Godzilla 2000

aka Gojira ni-sen mireniamu

1999

Starring
Takehiro Murata as Professor Yuji Shinoda
Hiroshi Abe as Mitsuo Katagiri
Naomi Nishida as Yuki Ichinose
Mayu Suzuki as Io Shinoda
Shirô Sano as Professor Shiro Miyasaka
Directed by Takao Okawara

The first of the Godzilla Millennium Series of films, where all previous continuity was thrown out again, and writers were allowed to make things however they bloody well wanted. This was also the first Godzilla film produced after the horrifying 1998 US Godzilla, with Matthew Broderick and the most useless giant monster ever. So, it was with great joy that in 1999 Toho made their own Godzilla film, to make up for the terrible, terrible mistake they made in letting that moron Emmerich get his grubby mitts on their franchise. Now, when Godzilla 2000 premiered in theaters, I dragged my best friend and off we went, opening night. A grand total of eight people were in the audience, including 7 with Y-chromosomes (one guy managed to bring his girlfriend as well as his best friend.) The low theater count was an omen of things to come, as the following 90 minutes of mediocrity were less than a satisfying evening. Still, it was more enjoyable than Emmerich’s effort, but then so is soaking your genitalia in boiling cooking oil!

Godzilla 2000 featured a revamped Godzilla costume, and the first fully CGI Gojira Godzilla during some swimming scenes. Thankfully, all the rest of the shots are full man in suit. G2K also features some neat composite shots, with zooms and background renders, that really puts Godzilla in a real-world environment. He looks more like he’s really in the background or in the cities in this film than any before it. Sadly, the people plot is uninteresting, and the villain is even more uninteresting. Orga, the evil monster who doesn’t even get his named mentioned on screen, first shows up as a spaceship before he turns into a goofy jellyfish, then finally some freaked out version of Godzilla. Many of the opponents of Big G have evolving forms, especially in the Heisei and Millennium Series of films. But many of them also suck, thus why Toho played it safe for the last Millennium films and went with tried and true monsters.

The casts are some of the most important parts of the films, and even if they are dubbed you can still gauge the strength or weakness of their acting. The cast here is filled with several actors who are better than the roles they have been stuck with. Toho decided to have some fun with the dubbing, the American version makes several scenes more embarrassing, even altering the perception of some of the characters and the actors playing them. The worst line in G-History will be uttered later in the film, so stay tuned!
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