Sean Newgent One of the facets I enjoy about the Godzilla franchise is the campy practical effects. Miniatures abound; eventually exploding or crumbling in glorious fashion. In this film, what I recall was meant to be an apology for the American travesty of a film starring Matthew Broderick, JPEGs and green screens clash with terrible CG in one of the ugliest Godzilla productions I've ever seen. Godzilla faces off against a weird UFO very reminiscent of the T-1000 and the battle for Tokyo is pretty unenjoyable purely because of how dumb it looks, even for Godzilla. That doesn't make this a campy delight nonetheless. If only for the shock and schlock value of the special effects should you come to this film. The story is a mess, the villain is unmemorable, and you'll leave it thinking "eh, it was a Godzilla movie".

Hitchcoc I found this 1999 offering to be quite a nice piece of work. I was prepared to see the same old same old, and in some sense, it is. But the producers of this film decided that there needed to be a little more of a human story, a little more plot. The issues here are the scientists versus the megalomaniacs who see intent on destroying the big fellow. As they try to understand him, a gigantic rock emerges from the ocean floor. It is sheltering an ancient space ship/flying saucer. The amazing advancements in science become apparent. The problem is that like "Independence Day," these guys are up to no good. They confront Godzilla and defeat him for the time being. He is resilient and his cells begin to regenerate. Meanwhile, the military does its all out thing to destroy this. We know they are in trouble when the most advanced weaponry is useless against Godzilla and the new kids on the block. There is a sort of sappy story where three researchers become the focus, but the special effects and the general presentation dominate. There is a really cool final scene too.

SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain Not the best start to a new series of Godzilla movies, but it'll do. It did have some work to do after the shitstorm that was the American Godzilla. It mostly makes up for that. We get a guy in a suit, looking better than ever. The film also brings us some CGI, with a wonderfully dodgy looking spaceship. I praise this film for not holding back on its imagination. I wish people would stay away from the American dubs. I've never seen one, and I've enjoyed the series thoroughly. This film had everything I'd come to expect, but seemed scared of being too outlandish. Hiroshi Abe also ruined a lot of the movie by having ONE look. Was it fear? Was it determination? Was it confusion? I'll never know.

rhinocerosfive-1 Oddly enough, this picture references two Stanley Kubrick movies: a trigger-happy general quotes STRANGELOVE'S Buck Turgidson on casualty estimates (at least in the American dub), and from certain angles the silver spaceship strongly resembles the genital sculpture with which Alex commits murder in CLOCKWORK ORANGE. I'm no purist, but I like GODZILLA 2000 because it's the same as it ever was. Like that beer from the glass-lined tanks of Old Latrobe, Godzilla movies are a vaguely unsatisfying commodity. With Rolling Rock, you have to put up with watery taste, lack of kick and flatulent hangover. With Godzilla, you must endure the insipid reporter, precocious child and idiotic dialog. But Rolling Rock will eventually get you drunk, and if you wait long enough Godzilla will stomp Tokyo.For my money this is the best Godzilla suit design - the villainous, toothsome saurian head is a vast improvement over the cuddly teddy bear of the 60s and 70s, and the body is significantly more athletic. We don't need a comic Ali shuffle anymore to convey the Lizard King's agility, because he no longer looks like he might fall over just out of awkwardness. And the flaming halo around his mouth before he breathes fire is a very nice touch. What's remarkable is that the special effects for these films didn't change much for almost fifty years. After this one, the Toho movies started using a lot of CGI, which is okay with me; but this is mostly old school, models and practicals on wires, with the computer effects reserved for energy blasts and morphing. 2000 has a marginally more sophisticated greenscreen technique than most of its predecessors, and a big enough budget to knock down a variety of structures without repeating itself. In fact this late entry is one of my favorites as far as exploding miniatures are concerned. The sets are complicated and intricate and look great on fire. The scenes of rampage and of battle are well-photographed and nicely edited. One questionable leap forward is the footage of real tanks spliced with shots of those wonderful plastic toys. Unfortunately, this movie lacks the surreal absurdity of the old Toho B-plots. The space invaders aren't arbitrarily simian; nobody falls in love with a cyborg; there are no doll-sized Okinawan Andrews Sisters. Also, Godzilla's new clothes seem to have sucked up the money the older movies spent on a stable of rubber foes - Godzilla fights only one enemy here, not counting the Japanese people, and it's not much of a fight. As Naomi Nishida says, "Boy, that's ironic. It woke up after 60 million years, and then Godzilla destroyed it the very next day."But for the first time in awhile, Godzilla is not your friend. After the original movie, he spent two decades inexplicably protecting humanity while we shot at him; this Godzilla is a mysterious threat not looking to do us any favors. Here, he brings down a meddling Interior Minister (another CLOCKWORK ORANGE reference?), then systematically burns the city over credits. Kind of like Alex after he wakes up from enforced politeness, Godzilla is ready to cause trouble again.