Big Man Japan

2007 monster movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The current Big Man Japan--a sort of superhero who, when electrocuted via the nipples, grows to enormous size in order to fight monsters--finds his popularity waning. In fact, despite coming from a long line of popular Big Man Japans (Big Men Japan?), popularity that peaked with his grandfather, it seems that nobody likes the sixth Big Man Japan at all. He lives alone, mundanely discussing why he likes seaweed and umbrellas, and waits for calls to go to the power plant to increase in size and battle monsters. A documentary filmmaker captures both sides of his life.

Oh, I wanted to like this movie so much. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I'm rating it too low actually. It's got really goofy monsters, a faux-documentary style, a great dry humor. There's also a surprising intellectual depth, or maybe an intellectual ambiguity, that makes it a lot more interesting than just a parody of Japanese monster movies, something which, by the way, doesn't need to be parodied. It's got an almost disturbing jarring effect as it juxtaposes the guy sadly and mundanely detailing the minutia of his sad and mundane every day life with the completely bizarre battle sequences with imaginative and stupid-looking monsters. I like the contrasting effect though; it's disturbing in a good way. There's a genuinely surprising ending (with another jarring contrast) that leaves things richly ambiguous. And it keeps you thinking long after the movie has ended. So why don't I like it very much? That's hard to articulate. I don't like how it seems to abandon the mockumentary approach a few times. I don't really like how the movie looks at times. Some of the monsters are original and cool (I especially like the one that uses an eye on a retractable stalk as a weapon), but more than a few of them were just dumb looking and made me wish they'd gone to more traditional looking foes for Big Man Japan. The fight choreography itself is also really weak. And I think the political statements, although they seem like they'd be really obvious and heavy-handed, are confusing to this Westerner. I'm really not sure what this movie is trying to say. Is it about Japan's past and the influence of other cultures? Is it about the effect of consumerism, specifically an American influence, on Japanese culture? Is it about future concerns? There's a chance I would like this more if I watched it again. My rating has changed from a 12 to a 14 to a 13 and back to a 14 then back to a 12 after all. But for now, this reminds me of how I feel about Popeye's fast food restaurants.