Review "Godzilla Monster Planet" and "Godzilla City on the Edge of the Battle" by Hiroyuki Seshita and Kōbun Shizuno: a visual slap!

0
671

The Friday evening event session at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival was particularly eagerly awaited! Especially by Japanese animation fans with the screening of the first two films of the Polygon Pictures trilogy, dedicated to Godzilla ! Nearly three hours of session to discover a new variation around the legendary monster. These first two films will be available on Netflix. 

 

GODZILLA

 

Godzilla

 

Original title: GODZILLA -怪獣惑星- – Gojira: Kaijū Wakusei

Alternative title: Godzilla Monster Planet

Genre: Action

First released: November 17, 2017

Country of origin: Japan

Directors: Hiroyuki Seshita, Kōbun Shizuno

Original soundtrack: Takayuki Hattori

French distributor : Netflix

 

 

 

An original screenplay

 

If we are used to seeing Godzilla reduce Japanese cities to ashes and fight other big monsters, this time it is not. After years of fierce struggle, the monster has won, and the surviving humans, allied with two other alien peoples, are forced to leave Earth aboard a huge spaceship, in search of a habitable planet.

But now, in 20 years, life aboard the ship has become difficult and claustrophobic. Computers are formal, no habitable planet will be found in the next few years. It is then that the young Captain Haruo proposes an innovative strategy to defeat the legendary lizard and recover the Earth. Hope is reborn in the crew and the ship turns back. But when we got back, nothing had prepared the 600 soldiers sent to kill Godzilla for what awaits them.

The second film is the direct sequel to the first and allows to find the incredible mecha-Godzilla in an incongruous form and offers a totally unexpected reversal of situation. This surprising scenario, which uses elements of previous historical films as a prerequisite, came from the imagination of the famous Gen Urobuchi, to whom we owe Fate/zero, Expelled from Paradise, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, and many other quality works. Whether it's the characters or Godzilla more monumental than ever, we never cease to be surprised.

 

An impeccable realization

 

godzilla 1 Review "Godzilla Monster Planet" and "Godzilla City on the Edge of the Battle" by Hiroyuki Seshita and Kōbun Shizuno: a visual slap!

The production was entrusted to the Polygon Picture studio to whom we owe the animated series Knight of Sidonia, Ajin and the film Blame!. Awarded multiple times, the studio takes all the ingredients of its previous successes. The rhythm alternates between long dialogues and explosive and dynamic fight scenes. No questions are left unanswered and the tension rises crescendo as the minutes go by, until the of explosions. The confrontation between the Kaijū and humans reaches a rare intensity.

 

Thus, these first two films of the trilogy take up the heritage of historical films while infusing an air of futurism. The third episode promises a new Dantesque confrontation with the return of a major antagonist, but is it really good news for humans and new inhabitants of the planet?