Placing this film in the history of the Big G’s film career, one must look to his rebirth on movie screen’s in 1985 after a near decade long hiatus. His battle here versus Biollante was the first follow up to the new series of titles that would carry the Godzilla franchise into the nineties taking on all comers.
“The real monsters are those that create them.”
A fitting statement as Biollante is a man made creation in the laboratory that is part plant life mixed with the cells of researcher Dr. Shiragami’s deceased daughter and Godzilla himself. In a prologue the film begins at the former film’s end that sets the plot for this sci-fi sequel featuring warring factions looking for world dominance in the biotechnology field. Biollante has been created to defend Japan from the ever present threat of an attack by Godzilla who lays just below the surface of a volcanic mountain. Presumably the large fissure he fell into at the end of the previous title Godzilla 1985.
It’s the espionage like plot that triggers the battle that audiences expect when sitting down to watch Godzilla wreak destruction on Japan. In this case he’s going to lay siege to Osaka. While countries vie for Shiragami’s formula, they are not above sending in agents and assassins to steal it or lay explosives where Godzilla is said to be resting. If the cells for Godzilla that have been stored on ice are not turned over then the explosives will detonate allowing the Big G to rise once again.
Guess what happens.
Mixed into the adventure is a girl with ESP capabilities who can talk to both Biollante and Godzilla. A special task force meant to combat Godzilla with hi tech weaponry including a spaceship like flying machine known as Super X-2 that can catch the rays Godzilla emits and send them back towards him in greater force.
I suppose one Godzilla review could look the same as any number of films that Toho has gifted us with. It all really boils down to the battle scenes and just how good the special effects are featuring the man in the rubber suit. I’d like to think that they are top notch here. Especially when Godzilla is facing off against the military and missiles headed his way. The wrestling match with the long tentacles of Biollante allow the studio and director Kazuki Ohmori to give it a Peckinpah flare with green fluids spurting forth in slow motion from both the giant plant with the Venus flytraps at the end of it’s tentacles to Godzilla himself.
You’ll have to check out the film yourself to see who you think is the actual winner of the heavyweight battle. But I would like to point out Godzilla has continually returned to cinema screens in the years since yet Biollante has been in hiding save for a brief appearance in Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla.
This is an energetic series entry when the battles are front and center which of course features scores of crowds running across the screen as the city of Osaka is ordered evacuated. While the action sequences are sure to hold one’s interest, much of the musical score is a rather bizarre one. It plays like a rejected score from either a Star Trek/Wars sequel with a hint of Indiana Jones in there somewhere.
I first saw this one years ago when it surfaced on VHS tape at a local store that catered to foreign titles. The store even had a blow up Godzilla on the floor of what was essentially an old converted house near our local University. As much as I enjoy Godzilla films I have a hard time sharing to much trivia on them as I can’t honestly offer much on the actors or technical crews involved. I just know I like what I see when the Big G is on the screen and the music plays his familiar marching tune.
Perhaps the best thing I can share on the marching tune is years back when Number 2 son, Kirk was perhaps about 6 or 7 years of age, I gifted him some Godzilla comics and would find him humming the tune as he flipped though the pages. Love that memory!
For a bit of inspiration I thought placing one of my many Godzilla figurines front and center here as I type might inspire me to convince you to go back and relive some of his more memorable screen match-ups.
Mike's Take On the Movies 
Not my fave, but any Godzilla is better than most other monsters combined.
That’s my thinking. Just wanted to see the big G in action and hadn’t seen this since the VHS rental years.
That picture convinced me you don’t have a rodent problem because that lizard fries anything it seems moving around smaller than it. I need to see this one again, as it’s been a while. I think it popped up on cable a few years back, but when I went to check then, they were showing a bunch of Gamera flicks (that second rate turtle that’s good for some fun, but not the big G in any way, shape, or form)..
Those Gamera reboot flicks weren’t too bad but nothing beats the Big G for stomping on models and knocking out Tokyo Tower.