Hot on the heels of the American Godzilla release, there were calls for Toho to bring the Big G back to life, even though it had only been three years since his swan song battle against Destoroyah. The studio approached the idea with the goal of crafting a new and unique take on the traditional mythos, rebooting the series once again to ignore every entry but the original ’54 film (get used to that, it’s gonna happen a few more times in this stretch of films). The result was Godzilla 2000, the first Toho-produced Godzilla movie that played in my local theatres in my lifetime. I distinctly remember the ads in the papers (yup, kids, the newspapers used to tell us of the showtimes back in the day), but I was unfortunately unable to see the thing before it left cinemas. Then it would be a few more years until my later college days, when I was finally able to watch it. Something tells me I would have liked it when I was younger.
Dual discoveries are made by scientific teams in this film: one uncovers the genetic secret behind Godzilla’s regenerative abilities, the other finds a Mesozoic-era UFO beneath the waves. As it turns out, the latter is keen on learning about Godzilla, so it sets out to do just that, sucking up (the film’s words, not mine) all of the computer data it can get its figurative hands on. When pressed into battle with the King of the Monsters, the UFO transforms into what it hopes to be something of a Godzilla clone, but it doesn’t turn out quite right, degenerating slightly into the creature we know today as Orga. Insert kaiju battle here.
Apparently a sequel was being planned, to be directed by Joe Dante (of Gremlins fame, among other noteworthy efforts), but the funding fell through. Damn, do I wish we could’ve gotten a Joe Dante-helmed Godzilla picture! Oh well.
Gotta say, this is the first time I’m seeing this since college, and though I can’t remember that screening (for once I don’t blame booze, but rather my own half-hearted interest: I was probably playing FreeCell the whole time, as I was wont to do then), I can easily say I hated the film this time around. I’m gonna give the horrendous dub a minor pass this time, ‘cause pretty much any dub would suck, but I will still say that this dub was really, really poor. The script is loaded with broader humor than usual (something just for the North American audience, as Japan got a longer, ostensibly more plodding version, so I’d say we both lost), and most of the characters are barely fleshed out. The acting oscillates between overblown and undercooked, with Abe Hiroshi doing some heavy amounts of eye acting as the head of a more corporate scientific concern and Suzuki Mayu showing us why good child actors are hard to come by (you could hear the woodenness through the dub!).
The worst aspect, though, is the realm of visual effects. Holy hell, what happened!? The compositing has been pretty shoddy throughout the Heisei era, but the Millennium Period (as this new era is known) starts out by taking things to a new level of trash. None of the composite shots look good, and the green-screening is painfully obvious whenever it’s employed (there are even times when non-green-screened objects look artificially added, and that’s never a good thing). The series’ first use of CGI outside of diegetic computer models is here in all of its dated-at-the-time glory, and it seems as though Japan learned nothing about digital effects from Hollywood over the past two decades. Hell, the overall film quality is pretty poor, reminding me of early-‘90s Hong Kong action flicks, complete with film grime and whatnot, despite the digital remaster the film supposedly got for the disc-based releases.
This was the hardest sit yet for me, honestly. Funnily enough, the next entry is the only Millennium Era installment I can directly remember watching, and I remember being bored by it. Joy. Stay tuned regardless, kids, ‘cause there’s still something to be said and learned, and, hey, who knows, maybe a rewatch will improve the film’s standing in my eyes. Anything’s possible.
Allusions of Grandeur 