Revue of the American Godzilla:2000 Movie
Review of GODZILLA 2000
This movie has been given many benefits by Tristar: big opening, all first-run cinemas, good job with tv ads. It's obvious that they want a continuing partnership with Toho on this long standing film series. I just wish they would trust the quality of an already-finished product and stop tinkering with it. Although I haven't seen the japanese version, I can see it's been clearly altered. Scenes missing to better explain the alien presence, Original music switched for soundtracks of the other Hesei entries. Worst of all, the voices of the beasts were replaced; it was G'98's roar !?! I'm very sure this movie could have stood on it's own... so, why?
I did think the father/daughter relationship worked well... heck, the kid stole the first 40 minutes! The (sorta) bad guy seems to have been the inspiration for half the drawn villains in japanimation since VOLTRON. Most of the other characters were meaningless. No reprise of Miss Megumi, no G-Force, no Particle beam weapons by the army and no link to any of the other films. Those points really hurt this movie. The worst thing I suspect a trade took place; Tristar could remake Godzilla in '98, so Toho remade Independance Day in '99 (japan's release year for this flick). Let's see... huge space ship hovers over city, uses computers for evil plan, big death beam.. yep, that's it! Add to that some bad matte scenes and scale problems with digital editing, and that's the first hour of this movie.
On the plus side...
* The army fight scenes are stepped up a digital notch: great jet sequences and animated missles make for a safer guy in the rubber suit, and a military force that looks like they can hit something!
* The suit... while I'm not too crazy over the bigger smile, makes him more menacing and bad. They ain't makin no kiddie movie with THIS Big "G"!!!
* The opponant Orga (never named in the movie). His ferocity is reminesant of Biollante, and his abilities make for a fairly balanced match. Good effects for his regeneration scenes.
* The last 40 minutes: great fight scenes and big finish.
Over all... While it would be okay to see as a matinee or rental, I'd really prefer to pop-in any of his last 5 movies Tristar has released in the US. I've heard that the next movie skips this one entirely... good move. As a die-hard fan whose waited 15 years for his return to the american big screen, I say "let's get back to business!".
GODZILLA '98
The major problem I see with this movie is that I don't understand why they wasted the name Godzilla on it. It wasn't Godzilla. It was a different creature all-together. The only similarity is how the opening sequence showed an attack on a japanese vessel; The original and the '85 movies used this tact. It was an okay story... two if you count the Mathew Broderick "My life Sucks" side plot. A bit overloaded with the effects at times. But why try to grab legions of fans (who would have seen the flick regardless) by insulting their favorite icon?
This is why I have continued to refer to the movie as The GORGO remake. It is closer to that than any of the Godzilla movies or ideas. It's about a menacing creature that attacks a great city to defend it's young. GORGO! No atomic breath, no great cultures honor challenged, no aliens or dangerous opponant, no compelling need to see the monster win and survive.
So... since it wasn't REALLY a Godzilla Movie, there's no need to really continue this revue!
Remo
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