Countdown To Godzilla: Godzilla Final Wars (2004) Review

     We are only 21 days until Godzilla's release and today we're looking at the 28th and final Toho Godzilla film to be made, Godzilla: Final Wars.  2004 was coming up which would mark the 50th anniversary of the original Godzilla film and Toho decided that it was time to give the big guy a rest and send him out in the grandest fashion they could, pitting him against as many of his old enemies as possible.

     Here's the plot: So countless wars and environmental acts have caused several kaiju to surface, making the planet join forces and making the Earth Defense Force, which also recruits people with super-human abilities.  Godzilla has been pinned down in the South Pole by armed forces and a Gotengo (a cross between a blimp, battleship and submarine) manages to trap Godzilla in the ice with the help of an earthquake.  Fast forward forty years where several kaiju appear at once and begin devastating various cities around the globe.  Gotengos are dispatched worldwide to combat the monsters but the creatures suddenly disappear.  Turns out they've been taken by aliens who claim to be here to help Earth, but the central cast's doubts reveal the visitors' true nature: to conquer the planet and harvest humans like cattle.  With the fate of the world in their hands, our heroes must awaken Godzilla in order to stand a chance against the aliens.

And y'know, not die in the process...

 

      Okay, so there's a bit to talk about with this movie.  If Toho wanted Godzilla to go out with a bang, this was a pretty loud one.  Godzilla's design is one of the best, updating the look of the creature but still staying true to the original design and even using the original colors, unlike the Godzilla 2000 design (which I still like), and uses the same roar as G2K, which is my personal favorite roar (you can hear the evolution of the roar here).

     Are there other monsters to fight?  As you can tell by the poster and my earlier comment, damn right there are!  Looking at the villain roster in this movie is like looking at a band's greatest hits album and they all have updated looks.  The villains are Rodan, Anguirus, King Caesar, Gigan (probably the best design update in the movie), Kamacuras, Hedorah, Ebirah, Kumonga, a new creature named Monster X and Zilla (I'll elaborate more on his appearance later on).  The kaiju Manda, Milla (aka Minya) and Mothra also make appearances but do not actually clash with Godzilla.  When these creatures are on screen, they mostly look great and not surprisingly, these are the best parts of the movie.

     Okay, so how about the parts with the people?  Usually Godzilla movies are more about the people than the monster(s) and this one is no exception.  The stuff involving the people isn't bad, but it's not great either.  Probably the character that stands out the most is the alien leader, who looks like a cross between Dante from the The Devil May Cry remake and Neo from The Matrix.  After killing his superior officer (who looks suspiciously like George Takei), he takes control of the alien army and cuts the subtle invasion bullshit.  However, he's a little childlike for humor's sake, throwing a fit whenever Godzilla defeats one of his monsters (even calling Zilla a "tuna head.")  The rest of the cast is fairly archetypical with your good intentioned male lead, cute scientist female lead, tough as nails captain (who is the only main character who speaks English sans dubbing, even in the original Japanese version), etc etc.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the runtime for the film had been cut down a bit because when the film clocks in at two hours, mediocre human material just isn't going to cut it and it in many of these parts doesn't feel like you're watching a Godzilla movie.  At least when you see these characters, they're usually in some kind of battle and it is more interesting than the last Godzilla film we looked at.

*sigh* If only it were this cool...

 

     Alright, the only things that really annoy me with this movie involve Zilla.  Not the fact that he's in the movie period, but just how Toho treated it.  When you see Zilla, he's never a guy in a suit, only CGI and rather poor CGI at that.  He's not the only creature who is CG'd in this movie but it seems like when they came to animating Zilla, the digital effects team just phoned it in out of spite making Zilla look worse here than he did in his own movie.  Would've been nice if just a little more effort was put into it.

     Also, one of the main hypes surrounding this movie was, "Hey, guess what?!  The Japanese Godzilla is going to fight the American Godzilla!"  When I first heard that, I was like, "Sweet!  The Japanese one is totally going to win but that's gonna be an awesome fight!"  Oh, how wrong I was...

