{jatabs type="content" position="top" height="auto" skipAnim="true" mouseType="click" animType="animFade"}

[tab title="Movie Review"]

Godzilla vs Destroyah - Blu-ray Review

{googleAds}

3 stars

…which brings us to the death of the original Godzilla.

After 22 films and countless battles, Toho paves the way for the American version of Godzilla and kills off the one and only King of the Monsters. Directed by Takao Okawara, with special effects by Koichi Kawakita, 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destroyah is a battle royale of reverberating magnitude as Godzilla gets nuked again and mutates to the point of boiling his own scales off. The move was a bold one but – with Baby Godzilla now fully grown – everyone knew the truth. They would just have to wait for the American version to bomb...which it, thankfully, did.

Godzilla vs. Destroyah is the darkest film in the Godzilla canon. It also one of the best as Godzilla, now covered in lava-like rashes as a result of the destruction of Birth Island, commences his own nuclear meltdown and faces a creepy crawly colony of Precambrian organisms mutated by side effects of man’s nuclear research. Written by Kazuki Omori, the film flexes all the way back to the original Godzilla and brings back Momoko Kōchi, reprising her role from the original 1954 film and Megumi Odaka, who is still psychically linked to the monster.

The special effects and costume designs are better and more realized this time out and the destruction is epic as Destroyah does not go down easily. The stunning visuals – complete with its stunningly executed ending through the smoke and rubble – are damn near poetic. Cheese this is not. Even today, Godzilla vs. Destroyah is quite surprisingly moving for a Japanese science fiction kaiju film.

Also included in the double-feature bill is Godzilla vs. MegaGuirus. It is the black sheep in the Godzilla timeline, being a part of Millennium series but ignoring the continuity established by any previous films except the original one. It seems Godzilla can also have an alternate universe. After a prehistoric dragonfly egg is deposited in the sewer, Japan starts suffering from sewer attacks. The Meganulan are coming! In search of a place to lay their eggs, the Meganulan decide Godzilla’s skin is the safest place and, soon enough, Megaguirus, the queen of the Meganula, is ready to do battle with the city.

Godzilla vs. MegaGuirus is the first real disappointment in the Toho series. It’s brave enough to jettison the timeline and experiment with a “What If” narrative structure, but it just doesn’t deliver the goods and significantly drains the momentum gained by the successes of Godzilla 2000, the film completed right before this one. This one is very, very average and has little of the gusto of the other movie it shares this release with.

Sony was right to ignore the chronology and slap MegaGuirus on the Destroyah disc instead of Godzilla 2000. MegaGuirus is the Godzilla film to watch AFTER everything else.

[/tab]

[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

Godzilla vs Destroyah - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - May 6, 2014
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English, English SDH, French
Audio:
Godzilla vs. Destoroyah - Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0; Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (2 BDs); UV digital copy; Digital copy
Region Encoding: A

Sony’s 1080p transfer isn’t perfect. There are obvious limitations to the picture as it isn’t nearly as crisp as it could be. I highly doubt a true restoration has occurred. There isn’t a lot of dirt or debris in the image but the film isn’t as clear as was expected. There’s a certain level of dinginess to some of the scenes and edges fluctuate between solid and murky. Please note that none of this is in anyway unwatchable. It is; however, slightly disappointing but – as this release is from Sony – the image is likely to be the best it ever will be. Colors are sometimes bright and other times a bit dull. Black levels are inconsistent but usually well-defined. Both films feature a native Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 lossless soundtrack that underwhelms more than it does dazzle.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • Negative

Special Features:

  • Do trailers count? Because there are teasers and trailers for each film that run right around three minutes and that is all. Disappointing, I know.

[/tab]

[tab title="Trailer"]

[/tab]

{/jatabs}