Heisei series, linking it back to the original with a monster that has the primal, fearsome qualities of the original Godzilla that threaten the King of Monsters just about as much as he threatens humanity.
Unfortunately, the next step in our Godzilla franchise journey is…well, it’ll be a combo with 1 out of 5 – Would Recommend.
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