Godzilla: Final Wars

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 !

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!

For those who love to see Godzilla as the true, unstoppable King of Monsters, GFW is a true return to form. Godzilla has never seemed stronger, or been portrayed as more of a force to be reckoned with. However, it is this, and only this that seems to find familiar ground with the rest of the series.

Godzilla:Final Wars is a drastic and puzzling step in a different direction for the Godzilla franchise. While TOHO should be given credit for being willing to take their creation and franchise in a different direction, they should also be more careful in the manner to which they do so.

Godzilla: Final Wars feels like many different movies in one, and by this I do not mean any of the films to which it owes it's inspiration. At times, the film feels like it is a pure action take on the King of Monsters. At other times, it feels like it is an exercise in camp excess. But it is these two varying points that makes Godzilla: Final Wars both hard to classify, and hard to comprehend. The film suffers from not having a set mood, or set atmosphere for the viewer to really settle into. The plot and atmosphere simply take too many turns too many times for the viewer to get comfortable with the film.

I won't go into too many plot details, as I don't want to ruin the film or any of it's points for those who have yet to see it. But briefly, this film takes a cue from the Godzilla films of the Showa era and brings back the Xilians, once again bent on world domination.

GFW features a huge all star cast of kaiju. However, the shear number of kaiju may be impressive, their appearances are not always of the same result. Kaiju such as Hedorah, King Seesar, and yes Minilla are sorely out of place in this film, or if nothing else, sorely misused. While I applaud Ryuhei Kitamura for casting a kaiju all star cast, I feel that fewer monsters would have sufficed had they been given more screen time, and stayed a little truer to form.

However some of the films kaiju make truly great returns, most notably Rodan, Angillas, and most importantly..Gigan. These three monsters are my personal favorites in Godzilla Final Wars. Rodan looks better than ever, and while the monsters screen time and fight time are limited, it makes a fantastic impact during a scene in NYC. Angillas, a long time favorite of so many GFAN's, is given his respect in GFW. The monsters new design is fantastic, and the kaiju maintains its beloved fighting spirit and comes complete with some new tricks to boot. However, it is Gigan that steals the show. Gigan returns to the Godzilla franchise, and in many respects does so in the wrong forum. This Gigan deserved a chance to face Godzilla in it's own movie. The new design is amazing, sleek and deadly, with new weapons, and old weapons never before seen.

Overall, Godzilla Final Wars is an entertaining film, but it is certainly not the best of the Millennium Series, nor the best movie it could have been given the talent and resources at it's disposal. The film is an interesting take on the Godzilla franchise, but note the farewell that the Big G deserves. If TOHO were smart, they would allow Godzilla his time away from the screen, and take some of their newly revamped kaiju and give them their chances at real screen time in some new adventures.

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 ...

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.