{"id":2413,"date":"2015-03-05T07:24:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T07:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2015-03-06T06:17:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T06:17:31","slug":"godzilla-vs-biollante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/?p=2413","title":{"rendered":"Godzilla VS Biollante"},"content":{"rendered":"

Godzilla VS Biollante<\/strong><\/a> ~ 1989, Kazuki Ohmori – Japan<\/p>\n

\"Godzilla_vs_biollante_poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ah, 1989\u2026. The year the Berlin Wall fell. The year Nintendo released the first model of it\u2019s popular Gameboy system, and the year when Godzilla would face off against a gigantic plant monster, cloned from a fusion of his own cells, plant DNA, and the mysteriously captured\u00a0soul of a dead Japanese woman. Ah, memories! Plus, Batman<\/em><\/strong><\/a> came out that year!<\/p>\n

Yes, over thirty years had passed since Godzilla\u2019s debut in 1954, and Big Green was now going strong in a rebooted franchise, called the \u2018Heisei series\u201d by film fans and the terminally nerdy. Godzilla VS Biolante<\/em> is a direct sequel to Return of Godzilla\/Godzilla 1985<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, and it\u2019s pretty darn strong. Also, my BluRay informed me that this film was rated PG for \u201cTraditional Godzilla violence,\u201d so that’s a major victory, I feel.<\/p>\n

THE PLOT~<\/strong> Following Godzilla\u2019s attack on Tokyo in Return of Godzilla<\/em>, numerous little chunks of \u2018Zilla flesh which had been blasted off of his leathery hide are found around the now desolated city. These chunks become highly prized because of their applications in science, and terrorism, and thus multiple nations and private entities enter into small scale violent conflicts to obtain them. As is always the case, one particular chunk of Godzilla cells finds it\u2019s way into the hands of a weasely man in fingerless gloves, who returns them to his employer in the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Saradia. Saradia has ecological plans for the Godzilla cells, and hands them over to their go-to science man, the Japanese scientist Dr. Shiragami. However, before any sort of crazy biological nightmare can be crafted, the Saradian Institute of Technology is straight up bombed, Shirigami\u2019s lab is destroyed, and his daughter Erika is killed. No big deal, though, cuz somehow he splices her DNA with some flowers. “That outta take care of it.”<\/p>\n

So, fast forward a few years, Shirigami is living in Japan again with his flowers, which he believes have his daughters soul in them. Miki, a psychic from Japan\u2019s \u201cMental Science Exploitation Center\u201d (good name guys) is invited out to pow-wow with Shirigami\u2019s garden, because she apparently can talk to plants really good. Whatever. Long story short, scientists uncover a new application for the Godzilla cells; theoretically, they can\u00a0be used to genetically engineer a new form of bacteria which like to\u00a0gobble up radiation, and that\u00a0could help neutralize the threat of atomic warfare, as well as kill Godzilla himself, if he ever crawls out of that volcano you chucked him in back in the last movie. Again, numerous government and private entities enter into a deadly game of espionage and terrorism to obtain the known Godzilla cell samples, and eventually some find their way into Shirigami\u2019s hands yet again. \u201cI\u2019m totally adding these to my flower\/daughter,\u201d he thinks. And he does. Oh my goodness, what do you know, giant Godzilla\/plant monster is created. Dr. Shiragami, you have outdone yourself this time. Your efforts to save your daughter have transformed her tortured soul into a towering, hideous insult to God that must be killed. I expect you to toss that “World’s #1 Dad” mug right in the damn garbage, you twisted son of a bitch.<\/p>\n

The monster, called Biolante<\/strong>, mostly just hangs out in a lake until Godzilla comes and kicks it\u2019s ass, causing it to turn into glowing spores and fly into space (For real, this is what happens.) Then, it\u2019s up to Japan to defeat Godzilla, which they work really hard to do, but can\u2019t seem to accomplish. Finally, Biolante Spore-Warps back down from space, now in an improved, less plant\/more monster type shape, and beats on Godzilla real hard\u00a0until he just can\u2019t take it anymore, and then he hops back into the ocean.<\/p>\n

In case watching giant, awesome monsters scrabbling to kill each other\u00a0isn\u2019t the reason you chose to watch a Godzilla movie, Toho has your back, and this battle is followed up by what we all have really been waiting for, two adult men in expensive suits fighting clumsily in the mud. Also, at the very end we see Biolante has transformed into a giant rose and is floating around in outer space. Whatever, that’s stupid as hell, but the movie is still pretty cool, and at least there aren\u2019t any aliens in it.<\/p>\n

It really is pretty good. The miniature sets are sub-par, but the monster effects are great. Biolante is an excellent monster, the design is very well done, reminding one of The Deadly Spawn more than a little, and the idea behind the creature makes her the most original monster Godzilla has faced since Hedorah, easily. In fact, Biolante opens up the door for the franchise to explore the moral implications of genetic tampering, which is an issue we couldn’t have adequately addressed in the Showa era, yet the theme seems to be very “at home” within the Godzilla metaphor. After all, he’s a damn mutated dinosaur, so in a way, the issue of biological experimentation\u00a0has kinda piggy-backed it’s way through the franchise, waiting for science to catch up, so we could really get into the nitty gritty. It’s pretty great.<\/p>\n

Also, the monster dental work in this movie is first rate. Those teeth look gross, and shiny, and also kinda real. Good job, monster-tooth technician, whoever you are.<\/p>\n

B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Godzilla VS Biollante ~ 1989, Kazuki Ohmori – Japan Ah, 1989\u2026. The year the Berlin Wall fell. The year Nintendo released the first model of it\u2019s popular Gameboy system, and the year when Godzilla would face off against a gigantic plant monster, cloned from a fusion of his own cells, plant DNA, and the mysteriously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[920,146,283,918,919,927,66,910,916,907,244,928,925,827,926,924,909,923,921,922],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-920","tag-b","tag-batman","tag-biolante","tag-gameboy","tag-giant-floating-space-roses","tag-godzilla","tag-godzilla-1985","tag-godzilla-vs-biolante","tag-heisei","tag-japan","tag-men-wrasslin-in-the-mud","tag-miki","tag-nintendo","tag-no-aliens","tag-radiation-eating-bacteria","tag-return-of-godzilla","tag-saradia","tag-the-berlin-wall","tag-traditional-godzilla-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3764,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/3764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fantasticcrapcomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}