In 2004, Godzilla celebrated his 50th anniversary by being in the last Godzilla movie that will be made in the near future. "Acclaimed" director Ryuhei Kitamura took over the helm from Masaaki Tezuka, who did the previous two Godzilla Millenium films as well as Godzilla Vs. Megagurius. Kitamura has an excellent sense of creating kinetic monster battles but most of the human fighting is stereotypical "guys on wires replaying scenes from the Matrix."
The plot is nothing surprising. The Godzilla series seems a lot like the Gundam series in that the people working on it would much rather reuse material than create new storylines. One could easily call this movie a remake of "Destroy All Monsters" with its cast of monsters and invading aliens.
The first hour was more entralling than I'd thought it'd be, given said reused plot, but most of the second hour has the human reenacting moments from the director's favorite action films. I also like the overall "international" feel of the film, that is, Americans speak English; Japanese speak Japanese, etc.
Also, the whole subplot with Godzilla Junior doesn't have a lot going for it, mainly consists of Junior, a Kid, and his Grandpa standing around. Another flaw is that this movie is over 2 hours, about a half hour too long.
Still, it takes too long for Godzilla to appear in this film and start kicking butt. All of the kaiju battles are loads of fun, and probably every monster in Godzilla's history makes some kind of appearance. Godzilla's new look shows off a sleeker design and the Big G shows everyone that he has a few new tricks up his sleeve.
Unfortunately, the new Gigan and Mothra have rather brief roles, though I like the idea of the two of them being long-time adversaries. Gigan's updated look is awesome, but he loses his head in battle not once but twice and that has to cost him some street cred.
Overall, this movie will become dated (if it isn't already) with its stylized violence, techno music, and monochromatic scene dressing. If you wanted to know what "Destroy All Monsters" would look like today, then this is your movie. It's a solid, yet repetitive, watch. B
No comments:
Post a Comment