'Godzilla: The Planet Eater' Review- A Lame Ending To A Lame Trilogy
This movie streamed in 2018.
Godzilla: The Planet Eater is an anime film produced by Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures. It is co-directed by Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita. It is the final part of the Godzilla trilogy, which was released exclusively to Netflix in the United States.
After the events of the second film, following the destruction of Mechagodzilla City, there is debate in the human satellite city on whether Captain Haruo Sakaki (Chris Niosi) did the right thing in allowing Godzilla to stop the nanites from the city to spread and infecting the Earth. Some want to award him and others want him jailed. It leads to a full mutiny on the satellite. In the meantime, the King of the Monsters is now in stasis following the battle.
The alien priest Metphies (Lucien Dodge) tries to convince Haruo that their god is the only way to stop Godzilla. This god is none other than the planet-devouring creature known as Ghidorah. The only problem with the alien’s plan is that it will cost humanity’s existence to defeat the King of the Monsters.
As the third film, this is the most disappointing. My main problem with the first film is that Godzilla had so little screen time. He did not appear seriously until nearly forty-five minutes in and it was greatly underwhelming. The movie was more of a science fiction drama with a bunch of useless philosophy banter that added absolutely nothing to the story.
Throughout the film, the alien priest tries to convince Haruo that Godzilla and Ghidorah are humanity’s punishment for all their actions. Humanity must suffer and die for its arrogance. Now Haruo does argue back, but it is still bothersome. The movie tried to present a “compromise” to both their absolutes. Whenever this is a theme in movies, aliens getting preachy, I am always like, “Mind your own business.”
As for the ending itself, it tries to give out a moral but ultimately fails in its delivery. You are left bewildered by the stupidity of the humans as they let aliens lecture them and then one character makes a decision that has ramifications for the rest of mankind. It came off as arrogant and extremely selfish.
I was also very disappointed in the redesign for Ghidorah. In the original films, he was always a monster rising to challenge Godzilla for supremacy. In this, he regulated to being a snake-like tool for the aliens trying to convince humanity to give up. Considering the villainous nature of Godzilla in these movies, I suppose it made sense, but it was done extraordinarily poorly. This is one feature to skip.
Bottom line, Godzilla: The Planet Eater is lame. It used the King of the Monsters as a way to lecture humanity instead of bringing us an awesome battle between man and monster.
FAVORITE QUOTE: So this is spring.
PARENTAL CONCERNS: Foul language, Violence, Brief Sensuality, Disturbing images
Check out the trailer below:
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