Godzilla 2000 Review

Normally, if I went to a movie and it had plot loopholes, bad acting, terrible dialog and less-than-special effects I'd give it a bad review. But special rules apply when you're talking about Godzilla. I can't help comparing the latest Toho Godzilla offering to the 1998 Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich-produced American version. Many of the criticisms I have of the Devlin-Emmerich Godzilla apply to the newest Japanese Gojiro film, but I think the difference is intent.

The American film had a Hollywood cast, slick production values and editing, and state-of-the-art CGI special effects, but they were all in service of a story had no sense of fun, took itself too seriously (in spite of having HUGE logic flaws), and most importantly, featured a monster that WASN'T GODZILLA. This was the story of a lizard mutated by French(!) nuclear testing that somehow gets pregnant (who's the FATHER?) and goes to New York to lay a bunch of eggs. This wasn't the invincible wrath-of-God creature spawned by the nuking of Japan that returns again and again to wreak havoc on the populace. There's a certain flavor or silly, over-the-top carnage you want to see when you sit down to watch a Godzilla movie, and the American film just didn't deliver. It even degenerated into the most blatant of Jurassic Park rip-offs for a good 20 minutes with the spawning of hundreds of raptor-like baby-zillas.

Toho's Godzilla 2000 is a refreshing cleansing of the palate. The CGI-dino is replaced by a good old man in a rubber suit (albeit a suped-up suit from Godzilla movies of old) and is the invincible Godzilla we remember. The characters and acting are cheesy and made all the worse by the usual bad dubbing, but isn't that half the fun? And Godzilla gets to fight a big giant monster! Is this new? Is this a breakthrough? No, we've seen it a hundred (OK, at least 18) times before! But that's what a Godzilla movie IS. Not having Godzilla fight another giant monster is like a James Bond film without the girls, gadgets, and guns. What's the point?

I could explain the premise of Godzilla 2000, but who really cares? That's not what you're going for! You're going to see a guy in a rubber lizard suit stomp on little model tanks! Now GO!

Godzilla 2000

Three out of Five Beakers