The conclusion to Godzilla’s Heisei Era is a perfect sequel. Here are my thoughts.
Before Godzilla: Minus One came out, I tried watching all of them in order. But life happens. I’m just a regular guy who’s busy from 9 to 5 and has hundreds of movies on his Letterboxd watchlist. However, the Criterion Channel got the first few films of the Heisei Era. So, my love for Godzilla reignited, and I got obsessed again.
After finishing the Heisei Era, I understand why Godzilla nerds love Godzilla vs Destoroyah. It’s the best of the Godzilla sequel, a film that should be a textbook example of how to do a quality cinematic sequel. Even when making it bigger, faster, and with more explosions. And believe me, this movie has enough explosions to satisfy Michael Bay.
Like in the Showa era, the filmmakers wanted to ensure they concluded the Heisei era with a banger. What they did is one of the best Godzilla movies ever made. Godzilla is afflicted with lava rashes (sick, as in badass, pun intended), as he destroys Hong Kong with a more powerful version of his atomic breath in this legacy sequel (before legacy sequels were cool). Meanwhile, the oxygen destroyer (again, legacy sequel) came back to bite Japan by generating destroyer creatures.
One of the reasons this is better than most Godzilla films is how the Destoroyah creatures stalk and attack the humans. It looks like a Japanese version of Alien and has some stuff that Sam Raimi would’ve done if given this film to direct. As usual, it’s a better Godzilla movie when the humans involved are gripping, and the events surrounding them are fun to watch.
Let’s talk about Godzilla.
But let’s get to the atomic breath of the matter. And this is not a spoiler. It was used to market the movie globally. It’s like Darth Vader revealing his parenthood. Everyone knows that Godzilla dies in this one. Not just a better conclusion than the beautiful last frame of “Terror of Mechagodzilla” from the Showa era, but it also makes you care about a monster.
Forget about Mufasa dying in Lion King, Bambi’s mother dying, or Optimus Prime’s death in the 1986 animated film. Nothing compares to the ending of this film. It is sentimental, almost a majestic visual of Gojira’s swan song. It was a perfect send-off…until they kept making more movies, and now I’ll have to watch inferior sequels.
