GMK: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack Review

‘Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack’ was one of the most anticipated, if not, the most anticipated Godzilla films in the Millennium series, and one of the main reasons for that was that a well-known director who directed a successful Gamera trilogy was set to helm the 26th installment of the Godzilla franchise. Shusuke Kaneko is one of the more recognizable directors that has filmed in the franchise, along with Ishiro Honda and Jun Fukuda – to name a few.

GMK is considered to be one of the best entries due to the dark atmosphere and portrayal of the King of the Monsters and intense action scenes, according to many fans.

However, with the elements that Kaneko offered to the table that made the Gamera trilogy so successful, such as the fantasy/mythology element, and mix it in with the reality of the Godzilla universe, you’ll get a film that just doesn’t seem to really accept the fantasy/mythology element very well. If that was something that Kaneko was trying to achieve, then he fell short of his goal, and that fantasy/mythology won’t really be accepted in this kind of universe that was well established by the science-fiction element.

STORY
Again, the fantasy/mythology portion is something new to the Godzilla franchise, something that’s fresh and to give a new take on the Godzilla universe that been dominated by science-fiction since Godzilla’s debut in 1954.

Speaking of which, the film is set to be as a direct sequel to the 1954 film and takes place many decades after. The people in this time period are seeming to forget Godzilla and start labeling him as a legend, a myth as you well; but, there are some who can still remember that vivid day when the first Godzilla rocked Tokyo with pure devastation. A very old man, who was formally a professor decades ago, wanted to warn Yuri and others to awaken the Guardians – which consisted of Mothra, King Ghidorah and Baragon, to defeat Godzilla will return to Japan to create chaos.

When Godzilla appears and takes on the three monsters, Godzilla appears to be VERY cunning and smart; in fact, he’s so smart that he knows that something is behind him with out even looking and counterattacks with his tail. Out of all Godzilla films ever made, excluding the ’98 American version, this has to be the smartest Godzilla ever in the franchise. But I digress.

Anyways, the fantasy/mythology element does create some logical points in the film, but because it seems that it’s forced upon by the main and supporting characters amongst one another or onto other characters, like it’s saying “Oh hey, don’t forget about your good friend here, fantasy/mythology!” That, to me, is where I think that genre/element falls short in this film – it’s practically forced upon by characters and forced onto the audience. It goes to show that this franchise will forever be dominated by the science-fiction element.

But overall, the story to GMK is fairly good – it gives us a good direction of where the film will be going next and what it’s building up to. It’s just that I still can’t get over the fantasy/mythology genre being mixed into this film, which to me, kind of ruins to what this film COULD HAVE been without it.

VISUAL EFFECTS
There are a few visual effects personnel that did a flawless job on ‘Gamera 3’, were also helping out with the visuals for this film; even Shusuke Kaneko pitched in. Whatever kind of magic they used in ‘Gamera 3’, didn’t turn out quite well in this flick.

There were quite some obvious areas where you can tell between visual effects and actual backdrops, etc. But don’t get me wrong, I thought they did an excellent job building existing objects from computers, creating the weapons used by monsters, and creating Mothra by computers and using that in good portions of its fighting scenes.

However, there were areas where they were trying blend something within the backdrop, for example, Godzilla walking through the mountainous forest, you can really tell that footage of Godzilla was placed in the mountainous forest backdrop.

Overall, the visuals are pretty damn good. It’s just that I wish they could have touched some of them more to where they were actually believable and there. Another mark that this film misses.

ACTING
The trademark that I’ve seen in most Shusuke Kaneko films thus far is that he’ll have at least a few characters that are wacky, crazy and/or are chalk-full of energy; and he seems to leave that signature yet again in this film. The character that always gets me to laugh is that one short guy who’s Yuri’s co-worker and seems to be going everywhere, as well as looking like he’s high on too much sugar at times.

But with that aside, in the first half of the film, the characters kind of seemed to be somewhat bland, but they were quickly building up to where they were more interesting, especially in the second half where they turned into a more serious role as we were heading towards the film’s climax.

The acting portion is pretty much what’s keeping this film together and what makes it interesting to watch.

BATTLES
Acting is not the only thing that keeps this film together – heck, it’s only minuet compared to what really keeps these Godzilla films together: giant monster battles, and Shusuke Kaneko doesn’t disappoint at all in this area.

All of the giant monster battles that were showcased in this film were all great, and if I had to choose which battle was the best in this film, it had to be between Godzilla and Mothra. The camera shots and the choreography really captured that battle nicely.

If there was anything that I would complain about, it would be that a couple battles were a little bit short, but not too much, especially the Godzilla-Baragon fight. It would’ve been nice if they gave Baragon his atomic-ray-like weapon for him to use instead of burrowing all the time. Out of the 3 Guardians, Baragon was the weakest for simply really not having any weapons at disposal. If he was provided at leas one weapon, the Godzilla-Baragon battle would’ve been longer and thus, I really complain about it being short. But overall, the battles were great in this film.

HUMAN DRAMA
As I stated in the acting portion, the first half seemed kind of bland and goofy at first, but quickly picks up before the second half and then gets really awesome, serious and emotional towards the film’s climax.

Anywho, the characters seem to get established as the film progresses, and tend to get better. Something I really like the most here is when Yuri talks to her father via radio before he ventures out to the bay in a submarine to destroy Godzilla. To me that has to be one of the few rare, emotional scenes the franchise has. Also, this film probably has one of the craziest, sugar-high characters in the franchise. Pretty much this film has a little bit of everything in terms of human drama.

OVERALL
The film, in its own right, is still a fairly good film; but not quite the one that I was really looking forward to a long time ago when it came out. The fantasy and/or mythology that was mixed into this film still kind of bothers me to this day, and is a hit-and-miss sort of deal. However, I might start growing on it as time moves forward.

It’s one of the better films of the Millennium series, but not the best one. I kind of had my expectations a little too high because I was hopping to see something that Kaneko did with ‘Gamera 3’; but, wasn’t much of a case.