The Butterfly

This movie changed some of the traditional Godzilla legend. Instead of the American atomic bombs empowering Godzilla, this time it was the souls of all who perished at the Japanese war machine's hands. Ghidorah, who was usually a world destroyer, instead played a Guardian along side of Mothra and Baragon. The unlikely trio's job was to guard the homeland, but not necessarily the people.

Once again we had a plucky female heroine, this time the intrepid reporter, Yuri. More often than not she ended up playing the damsel in distress in need of rescuing no matter how brave and spunky the writers intended her to be. Alongside the Guardians, the humans led by Yuri's father, had developed a weapon they hoped would put an end to Godzilla's reign of destruction.

Instead of random, almost unseen people getting killed, Godzilla's victims were often shown close up or were characters who had been introduced. There were real stakes with the humans' and Gardians' lives. Godzilla had returned to being the terror that he was in 1954, this time with soulless white eyes. The monster fights were actually quite good and entertaining as each Guardian did their best to take down Godzilla. Once the action started around thirty minutes into the movie, it never let up. Overall, this was an entertaining men in rubber suits kaiju movie.

8 April 2021

Baragon Note: Baragon was a B list kaiju who also starred in Frankenstein vs Baragon and Destroy All Monsters!