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I attended the world premiere of GODZILLA: FINAL WARS in Hollywood tonight, and I must say the experience was incredibly exciting. The film itself, however, was indeed a "mixed bag" of greatness and mediocrity, and I left Grauman's Chinese Theater a bit conflicted.

I found the film's much anticipated title sequence to be too rushed and erratic, much like the film itself. The titles were not easy to read as they literally flashed on and off of the screen on top of distracting clips from classic Godzilla films.

The film's script was as confusing and scattered. The film started with a good, deliberate pace but quickly degenerated into an orgy of images and scenes spliced together in such quick succession, as one person I talked to put it, it was like you were channel surfing between several sci-fi and kaiju films playing at the same time.

The special effects were at times spectacular and beautiful...at other times they looked as if they had been executed in a rather hasty fashion. Some notable effects sequences: the Earth Defense Force's battle with Ebirah, Rodan's attack on New York, Godzilla's battle with Kumonga in New Guinea. Deserving special recognition is Zilla's daytime attack and night time fight with Godzilla in Sydney, Australia. Zilla's CGI was very well executed. There were a handful of effects shots that were not totally bad, but could have used some fine tuning. Manda attacking Atragon could have used some more work, for example.

Keith Emerson's electronic and pulsating music must be the most unique ever heard in a Godzilla film, but well done and intriguing.

As mentioned earlier, the pace of the film is so fast and erratic, it is hard to keep up with. Without giving away specifics, this must be one of the most out-of-control, if not THE most out-of-control script in the series.

It will take me a few days to figure out my true feelings about this film, but I imagine, with its high points and its flaws, this will be one of the most controversial films in the series among fans.

First, before my review, I have address two points of contention about this film. For starters, the hero (Ozaki), besides having short black hair, black clothes and martial arts skills, no more resembles Keanu Reeves, than a brick resembles a prime-mover. His clothes may have similar pigmentation to the Matrix's Neo but in this film Ozaki is actually wearing white plastic body armour, and his military coat is dark green. Both he and Neo might share martial-arts knowledge. At least Ozaki is from the country that invented a large portion of it! Besides, I thought he looked MUCH more like Noah Wyle. If his coat had been white, perhaps people would say the film was ripping off ER.

The second issue is about the 'Matrix style'. Since even the creators of those films admit that their style harvests greatly from manga, anime, and HK action movies, it would be fair to say that Final War's director, Ryuhei Kitamura is more influenced by his own culture than three blockbuster popcorn flicks. Stopping bullets with telepathy, psychic battles, gravity defying fights, and slow motion have been enjoyed in Japan and mainland Asia for a VERY long time. Unfortunately, many aspects of their fiction have been somewhat hijacked by Hollywood.

The director shows many influences in this film, and it would foolish to deny that the Matrix did not play a part in shaping his approach. However, many film goers are simply unaware of the depth of The Matrix's own influences, and shouldn't attribute too much to them. Anyway, on to the review.

Well, if you are seriously wanting to get anything out of this film, you should probably become a fan of Godzilla and Kaiju genre. Anyone else would probably mistake this film's style, steeped in Kaiju tradition, for faults. It is true that the special effects are mostly 'analogue', and that the monsters are NOT CGI (usually). Yes, they are men in suits wrestling in model cities, but is it a flaw? Heck no! This film is great entertainment, and even a little touching!

The story is simple: a new force threatens the earth and sends monsters to destroy cities and crush humanity. What else? Luckily, the defenders of earth, a collection of mutants themselves, strive to combat the threat and restore peace. Godzilla herself may just be the only weapon left to mankind that could save the human race.

And so stylistically this film is very SF. The human forces wear futuristic body armour and sport hightech weapons. There are flying battleships and alien spacecraft. This may be an angle that some fans don't agree with but atleasy the monsters are all here. I forget how many, but quite a few from the Godzilla bestiary return to wreak havoc, and there are some fantastic clashes between them.

However, Final Wars is as much a human story as it is one of mass destruction at the hands of giants. Yes, that was a little difficult to say. But there is quite a lot of focus placed on the human protagonists this time. They are fighting a new and mysterious new foe. Many of the action sequences, and in fact often the longest ones, involve humans in hand-to-hand.

Even if this raises the hackles of a few Kaiju fans, I can understand: bring on the rubber-suited titans and all that. Yet I think that this dual focus adds an engaging dramatic quotient to the film. The action sequences may also draw a few comparisons to a certain fizzled out sci-fi trilogy, and all I can I say to that, is written above. And the words "get", "over" and "it".

