There’s little of interest in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) for the general audience; only specialist audiences, such as kaiju groupies and film historians interested in the films that influenced the seminal Pacific Rim (2013), will find this mess to be of interest. The poor special effects may discourage the visually inclined, but for me they’re merely a distraction. The real problem here is the bedrock of every work of fiction: story. And it comes down to believable motivations.
Why is Godzilla choosing to wipe out Japanese cities? Perhaps it’s just silly to ask why a kaiju does what it does, yet, in truth, part of the tension of a story can be the hidden motivations of the entities in conflict; of course, they need not be hidden, but the motivations must be present. Why? They permit us to make rational sense of the Universe, and stories in which random events decide the fates of those characters with which you have sympathy are stories which teach us little of real use, except perhaps that sometimes life is not as predictable as we might like, which is a valuable lesson, but one quickly learned and having only limited usage. There is far greater utility in the understanding of the motivations of entities and how they translate into actions, and the resultant backlash of such actions. An example are the kaiju of Pacific Rim, which are hidden for most of the movie, but serve to give us a great “ah-hah!” moment upon revelation – and make their actions perfectly believable.
So, again, why is Godzilla suddenly storming ashore, wreaking havoc – and then returning to the ocean? The Japanese rally to the creation of a gigantic bio-robot, Mechagodzilla, based on DNA from Godzilla’s skeleton (we’ll get to this contradiction), a clear predecessor to the jaeger of Pacific Rim, but when Mechagodzilla is employed against Godzilla, who returns on the day of Mechagodzilla’s commissioning (two questions: why come ashore, and why now?), abruptly Mechagodzilla goes crazy and begins wreaking havoc. Why does Godzilla flee into the ocean again? Why not stick around and finish off Tokyo? And when Mechagodzilla is repaired, it doesn’t go crazy again, yet when a final failure to defeat Godzilla again occurs, Godzilla merely retreats into the ocean again. In this last incident, it’s true he’s displaying some injuries, but still.
Why is Godzilla not continuing on his mission, whatever it might be? It’s the central problem to this movie, and it’s never resolved. Whatever lessons we might learn from the movie are sharply limited by this failure.
And then there’s the incoherencies, such as the revelation that Godzilla was destroyed in 1954, his skeleton recently found – so is it Godzilla we’re also fighting? His brother? The question is never even explored. A child raises questions about the morality of killing – which are never really answered, or even explored. I shan’t go on.
Next to these failures, the dubious special effects are merely highlights to the massive black hole which constitutes the story. This movie is a mess and should only be viewed by those with special interests, and even then only for reasons of completion, so you might say, Yes, I’ve seen the entire Godzilla ouvré. This one hurt, but I’ve seen it all!
I, by the way, have not.
