Hey folks, here's the movie that every real movie geek is dying to see reach a screen near them... a TOHO produced GODZILLA 2000!!! That's right, the king of the monster's return to form. There are a few spoilers here, but... well ya know, it's a Godzilla movie, so does that count? See... I didn't think so. Here's Reno....
Reno here with a review of the new Godzilla flick that will be stomping onto American shores late this summer.
It's been said the best way to tell if a filmmaker is any good at telling a story is to watch his or her work without the sound on. If you can still tell what's going on than they're doing a good job. Such was the task facing me as I sat down to puruse a video copy copy that fell into my hands recently of Godzilla 2000: Mellennium. Seems that the tape was in Japanese with no subtitles. I setteled down on the couch of one of the screening room here at the Institute to see if that maxim holds true.
Let me state that I'm not a raving G fan. I've enjoyed the original film and the ones that were made in the late 80s/early 90s. I also enjoyed the 3 Gamera films that Daiei came out with recently. Deanzilla, er, the American version of Godzilla was an ok monster flick, but it strayed a little to far from the source material for my liking. (Much like how the 1916 silent version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea wanders of to Jules Verne's Mysterious Island for half the film!)From what I've read, the new film is a relaunch of the series, forgetting everything that has come before with the exception of the first film.
That being said, G:2000 is not the best Godzilla film I've ever seen. It starts off interestingly enough. Scientist Guy, Reporter Girlfriend, and Scientist Guy's daughter Cute Kid (Hey, I don't speak the lingo so I dodn't get there names. Deal.) are planting some kind of detection devices along the shore. Within minutes, the detect something big heading in from out at sea and within ten minutes of the start of the film, G is on the screen, scaring the sushi out of a lighthouse keeper as he stomps by with a boat in his mouth!
With Godzilla's appearance on land the usual things start to happen, Scientist Guy and company try to get back to the city to warn everyone, only to have their way blocked by inadavertantly by the big lizard. The military is called in but they're pretty ineffectual. What's going to stop this behemouth from trashing the countryside? Howzabout the strange, giant flying rock that some other scientist types find on the ocean floor!
That's right. A big giant flying rock.
Fortunately, it turns out that encased in the rock is an ancient flying saucer that's set to engage the Big G in the middle of some city that didn't look like Tokyo. During the battle, the UFO generates a rather nifty looking giant critter of its own to fight G and the expected mayhem follows.
I can't really attest to how involving the characters are, due to my lack of lingual skills (though I have been referred to as a cunning linguist, that's another story). There's some bit of business when Scientist Guy is a building work on a computer when the aliens land on top and tap into the computer- just like in Independence Day, it looks like the alien's computers are perfectly compatable with our own!!! Anyway, Reporter Girlfriend and Cute Kid run in and pull him out right before a bomb that the military has planted goes off. Sounds suspensfull right? Well, not really but I will give the caveat that it might be because I just don't know enough about the characters to care. There's also another bit of silly business with Driven Scientist Dude, Scientist Guy's boss, and Godzilla at the end that I just didn't like at all.
How are the effects? Well, that's where you have a real mixed bag. Some are pretty good like when the Japanese air force engages the Big G as he's crossing some kind of bay or river. Though why they only send six or seven planes to stop him is beyond me- I'da thrown everything from bombers to handgliders at the thing. There's also a fairly decent shot of Godzilla swimming underwater that is CGI. Unfortunately, some of the model work looks real bad as if it was lifted straight out of the stuff from the 60s.
Toho should probably just hire the guys who made Gamera look so damn good in Daiei's series. (Go look at the aeriel battle in Gamaera 3 if you don't believe me.)
The direction on the final fight scene is a little clumbsy also. There's lots of close ups that obsucre the big picture of what's going on. It reminded me of how there were lots of closeups in the swordfighting scenes of the 3 Musketeers flick a few years back. You want this stuff in wide shot so you can see all devestation and destruction. you don't hire a tap dancer like Savion Glover and then just shoot his face do you?
The redesign of Godzilla looks pretty good. His shoulders are a little more rounded, putting his forearms a little more to the front, a little more dinosaur like. I'm not to crazy about the giant fin on the back though. This isn't Sharkzilla. The alien monster has a really great design, though its fairly impracticle to do as a man in a suit, so it reduces the creature's effectivesness on screen.
Anyway, I'll still go see G:2000 when it hits the American theaters in August. But it'll probably be at an afternoon matinee for $5. I'm not sure it's worth my $8.
Reno out.