The acting skill of the players varies between that of a seasoned performer to that of a pro-wrestler grapling with his lines. Oh wait, I think he is a pro-wrestler. I feel though, that if viewers are looking at acting skill in a film like this, they missing out on the bigger picture. Rest assured however, that this is definitely not like Devilman, where store-front manikins could have acted better.

Reportably, Final Wars is an anniversary film, and it is, though doubtfully, the last in the Godzilla series. For that reason, regardless if it remains that way, I was very happy to see the film stay true to the heritage it is a part of. It provides a fitting farewell. There is something refreshing, watching rubber-suited actors trample miniature sets - actors pretending to be monsters, waving their claws about. Sure the such things are cheesy and yes the rest is overly stylised, but the film makes no excuses for that, and it shouldn't.

Bring it on!

GODZILLA FINAL WARS may not please Godzilla purists but it delivers the goods for everybody else, -at least those with some knowledge of Godzilla lore. I saw it with a packed house of G fans at Subway Cinema's annual New York Asian Film Festival and it was the perfect audience for a film as steeped in the kaiju mythos as this one. Every time a new monster appeared on screen the crowd applauded or, rather, they applauded once that monster became recognizable, since the director often teases us with quick cuts and blurry motion before giving us a good, steady full-body shot. There are 15 monsters in all, many friendly old faces and some obscure ones, but all recognizable to longtime Godzilla fans.

The other real pleasure for G fans is the star-studded cast. Three venerable stars of older kaiju films turn up, two in major roles. Akira Takarada (star of the original GODZILLA, 1954) plays the UN Secretary General and Kumi Mizuno (the gorgeous leading lady from MONSTER ZERO, FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS and more) plays the Commander of the Earth Defense Force. In a smaller role, Kenji Sahara turns up in a lab coat assisting the attractive young female biologist (Rei Kikukawa) assigned to investigate the monster attacks. Also on hand are Jun Kunimura (Boss Tanaka in KILL BILL VOL. 1); Kane Kosugi, a martial arts star in his own right and son of "ninja" star Sho Kosugi; and one other gorgeous actress, Maki Mizuno, who plays the biologist's newscaster sister. Masahiro Matsuoka plays Ozaki, the lead mutant hero who uses MATRIX-style martial arts to fight the alien invaders. Don Frye plays the tough American captain who pilots the Gotengo (the flying, burrowing ship from ATRAGON) and stands up to the aliens in several memorable confrontations. A martial artist/wrestler/extreme fighter known primarily in Japan, Frye speaks all his lines in English in the Japanese print I saw, while everyone else speaks Japanese to him.

The film's all-star monster cast and alien invasion plot seem derived chiefly from DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968), but with everything pumped up to hyper speed. The film is incredibly fast-paced and filled with action, either in the form of battles between monsters or martial arts fights/ray-gun shootouts between the human and mutant defenders and the alien invaders. Since the monsters attack numerous cities around the world (including New York, Paris, Shanghai, Tokyo--of course--and even Vancouver!) there turns out to be more mass destruction in this film than in all other G films combined.

One can argue that the whole production is sheer lunacy, but it's lunacy done with conviction and affection. The director clearly knows and loves Godzilla films and he conveys that love while also adding new twists and imaginative touches (e.g. Anguirus, the spike-covered ankylosaurus, curling up into a spiked ball to launch a rolling attack). One's overall reaction depends on any number of factors, but this should definitely be seen by all kaiju fans.

A very unusual Godzilla film.

It Moves very fast. The monster battles are not like any of the previous films and the human side of the story is as much a focus as the Monsters tale is and surprisingly it is interesting. It works mainly as an adrenaline rush though, it's cathartic. The "monsters" have a lean, muscular look and move fast- they are not the puffy slow moving beasts of the past.

No long drawn out scenes of endless wrestling, this is more like boxing and Godzilla is the master dispatching them all. No need to be a fan to find it entertaining.

This movie does something similar to what "Aliens" did way back in '86. It redefines Godzilla as an Action Hero and goes past what any casual viewer might expect. This is a hard core action film that never lets up and leaves you drained.

The main negative is that it cribs way too much from the film "The Matrix". While Matrix lifted from Asian cinema generously, Final Wars does a Xerox of the copy and in several places has a tin ear regarding some things that are now considered trite and overused the world over.

The movie is just a lot of fun.

