Godzilla Vs. Biollante (1989) Imagine our reaction when we heard Criterion came out with a deluxe 4K Blu Ray of this film.......
Say whaaaaaaaaaaaat? A frickin' Godzilla movie?
We never got around to viewing this one when it first hit DVD....by then we (and just about everybody else in the world) had tired of watching the same guy in a Godzilla suit pounding on other guys also zipped into rubber suits.
And then Godzy's home studio Toho tossed it over to the fans, running a script contest....asking them to come up with a new worthy opponent for everyone's favorite radioactive lizard.
Holy hot atomic breath....did they ever.
After hearing about the Criterion copy, we were delighted to discover that we still owned an unopened original Mirimax DVD of the film.....and finally popped it into the player. (Oh the irony here....a Mirimax DVD with a monster more damaging than Harvey Weinstein.)
We fully understand why the film achieved cult status with worldwide Godzilla fans.....
It's a wild ride from start to finish. Perpetual action, epic amounts of destruction and a Heavyweight, one-of-a-kind sparring partner for Godzilla like no other.
Wastes no time at all......while Godzinator lays waste to another city, eco-warriors (or whoever) steal a patch of Big G's skin for scientific experiments. Then a whole bunch of other guys machine gun them, then a super assassin makes off with the skin. Please don't ask us to explain any of this.....
Later, a huge scientific place goes kaboom from yet another attack, killing a scientist's beloved daughter. Pop consoles himself by concocting Biollante, a cocktail monster mashup of Big G's DNA, his daughter's DNA.....and a red rose. (I bet you think we're making up that last part, right?)
Oh no we're not! Lovely Bio plants herself (literally) just offshore, with tentacles equipped with their own snappy jaw mouths, a transparent beating heart and a jumbo red rose for a head (If this wouldn't qualify her for a new season of 'The Bachelorette, we don't know what would.)
You just know that our boy Godz-o-rama stalks over to Lovely Bio for an Atomic Breath smackdown. Poor Bio tries defending herself by splooging acid on Big G's face, but Big G's all out of tic-tacs so he gives Bio a hot breath heart massage. So much for their first date, as we watch Bio-Babe reduced to pixie dust that floats up to the heavens.......
But think again if you think that's the end of her. After G fends off all the usual, futile missile, tank and helicopter attacks, we feeble humans try shooting him up with bacteria. (To quote one guy, "Hey Mr. Godzilla! You always feel better when you take your medication orally." We didn't make that one up either. Too bad Nurse Ratched wasn't around to give G a rectal bacteria injection
Holy lawn seed, Biollante comes sprinkling down from the sky, assembling into an even more badass version of herself and more than ready for Round 2. Big G's finally had enough abuse and gives her an Atomic Breath blow job......or more to the point, a blow up job.
Once again, Bio ascends in a pixie dust cloud, but not before displaying the face of the young girl from which she was spawned. Godzy, as always, wades off into the deep ocean, while Bio turns into a space-station sized rose orbiting the planet. Feel free to dab some tears....
All kidding aside, we adored every loony minute of it with one exception. Composer Koichi Sugiyama wisely inserts chunks of the legendary Akira Ifukube theme music (as was done in 'Godzilla Minus One'). But Sugiyama's own score, which plays incessantly, is juvenile and blatantly cornball, sounding like it was written for a Gerry Anderson 'Thunderbirds' puppet movie.
Dedicated Godzilla fans will want to snap up the Criterion blu-ray for a seventh heaven monster rally that'll make your back plates light up just like Big G's.
4 stars (****).
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