Movie Review: Negadon: The Monster from Mars (2005) directed by Jun Awazu
In the near future of 2025, Earth’s resources are running out, so the humans are terraforming Mars. While doing so, they discover a giant cocoon-like object and decide to take it home. Unfortunately for the crew of the Izanami and everyone else in Japan, the creature inside the cocoon wakes up during orbital re-entry. The spaceship crash-lands in Tokyo and now Negadon is loose.
Meanwhile, military officer Seiji Yoshizawa (Takuma Sasahara) is trying to convince his old mentor, Dr. Ryuichi Narisaki (Dai Shimizu) to come out of retirement to help advance the field of giant robotics. Dr. Narisaki has lost all interest in science and engineering since his greatest project led to the tragic accidental death of his daughter Emi (Akane Yumoto). They are interrupted by the crash.
As is standard for kaiju movies, the standard military forces can’t even scratch Negadon as it rampages through the city. It’s up to Dr. Narisaki to shake off his depression, activate his mecha, and expiate his guilt over Emi’s death by saving the world.
This short film (less than half an hour including credits) is notable for being one of the first all-CGI movies, with a tiny crew. To help with the limitations of the software at the time, it’s presented in a deliberately retro grainy and low-resolution style, hearkening back to the early Godzilla movies. The story is stripped down to bare essentials. No long silent landscape shots, no comic relief, no romance subplot. It does what it needs to, and gets over. This comes at the cost of anything innovative or memorable about the plot or characters.
The movie is most impressive as a technical achievement. It shows off what can be done on a shoestring with the technology of the time. The voice acting is decent.
The ending song is a little dissonant–it’s supposed to be a letter Emi wrote her father shortly before her horrible death, talking about how much fun she’d had on their day together. Cute graphics though.
As so often with early CGI, this has aged badly. Most recommended to film history students, and diehard obscure kaiju movie collectors.