The story of "Godzilla Final Wars" is like "Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero", "Independence Day", and "Matrix" rolled into one. An alien from Planet X comes to earth pretending to warn earth people about the danger of planetoid Golath which will be impacting earth in 11000 hrs. They also remove monsters that are on rampage in several cities around the world. But of course this is all just a show to win favors from the earthlings. They are secretly out to destroy civilization and transform earth people into human cattle. Earth has seen birth of mutants which have special powers. They all have the same "M" gene that people from planet X has. Ozaki (Masahiro Matsuoka) is one of them, and like Neo in Matrix, he's the only mutant who's powerful enough to beat the Planet X invasion force leader (Kazuki Kitamura). Earth's last chance to save itself is the core Earth Defence Force team on Gotengo (Atragon), and Godzilla who's kept in hibernation. Gotengo goes on a mission to wake Godzilla up and confront all the monsters under the influence of Planet X leader and destroy their mother ship.

Out of all Godzilla movies made in the 21st century, which was on again off again at best, this one in my opinion is the best. Being the 50th anniversary Godzilla movie, this movie doesn't skimp on nostalgia. The old faces like Akira Takarada (Gojira '54), Kenji Sahara (Rodan), Kumi Mizuno (Matango) shows up to say fare well to the franchise that lasted 50 years. CGI special effects are also more realistic on this movie than say the '90s Mothra franchise.

On the minor note, music by Keith Emerson is terrible, and acting is as soul less as the actors themselves. Wardrobe is unbelievably bad, and the plot - well, there's really no plot to speak of.

Godzilla fights the following monsters: "Gigan (1)", "American Godzilla (Called here Zilla)", "Kumonga", "Kamacuras", "Anguilas", "Rodan", "King Caesar", "Hedorah", "Ebirah", "Monster X", "Gigan (2)" and "King Gidorah". Mothra and Minilla (Son of Godzilla) makes appearances as well. I had some loathing about Toho's poor selection of talents, and sometimes cheezy special effects until I heard they make these movies for under $10 million, and I had renewed respect for Japanese efficiency (average Hollywood picture costs $64 million). This movie seems to be made on slightly bigger budget than usual and effects are better. So after some disappointing shows since the death of Heisei Godzilla, this movie recaptures the excitement of Godzilla movies, and in my opinion, this is more like it !

Neither did the makers of this movie ... that's why they took the US-Godzilla "for a ride here"! But that's not the only creature from the Gojira/Godzilla past that is brought back. I don't if every creature is on display here, that was in a previous movie, but there quite a few of them. So if you know your Gojira movies, you'll have plenty to enjoy from those "cameos" alone!

You might have guessed it already, but this movie doesn't take itself serious, too. It's a great fun ride and it never aims for anything else than this promise. And since it delivers on that promise/premise, it's a pretty good movie (for me at least)! You will even enjoy it, if you're not familiar with the back story of Gojira, just bare in mind, that this is mostly old-school effects (man in costume kind of effects, so to speak). There are occasionally a few CGI, but it's mostly old school. And that's the fun of it! So it just depends on your expectations, on how you'll like the movie ...

When the aliens Xilians invade Earth, they release monsters to destroy the big cities. The Earth Defense Force formed by mutants is incapable to defeat the creatures. Commander Douglas Gordon (Don Frye) decides to unleash Godzilla that has been trapped for many years to fight against the monsters. Godzilla becomes the last hope on Earth to vanquish the evil aliens and the powerful Gigan.

The overrated "Gojira: Fainaru uôzu" a.k.a. "Godizlla – Final Wars" is a cheesy and long mess with lame special effects. It is funny to see the crew speaking Japanese and Douglas Gordon speaking in English. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Godzilla – Batalha Final" ("Godzilla – Final Battle")

Fifty years ago Toho made their first Godzilla movie. It was a very dark and symbolic movie. Despite its age the film still has an eerie quality to it. Godzilla slowly marching through Tokyo leaving nothing but death and destruction to this day sends shivers down my spine. This fantastic film was the first of 28 movies to feature the monster Godzilla. The thing is, over the years Godzilla movies have become a genre of their own. No longer are they dark or violent, rather they are fun and cheesy. This has somehow worked for fifty years and Godzilla is now cemented as a cultural icon.

That brings me to Godzilla Final Wars. This movie is meant to be Godzilla's last film for at least ten years. Toho has never spent so much on a film and they have never allowed so much madness to make the final cut. This film is essentially a "best of Godzilla" finale. Toho took everything they thought was "cool" about Godzilla and crammed it into two hours of almost nonstop action.

I'll say right now that this movie is not well made. It's never going to win any awards for acting or originality. Heck I doubt it will ever amount to anything other than being one hell of a good time. This film has city destruction, martial arts, monster battles, aliens, motorcycle chases, aerial dogfights, shootouts and even gratuitous gore.

Does it have a plot? No, not really. Do I care? Not one bit. Godzilla Final Wars is all about fun and it succeeds in every way. The monster battles are however the main highlight here. They are extremely short but their spectacle can't be denied. I was shaking with excitement each time Godzilla met face to face with one of his foes. Each battle presented a different type of fighting and they all wind up being extremely memorable.