     "Disappointment" doesn't even begin to describe how I still feel about this scene.  First off, why Sum 41?  Sure, I know it's one of their crunchier songs, but it just seems like an odd choice.  Second off, what a cop out fight.  I know that Godzilla is much more powerful than Zilla and all that, but they weren't even trying with this part.  This is what a lot of fans wanted to see and Toho just went, "It's Zilla *SPLAT* Next."  This really should've been the final fight of the movie instead of (spoilers) Monster X turning into Ghidorah.  Ghidorah is physically Godzilla's greatest foe, not to mention one of the most popular so I understand why he was on last but stop and think about it: did Ghidorah try to take Godzilla's identity by being in a horrible movie with his name plastered all over it and leave a horrid inkblot on his legacy?  No, but Zilla did.  Zilla tried to take the name "Godzilla" from its owner.  I don't know about you but I'd take that shit pretty personally.  Final Wars' finale should have been once Ghidorah was defeated, Godzilla would be weakened by the fight with Milla rushing up to comfort him.  However, Zilla leaps out of Tokyo Bay and knocks Milla aside, landing a good sideswipe on Godzilla in the process.  After landing a few clawings and bites, maybe even clawing one of his eyes and drawing blood on Godzilla, Zilla turns his attention to Milla.  Milla attempts to fight back, but Zilla is too fast and strong for him.  Hearing his son's squeals for help, Godzilla goes into a berserker rage, pulls Zilla off of Milla and throws him through a few buildings by his tail.  The two continue to trade blows but Godzilla gets the upper hand and beats Zilla to a bloody lifeless pulp, not even relying on his atomic breath.  Milla, as well as any survivors, watch in awe as Godzilla, covered in both his blood and Zilla's, stands triumphant over his enemy's body and lets out the loudest victory roar the world has ever heard, forever cementing him as the true Godzilla.

     Alas, that will never happen although we did get a much better Godzilla/Zilla fight in the IDW comic Godzilla: Rulers Of Earth (it ends in a draw, though).  That being said, I for the most part enjoy Final Wars because while it may run a little too long, it was a great way to send the king off into a ten year break.  If you like giant monster mayhem, I'd say give this one a shot.

     Well, that's the last Godzilla movie to review before the new one.  Check back next time when we look at the found footage kaiju film, Cloverfield.

 

     -The Cynic

Quick Blurb Review: Men In Black III

Okay, giving Movie Maker a break so I can write this one.  Men In Black is one of those movies that just takes me back and it seemed to have just the right balance of everything.  The humor was great, the performances were spot on, the effects were impressive and it didn't overstay its welcome (by the time the final climax rolls around, it only feels like you're 45 minutes in).  All in all, Men In Black kicked ass and had it not come out the same year as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, it probably would've been my favorite movie of 1997.  Five years later and we get the sequel, Men In Black II, which was a total mess.  The effects were sub-par, the humor was obnoxious if not non-existant and when Rosario freakin' Dawson can't save your movie in my eyes, you know you're doing something wrong!  Suffice to say, when Men In Black III was announced, I was fairly indifferent about it.  Sure, I'd watch it, but after Men In Black II, there was NO WAY I was seeing this one in theatres.  No siree.

Josh Brolin as Young Agent K.  One of the more entertaining bits about the movie.

Well, a friend of ours loaned us an advance copy of this movie so we could watch it in the comfort of our own home without paying for it.  So how was it?  Well, I want to get the most blatant thing out of the way: Men In Black III was better than Men In Black II.  I understand that achieving that particular feat may not be that hard but at least I can rest easy knowing that I've told you people that.  The story of Men In Black III follows the miraculously aging-resistant Agents K (Tommy Lee Jones) and J (Will Smith) as they find out that an alien super criminal named Boris The Animal (Tim Cur-uh, I mean Jermaine Clement...yeah, the guy with glasses from Flight Of The Concords) has escaped from the lunar prison designed specifically for him.  K admits that he should've killed Boris when he had the chance.  When J tries to question further into the story, K suspends him to...I dunno.  When J goes to talk to him the next day, he finds that K's apartment is occupied by a single mother of three.  Also, J has an oddly spontaneous craving for chocolate milk.  When J begins asking around, he's told that K has been dead for 40 years and that Earth will soon be under invasion by Boris' race, whom J read the night before that they were extinct.  J tracks down a tech guy who sold Boris a time-traveling device the other night and is given the same thing, just as Boris' race arrives and begins laying waste to the major cities of the world (very Mass Effect 3-y).  J jumps back in time to the day before Agent K (now Josh Brolin) was killed.  Despite the fact that the tech guy said that J has to stay away from K, they end up working together to stop not one, but two Boris' from destroying the world.

