Summary:
Godzilla, whom has been imprisoned for years in ice in Antarctica, might be humans’ only hope against a wave of angry kaiju bent on destroying the earth. Also, some aliens show up.
My Thoughts:
Okay, before I get started, I feel as if I have to explain this review; as in, why I watched this particular Godzilla film for our Godzilla Series, when there are literally dozens of other, better Godzilla flicks out there to choose from.
When I was a wee young lad of eight, Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” hit cinemas, and my younger brother and I were not allowed to see it, due to the fact that it was rated PG-13. However, my parents did allow my brother and I to rent as many Japanese Godzilla flicks as we wanted, and surprisingly, the Video Master near the house where I grew up had quite a few dubbed Godzilla VHSes (what an antiquated sentence that was). We must’ve rented more than a dozen of those films, and every time Godzilla would gear up for his next battle against some big baddie, my brother and I would wind ourselves up for the inevitable destruction to follow. To this day I love Godzilla films. Despite how cheesy they can be, despite how nonsensical some of the plots are, and despite the fact that I think very few of them can be considered A-Grade cinema, every once in a while I still find myself in the mood to watch a destructive kaiju rumble.
“Godzilla: Final Wars” came out after my Godzilla craze had died down, but it arrived just as I was first discovering I really had a passion for film. I remember reading that Emmerich’s version of Godzilla made an appearance in this movie, and for whatever reason that made this title stick in my head. So, when we at TMM decided we wanted to do a Godzilla series this is exactly where my mind went. Now having watched it, I can firmly say it isn’t very good, but it is pretty fun, and for the Godzilla franchise that’s pretty much par for the course.
“I knew that tuna-eating monster was useless!”
Fifty years after Godzilla attacked Tokyo in the original “Gojira”, a crew on a flying-drill-ship-thingy buries Godzilla in ice in Antarctica. After an alien species called the Xilian’s threaten earth and release many kaiju onto earth’s surface, humans believe that releasing Godzilla might be their only hope.
Okay, so let me say first and foremost that the human characters in this movie are all anime characters, and I mean that on multiple levels. Not only are the characters barely developed (like many anime side characters), the acting in this film is utterly two-dimensional (get it? Cause anime is… never mind). The main characters comprise of a crew of a submarine-looking vehicle with a spinning drill on the front of it; oh, and it also, inexplicably, flies. None of the characters are developed well enough for me to know who any of them really were. Other than main guy (Masahiro Matsuoka), main girl (Rei Kikukawa), and the English-speaking actor who plays the captain and looked like he didn’t know what was going on throughout the movie (Don Frye), this movie had no memorable human characters. I couldn’t even tell you the characters’ names and I’ve just finished watching the film.
To make matters worse, this film suffers from a bad case of “2000s Cool”. There’s plenty of killer neon lighting, extreme angles in the cinematography, dope costumes for the cast, and a totally rad heavy metal soundtrack. Everything in this movie begs you to think it’s the coolest thing since shaved ice, and it winds up feeling like the ultra-cheesy “Mission: Impossible II” instead. So many moments were meant to be awesome, and instead came off as cringe-worthy.
To be fair, I do feel like a lot of the Godzilla films’ human characters lack, but hey, you don’t go to a Godzilla film for the people in it do you? No. You go for the monsters.
This is where this film excels: in the pure dumb monster fun. I will admit that there wasn’t nearly enough Godzilla in this particular film for me to fully be satisfied, but there were some great moments that made me laugh and cheer. This movie takes a long time to get going, but once we finally get Godzilla back onscreen, he’s back for a while. This film was conceived as a fiftieth anniversary celebration of the original “Godzilla”, and there are a slew of his enemies from every era of the franchise that flood the screen. Some of them get more screen time than others, but Godzilla does spend a fair amount of time fighting off old favorites, and honestly, that was enough for me to give this otherwise 1/5 star movie a bump up to 2/5 stars. This movie is fun; don’t expect anything more and you’ll be fine. If you go into this film expecting an actual movie, with a plot that makes sense and characters with complete arcs, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Verdict:
I honestly think that 95% of the world could skip this film and they’d be fine. Heck, I could’ve skipped this film and my life wouldn’t have been altered in any way shape or form, but I’m happy I watched it, if only for some of the ridiculous fight scenes (like Japan’s Godzilla V the Roland Emmerich Godzilla). There’s nothing in this film that’s particularly great or redeeming, but I still found myself laughing and cheering enough that I can’t give this anything less than 2/5 Stars. Most people will see this for what it is: a pointless film. But for those of us whom still have a place in our heart for Godzilla and his kaiju buddies, this film might give you a few hours of entertainment.
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