The sheer brilliance of the battles is perhaps amplified by the fact that many of these monsters haven't appeared since the 60's yet here they are in all their redesigned glory. Gigan's redesign is especially impressive since he's always been one of my favorites.

Another factor that contributes to the spectacle would be the visuals. They're not necessarily the best around but are top notch as far as Godzilla movies go. What we have here is a combination of CGI and monster suits that works extremely well together. The power beams, death rays and flames created by these monsters have never looked better.

Monster battles have always proved to be the highlights of past Godzilla films however the best movies were the ones that struck a balance between cool monster fights and interesting human scenes. Final Wars delivers what may be the best human scenes around. These scenes are essentially uninspired Matrix rips (the main character even bears more than a passing resemblance to Mr.Reeves) but they work so well with the movie's mood. They're cheesy fun and I even found a few of them to be genuinely well thought out. These are entertaining scenes and couldn't have been better even if they were taken seriously.

So basically what I'm stressing here is that Godzilla Final Wars is not a good movie by Hollywood standards, however when watched in the right state of mind you'll find yourself having as much fun as you possibly can with a movie. If this is the last Godzilla movie I can proudly say the big G went out in style. If not well, all I can say is bring it on.

My review from Frider Waves. http://friderwaves.com/index.php?page=godzillafinal

This last sequel of the Japanese ToHo films of Godzilla should nail the coffin shut on the Godzilla franchise. The first film was a mysterious, scary, monster movie that kept audiences riveted to their theater seats (in the mid-1950s). This latest sequel has deteriorated to a circus display of multiple monsters with zero fright factor.

Numerous side plots of aliens, super-heroes beyond martial arts, and a confusing script that bounces all over the place make up "Godzilla: Final Wars." There's so little to hold one's interest in this film. It more closely resembles the mindless electronic games that go on and on with users trying to score points in some way.

I found it hard to watch this film to the end because it was so incoherent and boring. This film may be suited only for those who enjoy electronic games and arcades.

I think there is a tendency with hardcore Kaiju fans to forget that these movies should not be taken so seriously. They are never executed to perfection. There are always plot holes. There is always some sub-par acting. Some of the special effects always look a little weak. Get over it.

I also attended the world premier of Final Wars, and I would say this has to be the most exciting of them all. It takes a very similar sci-fi angle to Godzilla vs. Monster Zero and adds a dash of Matrix stylization while constantly bombarding you with fantastic Kaiju fight scenes.

I am not sure that "Final Wars" will see the same shelf-life as some of the older classic Godzilla flicks due to the fact that it is so action-oriented. This film is definitely not going to get the camp appreciation that so many older films do. However, if you are a Godzilla fan and want to see some absolutely fantastic battles along side an entertaining sci-fi plot, you will really enjoy this film.

My favorite Godzilla movie is the dark, allegorical (and stuffy?) original. So, I didn't really expect to like this film, which was billed as a kung-fu kicking, alien invader-bashing, all-out monster brawl and action epic.

And yet, I kinda enjoyed "Final Wars." It's got that slick, supercool modern style that really annoys me, and it's derivative of about 100 other movies (The Mysterians, Return of the Jedi, The Matrix, older Godzilla flicks, etc). But it's fun stuff. The hero is cool, the heroine is hot, and the action is pretty rockin'.

My only real problem with the movie is that Godzilla has a relatively small role - he shows up in the first scene, only to disappear at length until he's kindly resurrected to kick alien butt.

As you may have heard, Godzilla wastes his opponents very easily in this one, struggling only during his final battle. This is both cool, and boring. I suppose the one-sidedness gets dull after a while, but it's initially fun to see Godzilla take so many monsters to school at one time.

Production-wise, the movie's hit-or-miss. A lot of the monster costumes look silly and nostalgic, but I think that's intentional. The only dud is King Ghidorah, who looks too big and clumsy to be "real" (or even amusingly "unreal"). But the ray beam effects are awesome, and certain sequences look great - particularly the savage battle between a squad of laser-toting humans and Ebirah, the lovable crab-beast.

Anyway, if you like kung fu, and silliness, and Godzilla, you can't miss here. There's no doubt that "Final Wars" is a little disjointed and sloppy - don't the scenes with Minya feel like they belong in another movie? - but it's an entertaining way for Godzilla to bow out, for the time being. I'm sure he'll be back, with or without the kung-fu fighting.

