Anime Movie Review: Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle [2018]

It's interesting to be a middle movie in a planned trilogy of movies. Obviously, the first movie has to be bombastic enough to both rope the audience in and to make the investors confident that the rest of the trilogy is worth investing in. And the final movie is going to have the big beefy conclusion to the storyline. It's usually the middle child of most trilogies that end up feeling off. And I do feel that it's the case for Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, the second movie of Netflix's Godzilla anime movie trilogy. 

And a good chunk of what made this movie feel so lukewarm is that... well, the first movie is far from being perfect, but the interesting spin on the Godzilla mythos and the fact that the worldbuilding ended up mostly happening in the background of the first half of the movie ended up making the movie both a great first chapter to a series of movies, as well as a satisfying standalone movie -- if, admittedly, one that perhaps leaned a bit too heavily on the beautiful animation to carry the movie's second half. 

City on the Edge of Battle is different, though, because there are two distinct segments of the movie, and unlike the first movie, the first half doesn't really thematically lead into the second half. The first half of the movie deals mostly with the survivors of the true Godzilla's arrival, as they meet a cult of humanity's descendants that are this continuity's take on the Cult of Mothra... and then after Haruo and company figure out that the jungle people have special nanometal arrowheads, they are led to the sprawling Mechagodzilla City, one of the abandoned weapons that the alien/human alliance tried and failed to use against Godzilla back before they became space-drifters.

And at this point, the Hou-Tua cult ends up basically being dropped from the movie beyond a couple of "they are observing and saying cryptic things", because it's a race to try and make use of the Mechagodzilla City complex, the pride and joy of the science-minded Bilusaldo race, which eventually leads into a huge, huge ethical debate between the humans and the Bilusaludo, who themselves view the integration of their bodies and minds with the City as a natural, logical evolution. A theme that runs through the movie's second half is admittedly one that's thematic to the Kaiju genre, particularly one that puts so much focus in fighting and killing Godzilla himself -- humanity gives the term "monster" to something that they cannot handle, so clearly to kill a monster like Godzilla, they have to become monsters themselves. 

The thing is that... the movie's paced so oddly, and Mechagodzilla City honestly feels so abstract as just a city and a location, and so much of the movie's complex is essentially a repeat of the first movie's, and it's... it's kind of disappointing. The idea that the Mechagodzilla prototype that didn't get activated in the flashback segments of the first movie has mutated into this constantly-expanding metal that captures and converts any Godzilla-borne creature into more nanometal is interesting enough, and the way the Bilusaludo seem to treat this with immense reverence is certainly interesting, but... I dunno. I just sort of feel cheated, really.

Thankfully, the movie itself provides enough drama between Haruo, Yuko and the antagonistic Galu-gu at the end, which makes the final fight against Godzilla in this movie feel a lot less repetitive. With the three of them piloting the Vultures, which are basically like these weird mini-Gundam flying power suits, Galu-gu essentially wants to force the nano-mechanizatino upon Haruo and Yuko in order to force them to become literal bullets to pierece the EMP-disabled Godzilla. Except, y'know, it's something they did upon them without consent, and also the Bilusaludo sort of plan to allow Mechagodzilla City to consume the rest of Earth with metal. Without that last part, honestly, sacrificing three soldiers to kill Godzilla doesn't sound like so much of a raw deal. 

Eventually, after his whole focus on vengeance, Haruo ends up going off and saving Yuko, his... uh... sister-girlfriend? Or tries to, anyway. With Yuko essentially dying from the nanometal, Haruo elects to not pursue a definitive murder of Godzilla and shoot the Mechagodzilla City's control room up to kill Galu-gu... something that at the end seems to be for naught as Godzilla ends up taking the time that the mortals are arguing to convert all the EMP energy into heat, and unleashes so much heat aroud him that it melts Mechagodzilla City as well as the EMP harpoons, and basically becomes Burning Godzilla. And for all of Haruo's sacrifice, Yuko seems to die anyway (jury's out on that) so... yeah. I do like the themes of not becoming monsters yourself in order to defeat another monster, and I do like that the situation was relatively complex enough for me to stop and think if Haruo is just being completely driven by emotion, or if he's true that throwing away his humanity isn't worth it.

It is interesting that Haruo essentially ends up becoming a calmer version of his first movie personality, still being very insistent that they kill Godzilla because they have to make the sacrifices of the others count, but he does have a point that it's essentially just having to do the same thing they did with Godzilla Junior at a larger scale. It's not until the end, faced with Yuko's potential demise, that he even considers abandoning his plan.

