Review of Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) by Jonas L — 20 May 2014

In 1998, Roland Emmerich came out with his take on Godzilla and fans of the King of the Monsters, they were mad. They demanded that someone get it right, so Toho studios released their counter to the film "Godzilla 2000". This movie brings Godzilla back to its roots but unfortunately it's just a slightly above-average giant monster movie. What makes the film noteworthy are the awesome moments at the tail end of the film that will have you screaming with joy. The film ignores all previous entries in the series, save for the first film. We follow Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his daughter Io (Mayu Suzuki). They are responsible for keeping the GPN (Godzilla Prediction Network) afloat. They are reluctantly joined by reporter Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida), who is tasked with taking pictures of Godzilla so that she can move on to more exciting stories (!) for the newspaper. When Yuji's hated rival, Shiro (Shiro Sano) discovers a sixty million year-old UFO deep in the Pacific Ocean, the lights shining onto it bring it back to life. It returns to the surface and begins acting suspiciously. Is it a friend, or a foe? And what does it want with Godzilla?

This movie features a new design for Godzilla, one that is amped up to look more lizard-like and less friendly (the design will be held into most of the "Millenium Series") and it's pretty cool. The monster effects are done once again with a guy in a rubber suit and miniatures, but we also get a couple of shots of a CG Godzilla swimming. The computer effects leave something to be desired, but they're not terrible and allow the monster to do some actions that we've never seen him do before, like be completely submerged while swimming in water. We are also introduced to a new monster for Godzilla to face off again, one that isn't particularly memorable but has gained some popularity thanks to the video games released to the major consoles: Orga. Unfortunately this creature is treated more as a "final form" of the space ship that fights against Godzilla and their battle together is very short. It's an even bigger disappointment than you would expect because seeing Godzilla battle the big silver ship isn't really that exciting. We do get some exciting battle sequences where Godzilla is pitted against some fancy tanks and missiles though. Good stuff. Another improvement to the series is in the way the action is shot. Godzilla's suit must have been much lighter than the ones we've seen in the past because the King of the Monsters moves faster and is significantly more agile than he was in "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah" and the films that were tied into that continuity.

Where the film really suffers is in the special effects department. The Godzilla suit looks fine, Orga looks fine, the tanks and jets look fine. The miniatures look good too and in fact there's a shot during the climax where they must have built a huge miniature city for the monsters to rampage in and it is truly awesome. Otherwise though, the movie is frankly amateurish in the way it handles the effects. The spaceship is rendered through computer and looks very dated for example. I realize that many other countries do not have the resources and technologies to render images of the same quality as major Hollywood studios and that this one might have had a slightly lower budget, considering it was released just a year after the Rolland Emmerich effort, but it just looks bad. It's actually baffling to see because it's clear that the filmmaker had access to miniatures and physical props for the sequences where the ship is surrounded by pyrotechnics and miniatures but instead they opted for CGI. Even worse though, are the sequences where shots are composited together. When Godzilla is seen walking through real-life cities with citizens running in front of him, you can clearly tell that the grain from the two pieces of film spliced together are of very different quality. It isn't very convincing at all. Completely baffling are other scenes where actors must have been shot on a stage and then inserted in front of tanks or buildings. Were there some last-minute revisions to the story where they couldn't go back to the locations or get those vehicles again?

What saves this movie from being a forgettable entry in the series is, of all things the human story. The humans are likeable because they are all kind of stupid, but earnest. Yuji and his daughter seem to take a lot of unnecessary risks in their quest to learn more about Godzilla, and you sympathize with them because you would be doing the exact same thing if Kaijus were real. Yuki is fun to follow because she is gutsy, has a lot of witty banter with the other character and will do ANYTHING to get her scoop. A standout is the Io, who looks like a sweet, innocent girl being dragged around the country by her crazy father when she is in fact, a ruthless business woman, demanding outrageous costs for GPN memberships and clearly bossing her father around a lot more than she ought to be. Don't forget the film's villain, who can only be described as a complete douchebag. The film makes no attempt at hiding the fact that this guy is a jerk, hates our hero and doesn't care at all if his rival gets killed. It's not even that he's out to conquer the world, has stolen something valuable that is driving the plot or wants to kill Godzilla or anything like that, he's just a jerk that is getting in everyone's way. The human plot contains a lot of crazy coincidences, and it looks like Godzilla read the script so he knew exactly who the audience would hate and who you would cheer for. It brings you back to that era where Godzilla movies were just silly entertainment and what you wanted to see where wacky characters running around while monsters beat the radioactive snot out of each other. The moment that seals the deal on this film is right at the end. It contains some of the most memorable, ridiculous lines ever uttered in a Godzilla movie (make that any movie) and ends on just the right note. It reminds you that yes indeed, "Maybe there is a little bit of Godzilla in all of us".

The special effects are bad and there's not nearly enough monster action as there should be, but the element of fun is high with this film. You can watch it as a decent, but dated monster movie or as silly entertainment you kind of poke fun at. Either way, when it gets to that ending you will have the greatest time ever. I can't say that this is one of those Godzilla movies you can show to anyone and have them instantly get what people love about the franchise, but if you're a fan of giant monster movies, you're gonna love it. (English dub on Dvd, May 18, 2014).