Wow, this movie sure is something. At some parts, if you were to flip through the channels and find this, you would think it's a superb movie. At others, you would not even pay $4 for it. The beginning starts out with a well-executed flashback in the 60's accompanied by nifty metal music. Afterwards, it recaps you on the present (the year 20XX). This is all good, but the following credits (which will be amazing if you don't go blind by it), ripped-off Matrix fight scenes, and corny acting will be sure to make your stomach churn (not to mention the distasteful acting by American Don Fry). When Godzilla finally makes his appearance (an hour into the movie) It is very memorable, and if you like kaiju kick'in the krud out of each other, the rest of the movie won't disappoint. While the movie will most likely push away people that won't even try it, I personally love the movie. Once you get past most the acting, it's great! I suggest watching it subtitled, as dubs tend to ruin the movie. By all means, at least try this movie. It's really fun (and, if your kids can't read the subtitles, and you mute some of Don Fry's scenes, it transforms into a family movie)!

-Zilla-

With all that this film had going for it, it was amazing to see how badly it fell flat on its face. Toho gave its director more freedom than any other in the last 25 years, much more money, a little more time, and all the latest resources...and the result was a classic example of bad film making. I can appreciate that they wanted to take the series in a new direction (although such a decision for the 50th anniversary is debatable). That is not the problem. The main problem is that the director did what he did very badly.

This is the kind of film which is no fun to review, because there is so little good about it that writing feels like a chore. But in summary:

The direction is nearly incomprehensible, the style seeming to change from day to day on the set. The film is like a poser's paradise--rather than drawing performances from the cast, Kitamura seems to concentrate on having everyone pose in a cool way. Never mind that it adds nothing to the story. When faced with a problem in the story, rather than tackle it and resolve in a clever or interesting manner, Kitamura takes the cheap way out time after time. Suspension of disbelief is strained well beyond the already generous bounds that this kind of film receives from the audience with endlessly stupid situations. The cinematography is miserable--the color palette is drained to the level of annoyance, camera movement pretentiously calls attention to itself yet never does anything for the story, endless human fight scenes are unimaginatively staged. Overused martial arts scenes stop the climax dead in its tracks time after time. The direction, as the film itself, is so endlessly derivative, unoriginal, sloppy, and so on...if the director's name had been replaced with a non-Japanese (Roland Emmerich for example), it would likely be savaged by all comers.

The score is unforgettable...because it so ill-fitting. It just drones on without complementing the screen image at all.

What about the monsters, which are what we are here for? Godzilla is all but absent from the first hour, a rather strange move. Effects are several steps below the caliber shown in recent years, and the monsters are almost all constructed so as to emphasize a human shape rather than creating the illusion of a giant beast. Monsters are often lit so that they appear to be just battling silhouettes, and the battles are devoid of much drama as opponents are defeated in a quick and casual manner--where's the fun in that? Much of the effects footage has a distracting grain to it. CG work alternates between passable and the abysmal.

The are some good moments for sure, but they are buried by an endless assault of bad film-making. Nevertheless, the film seems to have some entertainment value as many have enjoyed it, especially among those who like the cheesy aspects of the series. That's OK, as everyone enjoys different things. Some have said that it was intentionally made badly or funny, and that to not accept that is to miss the point. I find it hard to complement bad film-making for any reason--excusing it by saying it was made that way purposely is just the ultimate cop-out for the director to make up for lack of craftsmanship. The films of the 70s were badly made, but mostly because the studio system had been stripped of all its cash and resources, and they were given a directive to imitate kids TV, so it is no surprise that some bad films resulted. But when given sufficient resources, there is no excuse for producing the equivalent of bad 70s film-making.

Welcome to "Godzilla: Final Wars." Now this is what a Japanese kaiju-eiga film should be. The plot is utterly ridiculous (taking its cues from literally hundreds of martial arts movies, 1999's "The Matrix," past G-films, and even the maligned American version of Godzilla) and rolls it all into one big monster bash. It's a party where everybody is invited, even those here in America can be in on the fun.

2004 marked the Big Guy's 50th anniversary and this film was released to commemorate it. "Godzilla: Final Wars" isn't a call for the end of Godzilla, but is a cause for celebration. Many monsters who haven't been seen in over 30 years make their cameos here, and they all get dealt with appropriately by the Big Green Guy. This latest and presumably last entry for a decade or so, is directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (whose work on 2000's "Versus" has not gone completely unnoticed here in the United States), which explains the frenzied kung-fu fighting and all-out monster mayhem. But is it worth it? The answer: yes

This time out, aliens (in a plot that more than resembles 1965's "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero") have come to our planet promising us a stay from an impending apocalypse. We unwisely accept their offer without a whole lot of contemplation but a few individuals due a little investigating and uncover a secret plot to destroy the world. Led by the unnamed and hyperactive adolescent Controller of Planet X (Kazuki Kitamura), they manage to fool us good.

