Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

Humanity’s mission was to return to Earth and rid it of the menace that drove it away in the first place: Godzilla.  The mission was a failure, with Godzilla wiping out most of the human attack force.  Now, the survivors are desperate but are still determined to fight to the death if it means destroying the King of the Monsters.  To this end, Haruno and his squad discover an ancient city with the help of the last of humanity living on Earth.  Here, they will find the tools to launch a second attack, weapons born from Godzilla’s mechanical counterpart, MechaGodzilla.  The battle begins again but Haruno and company will find more than Godzilla waiting to test their resolve.  To destroy The King of the Monsters, Haruno might have to face the possibility that he has become a monster himself.

At the end of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, there were a mountain of problems and very few positives…actually I don’t think there were any outside of a good end theme song.  At the top of that impressive mountain of disaster stood one lingering fact: there were still two more of these films to go.  And knowing that this Godzilla Anime Trilogy was made back to back to back, there was no way the producers and staff could do the smart thing, wait and see what the audience reaction to the previous film was, and work to correct and amend any and all complaints…or just cancel the project all together.  Sadly, that last bit has no chance of happening because Part 2 of this bad idea has arrived.  And as hard as it is to fathom, City on the Edge of Battle somehow manages to be WORSE than Planet of the Monsters…and for the same exact reasons as that film.

Seeing as how this sequel picks up exactly where the last film ended, the same lackluster tone and atompsphere, the terrible animation and the human cannon fodder who cant seem to die no matter how hard we want them to, are all still around.  Nothing’s changed, nothings evolved.  Hell even Godzilla himself decides to sleep off the movie until the last 20 minutes because even he doesn’t want to be in this travesty bearing his name.  In fact, Godzilla moves as slow as the movie itself…why does he even appear at all?  Why would we want our amazing monster overlord when we can listen to protagonist Haruno give an apology speech to his surviving squad about how he put their lives at risk…but he’s still going to kill Godzilla so everyone should just stay and help even though he told people they could head back to their mothership?  As far as bad leads go, Haruno continues to be one of the worst and I feel bad for his voice actors.  Haruno refuses to be anything less than a powder keg ready to explode and thus all of his lines are delivered with grizzly attitude.  He is not a hero.  In fact it is stated point blank, much to Haruno’s shock (sarcasm) that he is more the monster of this movie than Godzilla himself…that isn’t incorrect.  But for every time Haruno is forced to question his choices, I kid you not he is back to his old “KILL GODZILLA NO MATTER WHAT THE COST” self like five minutes later (at one point I did count and was correct).  Don’t look for any other stand outs.  Not only does everyone look the same in this movie but they behave the same too, teetering back and forth between questioning Haruno’s insane command and just going along with it cause…well theyre stuck on planet Earth and don’t have anything better to do. 

Oh and don’t get too hyped at the potential of a Monster vs. Monster showdown.  Despite the constant teases at MechaGodzilla, Godzilla’s metal counterpart is only repeatedly mentioned and never seen.  In it’s place we have…God I do not kidd…“Mecha Godzilla City”…yes you read that right (it’s either the worst title ever produced or the greatest idea for a rock band ever).  It’s a city that was made from MechaGodzilla’s remaining living metal components and is basically around to be a fortress from which Haruno can forcibly continue his suicidal campaign against the King of the Monsters.  Mecha G City could have been the Transformers Metroplex of this story: a city that could transform and take on Godzilla one on one…nope.  In the place of giving Godzilla something to try and shoot at, we have the Vulture Mecha Suits.  In truth, the designs and movements of these mechs are the sole good point of the film.  They’re still being used by idiots trying to kill Godzilla but they do look cool.  Besides that, Mecha Godzilla City is just there to be a plot device, the source of a philosophical debate about man, machine and monster…and for Godzilla to eventually blow up cause its what he does best.

If you even paid remotely close attention to a story that’s trying to be deeper than it actually is, then you’ll be more confused by the plot of City on the Edge of Battle.  There’s human descendants who vanish from the movie and don’t contribute much besides references to a Godzilla foe who probably wont be popping up in this crappy saga (two of them are twins, which should indicate which Monster im talking about).  There’s apparently a sub class of humans in this Godzilla Revenge Squad that I totally missed who can merge with Mecha Godzilla City to boost its building and attack power…ok.  And of course, more and more debates about life, the universe and everything and the slow dawning that, it isn’t until the last 20 minutes of the movie that Godzilla decides to wake up and shuffle himself over to the final act.  At some point, this stops being a Godzilla movie and just an exercise in extreme patience.  Nothing makes sense, there’s no one to root for cause you don’t care about anybody.  And I haven’t even gotten to the animation, which still looks horrible.  The humans are just as stiff in their movement as Godzilla.  The Mechas show promise but they don’t really do much in the end besides buzz around Godzilla while Haruno screams his damn head off again.  Story?  There is no story, which is more mind boggling that this came from one of Anime’s tour de force writers, Gen Urobuchi (Fate/Zero, Psycho Pass).

In the post credits scene of the movie, a big name is dropped, directly setting up the final chapter of the trilogy.  It is a name that brings excitement and an image of a battle that could be epic.  However, even if it can somehow be great, it will not be enough to save this failing trilogy.  Everything bad about Planet of the Monsters was made worse in Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle.  It might be better to just mute the audio and do your own Rifftrack of the whole flick because it will make more sense and be more enjoyable than anything youre watching on screen.  But hey at least there’s another good theme song, right?  Guys, just Google that.  The only reason I’ll review the last chapter of this stinker is so none of you will have to watch it unless you really want to have fun tearing something apart that someone believed was a revolutionary Godzilla project…and even then, you should just watch Shin Godzilla instead…or the Comic Con Trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters…anything but this mess.

2/10