It's very unfortunate that Yuko ends up becoming what's essentially a "girlfriend in refrigerator", killed off just to give motivation to Haruo. She does at least get a couple of neat scenes in this movie, like her initial insistence that fighting Godzilla in the Vulture is her own choice and not something the Bilusaludo is forcing on her. 

Overall, the drama between Haruo, Yuko and Galu-gu are well-executed, but everything else just feels like the movie sort of shuffling its feet and showing a bunch of build-up. Like the Huotoa people having adapted physical mutations that make them be partially insectoid, as well as having telepathy powers. Oh, and the spores are what's protecting Haruo from the mechanization, too. Or the little romance between Haruo and Yuko, right before the fateful mission. Or the little drama of contacting the mothership before they abandon the strike team. Or whatever the fuck Metphies the Exif is up to. He's essentially the "religion" to the Bilusaludo's science-based culture, but apparently said religion reveres a demon that destroyed their home planet, which the stinger tells us is "Ghidorah", so I'm not sure what game Metphies is playing at. 

We also get a bunch of nature-vs-science bit going on, with the Huotoa being very, very traditional and clearly very averse of arriving near the site of Mechagodzilla City, while the wounds healed with the Huotoa moth-powder end up reverting back to injurie within the bounds of the city. There's also the whole Bilusaludo/Exif dichotomy going on, which plays out mostly in the backgroud. The idea that Godzilla has essentially been "chosen" by Earth and has over the past 20 thousand years converted even the plants and animals of the world into being Godzilla-based is very interesting. I guess that makes the final fight between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla City a fight between a "natural" god born from the Earth and accepted by it, to the alien-created artificial City? I guess?

And... I dunno. The first movie manages to make Godzilla's minimal presence feel impactful, because even without the huge kaiju battle, the sheer devastation and just how much humanity (and their alien allies) have been reduced to indirectly relates to Godzilla. Here, it's just something they talk about, essentially reducing the big lizard into a plot device until it's required for Godzilla to show up to trigger the trap in the final battle. And despite being prominently featured in the poster, Mechagodzilla is just a city of domes and spires, with the bulk of the action just basically less about survival, and more about shooting Godzilla a lot until he arrives at the "trap point". And in addition to Mothra being a no-show, Mechagodzilla City ends up just being an interesting reinvention that ended up being not much more than just a repetitive gray setting. 

It's not the worst movie out there. Take out my problems with the pacing (which may or may not be vindicated by the third movie), and maybe we get some payoff with the Huotoa people in the next movie, but with the Ghidorah foreshadowing (and Ghidorah being featured prominently in the third movie's poster) I'm not sure how much we'll get to solving the plot points that are brought up here. Again, this movie might end up being redeemed if it turns out that a lot of the developments would end up being covered in the third movie, but otherwise it's... it's not bad, but definitely could be better. 

Random Notes:

• It is actually kind of hilarious considering how I made a note about the Mechagodzilla easter egg in the first movie ended up actually being super-duper important here. 
• The Mechagodzilla City is seriously unimpresive, though. Other than the Vultures and the whole "consume people and turn them into metal" bit, the city honestly feels just like a generic ship or battlestation with loads and loads of guns. Considering how its first introduction in the movie is a bunch of spikes that just out of the groud to stab those smaller dragon-kaiju Servum, I had expected a sentient city, or at least a very sophisticated AI.
• They incorporated both "Burning Godzilla" and the whole "the kaiju cause nature to regrow" plot points better than the live-action King of the Monstesr movie, I feel, with the former genuinely feeling like an adaptation to the pickle Godzilla's found himself in, while the latter having a dark twist to the natural restoration that benefits Godzilla entirely.
• What is Yuko and Haruo's relationship? The previous movie implied that they were adoptive siblings, if not cousins of some sort, so it took me by surprise when they kissed each other. I'm not 100% sure if the 'grandpa' was literally Haruo's blood relative, or just an old man that adopted him.
• Seriously, though, if Galu-gu and the other Bilusaludo were a bit more tactful, and maybe hide the whole "cover Earth with metal" plan, they probably would've gotten Haruo and Yuko to willingly go with the suicide bomb plan. 
• The Vultures aren't quite as impressive as the movie thinks they are. I'm not sure what about them doesn't work, something just seems off about the CG in the scenes they show up in.
• That scene where Yuko randomly gets attacked by phallic-looking tentacle-vines is perhaps a wee bit unfortunate, and also adds absolutely nothing to the movie.
• All of the side cast (Galu-gu, Belu-be, dr. Martin, Metphies) get a fair bit more scene that make them a lot more distinct in my head, and I do appreciate the increased focus on the Bilusaludo the moment the group discovers the City, which, while a bit infodump-y, ends up at least giving some context to their eventual insane plans.