These aliens, known as the Xilians, have secretly captured all of earth's mightiest and most destructive monsters and are using them to decimate the world's major cities. The M Organization, a team of hi-tech mutant humans, is put on the case along with an American captain named Gordon (Don Frye) and an elite M soldier named Ozaki (Masahiro Matsuoka). Realizing they haven't got long before the monsters have won, they conclude they have only one option: free Godzilla from his icy South Pole prison (a spectacular opening sequence highlights this feat) and he will singlehandedly deal with the monsters and the Xilians.

I've been watching Godzilla since I was old enough to collect memorabilia and stage spectacular, imaginary scenes of Japan's (or some other choice city's) destruction. I have also been highly critical of the third generation of "Godzilla" movies, being that the special effects quality has been lacking and the appearance of many unappealing new foes (Megaguirus, anyone?). Here, the filmmakers have made the brilliant choice of going back and searching the annals of Godzilla's history and raiding the baddies from there. I am a little unnerved, however, to see Godzilla battling some of his old allies, but I dismiss this criticism with a wave of the hand - different generation, different monsters, different cause.

Each new monster is given a wicked-cool image makeover (the upgraded cyber-monster Gigan is especially more terrifying) and one may not need to be a buff to know who each monster is. Frenzied martial arts action scenes and monster destruction thrusts the film along at a rapid pace but pick up significantly in the second half (sadly, though, the Big Guy doesn't make his big appearance for at least a good hour), and you've got to sit through plot and minor monsters leveling major cities. (In one hard-to-grasp sequence, M team members manage to take on Ebirah using only rockets and lasers.)

Acting is okay (an achievement in itself for this kind of movie) and dubbing is not a problem anymore since the DVD I watched came with optional English and Japanese audio tracks; Japanese does suffice. The dialogue is somewhat cheesy but I didn't care, I actually respected some of the human characters, particularly the stoic Captain Gordon (another amazing feat for this presumed last entry).

Lastly, the monsters don't disappoint. I can spot them: the Kamacuras (giant praying mantis), the Kumonga (giant spider), King Caesar, Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Hedorah, Minilla, Manda, and even the American Godzilla (named "Zilla") has a brief showdown with Godzilla and is dealt with properly.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" is a proper way for the Big Guy to retire. It's a monster mash, all right, and I wasn't disappointed one bit. For this fond G-fan, "Final Wars" is Godzilla seen as he's meant to be, in a monster mash. I'm hesitant about recommending most "Godzilla" movies to those that don't understand Godzilla or Japanese monster movies as a whole; I don't blame them. However, this is in a category of its own. It may be a movie for anyone with an open mind about them, even if they know nothing about Godzilla. For those with an already dense interest in Godzilla, it's the monster bash they've been waiting for.

10/10

The 2004 movie "Gojira: Fainaru uôzu" (aka "Godzilla: Final Wars") wasn't actually all that bad, and it was definitely in the ranks of one of the better movies in the franchise for some time.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" was actually good entertainment from start to end. At least for the most parts. Certainly, there were some less than mediocre things to the movie, so it wasn't all gold and happy days.

There was a good amount of Kaijus in the movie, most of which were familiar monsters, and even some with some upgrades. So that was nice and had a good feel of familiarity to it.

However, there was just a bit too much going on throughout the course of the movie. Some parts were just a bit too silly for me, and that was working against the movie in my opinion. It felt like director Ryûhei Kitamura was trying to accomplish a little bit too much in terms of what was actually delivered in the movie. And also felt like they wanted to experiment a bit too much in terms of how they could push the boundaries of the "Godzilla" franchise.

The aspect with the Earth Defense Force was just a little bit too comical for me. Especially since they were essentially just people - well mutants, actually - wearing snazzy black outfits and carrying heavy firepower. But for a task force created to take up the fight against Kaijus they seemed horribly underequipped and understaffed.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" was definitely entertaining, but it wasn't the best of the movie in the franchise.

This is the final Godzilla film of the Millennium series, and is supposed to be the final one for at least a decade. Like most of the Godzilla movies in the series, this feature has no continuity and is supposedly not related to any of the other movies in the series.

In this story, evil space aliens called the Xilians unleashed all the Earth's monsters to conquer Earth. Therefore, it is up to Godzilla and the Earth Defense Force (mutant humans with special powers) to vanquish the monsters and aliens to rescue the world. This is the first movie since the Showa series in which Godzilla was depicted as a hero.