"Hey, it's Tim Curry!  This movie was already worth-what?  What do you mean?  Get outta here, that's totally Tim Curry...isn't it?  It ISN'T?!"

Alright, so the plot sounds like the episode of the animated series "The Head Trip Syndrome," where J tinkers with alien technology and becomes immune to the changes of the space-time continuim around him.  That's okay, because the animated series was great and having a time travel theme is somewhat fan servicing of itself.  There's definitely good things about MIB3, no doubt.  Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith fit perfectly back into their roles that they haven't touched in 10 years and as I mentioned earlier, haven't aged a day since the last movie.  Jermaine Clement hides himself so well that I was 100% convinced that it was actually Tim Curry playing Boris.  I don't know if it was some kind of electronic effect or if he was able to do that himself with his voice, but rest assured if Tim Curry ever dies, Jermaine Clement can fill in for him because he sounded and acted just like him in this movie.  The same can be said for Josh Brolin as a younger Tommy Lee Jones, spot on impression and very entertaining all around.  Sadly, there's no Agent Z (Rip Torn) or Frank The Pug in this movie, although in MIB2, Frank kinda overstayed his welcome, much like The Worm Guys.

"Okay, there's been too many mentions of the previous film in this review, so if everyone can please focus your attention here..."

Oooo, shiny.  Anyway, MIB3 turned out to be that break in my string of films watched as of late where I watched a movie that I didn't REALLY like.  Don't get me wrong, MIB3 was enjoyable but overall it ranks as a mere "okay."  The first little bit of the film did feel too much like...like...it's like its been wiped from my mind, but you guys probably know what I mean, although it wasn't nearly as obnoxious this time around.  When the film introduces this prophet-esque character Griffin that can see multiple universes at the same time, I had a hard time following his babbling, leading me to wonder what universe we were actually in.  The past bits were more entertaining than the present ones, but this movie still didn't capture the entertainment value of the first one and with the wideish time window between films, I can't help but wonder if this movie was made more as a cash grab and less of a "hey, you know what the public wants?  Another Men In Black movie."  I'm honestly glad I didn't see this one in the theatre because I'm not convinced it would've been worth the trip.  If you're feeling ambitious, check it out.  If not, stick with the first Men In Black film because you're not missing anything extravagant.

Oh, and THIS prick does the Men In Black III theme song instead of Will Smith.  Yeah, friggin' criminal.

One last thing I wanna point out is the involvement of 3D.  My feelings on 3D have been expressed time and time again and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I've gotta mention it here.  Men In Black III was clearly filmed for 3D instead of being converted in post production and that really hurts the movie special effects wise when you watch it in 2D.  The worst ones are during the climax of the film during the shuttle launch and it's hard to immerse yourself in the movie when everything around the actors looks like a really bad green screen effect.  It boggles me that with the special effects technology available today that we can raise the Titanic (only to sink it again), have shapeshifting cybernetic lifeforms change their looks right before your eyes, bring the damn dinosaurs back to life and create worlds we never even knew existed (as a start), yet we can't polish shots of a movie from 3D to 2D to make them more convincing?  I sincerely hope that someone in the effects business is working on this because if most, possibly all, genre movies are going to be made with 3D in their future, then the conversion process REALLY needs work because not everyone is going to see a made-for-3D movie in that format.  Shouldn't a film look just as good at home as it did in the theatre?  If this issue isn't addressed, then I see a future where films with very bleak special effects crowd our DVD shelves because someone couldn't be bothered to make sure that a film looked impressive and fluent in all available formats instead of focusing on just the one.  That'd be a damn shame and you know it.

-The Cynic