'3BlackChicks Review...'
GODZILLA 2000 (aka "Gojira ni-sen mireniamu"; 1999) Rated PG; running time 108 minutes Genre: Science-Fantasy IMDB site: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0188640 Official site: http://www.sony.com/godzilla2000/ (U.S. version) Written by: Hiroshi Kashiwabara, Wataru Mimura Directed by: Takao Okawara Cast: Tsutomu Kitagawa, Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida, Mayu Suzuki, Shiro Sano
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 Review URL: http://www.3blackchicks.com/bamsgodzilla2k.html
Don't get me wrong - I love me some straight-up comedy, and thus, looked forward to seeing THE ORIGINAL KINGS OF COMEDY this weekend - but there's nothing that takes me back to The Day like The Big Lizard. Man, I remember all those campy GODZILLA flicks as a kid, watching them on "Bill Kennedy's Sunday Movie" on channel 50 in Detroit just before my sisters and I had to go to Sunday School. It was a good memory, damn near besmirched by Hollywood's special effects (and lack of soul) in its lame Matthew Broderick-starring remake a couple years back. When I heard that Japan's Toho Studios had done their own GODZILLA update last year, I couldn't wait to see the Real, True Lizard in all his badly-dubbed glory. My only question was, would he hold up to a G2K treatment?
The Story (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**): Worrying about the plot of a GODZILLA movie is like trying to understand the dialogue in a porno flick, but if you insist...
In an obvious continuation of previous Japanese GODZILLA movies, the Godzilla Prediction Mobile team of Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his young daughter Io (Mayu Suzuki), along with Roving Reporter Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida), want to study the city-stompin' - but otherwise cute (in an ugly sort of way) - giant lizard known as Godzilla (Tsutomu Kitagawa, under that rubber suit). But not the Evil Folk of the Crisis Control Intelligence agency [CCI, eh? Hmmm...]. Where the GPM wants to study Godzilla to learn ways to harness his power for Good, the CCI agents - director Mitsuo Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe) and his sidekick, Shiro Mayazaki (Shiro Sano) - take the American Approach: if you don't understand it, destroy it.
The twist in this, the 23rd movie in the GODZILLA series, comes from a mysterious big rock the CCI finds underwater and investigates as a "possible alternate fuel source". When they try to bring the big rock up to the surface, they find it may not be what it appears to be at first glance. And since Godzilla can wreak only so much local havoc, and he needs an ObAlien to fight against these days...well, you get the idea.
The Upshot: The point above - about GODZILLA 2000 being a continuation of previous flicks - is an important one because it starts out, seemingly, where those previous versions left off. The existence of Godzilla Prediction Mobile Unit is supposed to make perfect sense to the audience, because we are given only a minimal background on it. Or any of the characters, for that matter - including Godzilla, who just shows up at the beginning of the movie, tearin' stuff up, which the movie's citizens take in stride, as if it happened all the time.
Indeed, I didn't get what was going on in the movie until about the halfway point; up to then, GODZILLA 2000 was just a bunch of disjointed scenes that I figured would gel into an understandable story, sooner or later. Not that this was a problem for me; part of the fun of watching a GODZILLA flick, after all, is laughing at the dubbing, the cheesy music and special effects, the campy overacting, and most of all, the patented Godzilla screech and fireball.
All of which the audience got, in spades. Well, mostly. Almost all of those classic elements were firmly in place, and even updated with a '90s sensibility. The music and special effects were still cheesy (check out the underwater scenes), and the acting just as stoically intense, even when saying lines like "Hey, did you see that flying rock go by?", or staging a Three Stooges-like slapstick scene (that only nominally worked). One noticeable "improvement" that didn't work for me, however, was the special effects fireball. This new version, in a word, sucked. It looked as if Godzilla's mouth was unnaturally set on fire every time it happened, and I longed for Godzilla's old firerings.
An update that did work well, though, was the use of current computers by some the character; I got a kick out of seeing Apple iMacs and G3s in the background, though I have to wonder about Compaqs being used as Serious Scientific Equipment [she said, waiting for the ObComplaints from Compaq lovers]. The whole product placement issue - there were advertiser stickers seemingly everywhere - had me wondering whether this was standard fare in Japanese movies these days. And whether U.S. studios are looking to follow this trend.
Fun, too, was the dubbed dialogue, and the patchwork editing. I don't know what was better: watching the GPM team driving at first far behind, then parallel to Godzilla, a la Twister, only to pull up miles in front of him, driving toward him, in the very next jumpcut - or hearing a English dub of a Japanese character telling someone, "Bite me!".
If this were any other movie, I'd spend time Obsessing about how Godzilla magically tears only so much stuff up, then stops for the night, as if a referee blew a Time Out whistle (or for that matter, what Godzilla does in between movies). But asking for logic in a GODZILLA movie is like wondering whether world wide rasslin' is real. You have to either accept what you see as part of the thrill of the show, or totally wash your hands of it.
Its minor flaws aside, the goofy GODZILLA 2000 is a fun, mindless way to spend an hour or two in the theater; you have to hang up your Disbelief Issues at the door, but other than that, it's an easy ride. But I think Yuji got it wrong: I think what he meant to say is, "there's a little bit of all of *us* in Godzilla"...
Bammer's Bottom Line: All the Camp, none of the Matthew Broderick. Thank you, Toho Studios, for taking me back down Memory Lane.
GODZILLA 2000 (rating: greenlight): You Haven't Lived until you hear and see a Japanese film in which the line "kwit yer bitchin'" is dubbed.
Rose "Bams" Cooper /~\ Webchick and Editor, /','\ 3BlackChicks Review /','`'\ Movie Reviews With Flava! /',',','/`, Copyright Rose Cooper, 2000 `~-._'c / EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com `\ ( http://www.3blackchicks.com/ /====\
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