A good thing about this film is that it brought back a host of monsters, some that have not appeared in a Godzilla film in decades. The monster line-up: Godzilla, Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra, Manda, Ebirah, Zilla (from Roland Emmerich's U.S. "Godzilla"), Kamacuras, Kumonga, Minya, Hedorah, Gigan, King Seesar, Kaiser-Ghidorah and a new creature called Monster X. One other good aspect of this film is that it provided many homages to past Toho films, including bringing back veteran actors Akira Takarada, Kenji Sahara and Kumi Mizuno, along with actors who appeared in Godzilla films from the Heisei and Millennium series. The movie's introduction showed Godzilla's origin, which paid homage to the original Godzilla film, as well as a prologue of other monsters that attacked Japan before; we are shown scenes from past Toho movies, where we see stocked footage of monsters Titansaurus from "Terror of Mechgodzilla," Gezora from "Yog, Monster from Space," Gaira from "War of the Gargantuas," Varan from "Giant Monster Baran" and Godzilla Jr. from "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah." Even though this movie referenced monsters from past films, it is not connected to them in any way; this movie only referenced them to tell the viewers that many creatures besides Godzilla invaded Japan before. In addition, this film even brought back the Gorath star from the movie "Gorath" (1962), the super submarine from "Atragon" (1963) and the Xilians from "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero" (1965). Other homages included music from Akira Ifukube and Masaru Sato, and the appearance of the Shobijin, Mothra's tiny twin fairies. Wataru Mimura, who wrote the screenplay for "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" (1993), "Godzilla 2000" (1999), "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus" (2000) and "Godzilla X Mechagodzilla" (2002), returned to write the story for this film. Eiichi Asada returned to helm the special effects and he went all out on it. And, this film showed that Godzilla is truly the King of the Monsters; he is a force to be reckon with, battling monster after monster (unlike the previous two films, in which he was portrayed as pretty weak).

While a film with the potential to be one of the best Godzilla movies, this feature was, however, a bit of a disappointment. The directing and plot were rushed through and almost every monster were not given an introduction; they just appeared on cue. Most of the monsters were also given very limited screen time and most of the battles were very short. The city destruction scenes were also very brief. The plot focused too much on the Earth Defense Force human mutants, unfortunately, overshadowing the monster action, and many of their action sequences were overkill - they were rip-offs from "The Matrix." Many of the cast members lack depth and charm, particularly actor Don Fyre's Douglas Gordon character; his personality is out-of-place for a Toho movie. And, the music score was terrible - easily the worst in a Godzilla movie. It is just metallic and techno garbage, nothing like the orchestral scores from composers like Akira Ifukube, Masaru Sato and Michiru Ôshima, who scored Godzilla X Mechagodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. The editing with the monster battle scenes constantly being interrupted by the human fight scenes was distracting. Lastly, the color cinematography was awful - very bland - and some of the special/visual effects, especially the overuse of CGI action in the Matrix-style fights and spaceship battles, were a big departure from the trilogy, making it seem at times you are not watching a Godzilla film, but rather a human vs. space alien B-movie.

This movie, though, still has its memorable moments, considering all the elements of a Godzilla movie are here: monsters, gun battles, aliens, spaceships, city destruction, fleeing citizens, scientists, reporters, military members, islands, city landmarks (Mt. Fuji, Tokyo Tower) and super-weapons. And, the homages to past Godzilla films, the many monsters that appeared and the ending credits montage were awesome.

It is great that so many elements (actors, monsters, homages) came together for Godzilla's 50th anniversary bash. However, I thought director Ryûhei Kitamura crashed the party somewhat.

Grade C-

I just saw this and it was a ton of fun. A great music-video-style update of the classic Godzilla movies with jazzy editing, fast-paced fight scenes and colorful FX. Kind of like what 28 Days Later did for zombie movies -- speed everything up and add a modern, irreverent look and attitude.

It's very much a Kitamura movie. If you liked Versus or Aragami, I think you'd like this too, even if kaiju battles aren't normally your thing.

Of course, if you're an old-school Godzilla purist and just want more of the same, you might not enjoy Final Wars as much as me. That said, there are a lot of in-jokes for fans and plot references to the older movies (particularly Destroy All Monsters).

50th anniversary and last film for at least a decade. This movie really does have it all. That is also its biggest flaw, but still. We have mutant humans, aliens are back, and almost every monster that has ever graced the cinematic screen. The world has united to help fight monsters, which seem to appear all the time. This really goes back to the trashier, but no less fun, entries from the 70's. It was great to see so many monsters, though some of them are dispensed with much too quickly. That was OK in the case of the films major highlight, seeing Godzilla take on Zilla, a monster that looks like the 1998 Hollywood Godzilla. It was a nice little touch for the fans. The film does try too hard to be a bit of everything, such as having a subplot involving a young boy, his grandfather and Minilla, which really goes nowhere. With so many monsters, there is also not much human interaction. This is certainly a great entry in terms of fun.

