WHAT TO DO WITH THE DEAD KAIJU? (PG)

115 minutes, opens today
Rating: 2/5

The story: A giant monster attacking contemporary Japan dies suddenly in the middle of a major metropolis. The rotting corpse is belching noxious fumes. How to quickly dispose of it before it explodes and destroys the country by contamination?

Two reasons to watch this film:

1 The title

What To Do With The Dead Kaiju?: Kudos to any reader who can come up with something catchier.

2 A fun(gi) development

There is a freakish infection late in the movie, after more than an hour of tedium.

One kaiju-size reason to stay away:

1 It's a snooze

The comedy-adventure centres on the disaster response. Despite the promising premise, the film is at once hectic and plodding.

The action on the part of the government's Japan Task Force is generic.

The prime minister (Toshiyuki Nishida) has meanwhile convened an emergency Cabinet to formulate a plan. His officials are buffoons except for the pugnacious environment minister (Eri Fuse), whose secretary (Tao Tsuchiya) has a romantic past with the task force mission leader (Ryosuke Yamada).

This creature feature fares no better even as a parody of Japan's political inertia and bureaucracy. It is a cartoonish farce, oblivious to the fact that Shin Godzilla had already in 2016 successfully pilloried the same subjects.