Simply as a film, GFW is a wretched mess. If I had the movie on tape or disc, and it sat on my shelf, it would be one of the worst movies in my collection. There is no consistency in any element of the film. It isn't at all clear what kind of movie director Ryuhei Kitamura was trying to deliver. It is an uneven mish-mash of sci-fi, action, fantasy, children's movie, kaiju eiga and perhaps even parody. Had he pushed the work more in one direction and forsaken some elements, it might have been a better film.

The special effects in some ways manage to illustrate the problems with the entire movie. They ranged from a very few that were breathtaking and new, to pathetic. More often than not, the awful effects were the result of poor CG or clumsy compositing. This is not new to the Godzilla film, of course, but the sheer amount of overly-ambitious and poorly executed effects left me wondering, 'If you didn't have the time, money or skill to do it, then why do it?'

The acting is almost uniformly mediocre and unconvincing, even from Toho veterans such as Akira Takarada as U.N. Secretary General Daigo and Kumi Mizuno as EDF Commander Namikawa. Kazuki Kitamura as the evil Xilien Commander easily turns in the best (if not over-the-top) performance, and delivers the best line in the movie.

The biggest weakness other than the lack of direction is the story itself. Whether one takes the approach to film that a story should follow a traditional structure of introduction, protagonist, conflict, resolution, etc., or that the rules can be broken to tell a story in a more compelling fashion, GFW fails either way. The story simply throws too many components into what could have been a rather straightforward story. Elements and ideas are introduced, often out of the blue without reasonable explanation, and sometimes abandoned for no reason at all.

The best example of this is Neo's, um, I mean Ozaki's development into The One, um, I mean his full potential as 'a Kaiser'. The Shobijin have told him earlier that there will come a time when he will have great power, and must choose between evil and good. When the time comes, however, it is not Ozaki that makes the choice, but rather love interest Miyuki (Rei Kikukawa) and the deus ex machina use of the Shobijin amulet.

Speaking of which, how many unoriginal ideas can Kitamura and co-writer Isao Kiriyama introduce into a single movie? Quite a few apparently. The entire MATRIX TRILOGY is covered quite well in GFW, both in terms of visuals and what passes for character development. As already mentioned, Ozaki is roughly the equivalent of Neo. The 'Burly Brawl' of MATRIX RELOADED is duplicated in 'lite' form as EDF Instructor Kumasaka (Masakatsu Funaki) takes on the converted M-force. Similarities to INDEPENDENCE DAY, ALIENS, and X-MEN were already expected, but nothing can prepare you for the horror of the 'tribute' to RETURN OF THE JEDI when Kazama (Caine Kosugi) makes his final run on the Death Star. These moments were not taking something familiar and giving them an original twist. It was copy and paste laziness.

The score by Keith Emerson was, like everything else, all over the place. It often sounded like cheap synth music from a CASIO or straight-to-video films of the eighties, composed by a John Carpenter wannabe. Fortunately, I could console myself that the film opened briefly with Godzilla's theme from KING KONG VS GODZILLA (over an old 'Tohoscope' banner no less!), and cues from Masaru Satoh's SON OF GODZILLA (Minilla's theme) and GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA make brief, if strange, appearances. Other music such as popular tunes by SUM41 and others are dropped into action sequences to good effect, though they often seemed to end abruptly.

'But wait,' you are probably saying to yourself at this point. 'This is a Godzilla film. Stop talking about your CITIZEN KANE scale expectations, and tell me about the monsters!' Of course. After all, it's not unprecedented for a Godzilla film to fail on one or more of the above counts (MEGALON and GIGAN come to mind). I giggled in delight at the opening sequence with the original Goten and Godzilla. Favorites such as Manda, Gigan and Anguirus are certainly seen as never before, and the scene with the EDF battling Ebirah was great. The initial invasions of the kaiju are generally well-executed, albeit brief. And that's my problem with all of the monster action: it is so very short, and beyond the first 20 minutes, it is poorly integrated into the rest of the story. Although the concept of the King of Monsters, so powerful he takes out enemies with one punch, may sound good on paper, it leaves a lot to be desired when it actually happens within seconds. Even the final battle is anti-climactic, and falls victim to yet another out-of-the-blue plot device that left this viewer feeling cheated.

When it comes out on DVD, I'll get it, but I doubt I ever sit through the entire film again more than once. With 27 other, better Godzilla films, why would I?