Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Year: 2004
Country: Japan
Alternate Titles: Gojira: Fainaru uôzu
Genre: Kaiju
Plot:
Following a training exercise, a submarine captain finds that his crew is reassigned due to his reckless behavior. After one of the crew, a mutant, finds himself bodyguarding a UN doctor on her trip to a nearby dig site, they discover a biological link to the beings and the race of kaiju living on the planet. Soon, all of the major cities of the world are attacked by the giant monsters and when the Defense Forces appear outmatched are dispatched by Xillian aliens who have come to befriend and warn humanity of an impending planet's collision with Earth. Not completely trusting the aliens' message, they look into what's going on and find out the aliens are using the monsters in a ruse to overtake the world forcing them to break out their former captain and set off to free the imprisoned Godzilla to battle the monsters for control of Earth.
Review:
This here is an enjoyable if somewhat flawed entry. One of the film's high points is some very fun and energetic Action film standards and situations thrown into a monster movie which make it even more fun. The incorporation of the mutants and their enhanced abilities allows them to be portrayed with lots of martial arts showcases which are all highly enjoyable and entertaining. From the brief scenes like the warm-up exhibition match or unearthing the conspiracy at the U.N. Officer’s office or the big scenes such as the control of the mutants against the others or the final fight on the ship which is a multi-staged effort that mixes in CGI, wire-fu, gunplay, and more into an explosive sequence that not only has a lot of action but suits the story very well. Other big action scenes include the high-speed motorcycle chase along the deserted highway which contains some very cool stunt work and some fun ideas together into a very enjoyable sequence, and there’s the amazing sequence of the entire crew fighting the giant lobster on foot at the chemical plant which features some outstanding special effects to make the humans interact with the giant monster, the gunplay involved is a lot of fun, and the frenetic, chaotic nature of the scene with it’s bountiful explosions, wanton destruction, and fun style allow for it to be one of the film’s highlights.
As well, there’s a lot of fun delivered on the monster side here with plenty of time to showcase them. This has various rampages across the world’s cities, especially the extended scenes such as Rodan in New York or Anguirus in Shanghai being the best since they’re the longest and most involved with other factors. The majority of the monster battles, although some might be brief, are a lot of fun and filled with some fun choreography and exciting moments, such as the battle at the South Pole upon Godzilla’s resurgence and the battle at the oil refinery. As well, special mention is to be made of the final fight in Tokyo, which is simply amazing in every detail as the fight is non-stop action, both monsters get plenty of chances to display their skills, and the enemy monster being an obvious Ghidora ripoff with the three heads and wings, provides Godzilla with enough of a battle that he appears outmatched until humanity intervenes. This is a lot of fun and mixes together well intercutting with the kung-fu fighting and laser battles on the control ship at the same time to leave everything a grand highlight. This is all nicely augmented by the film’s generally impressive special effects with great-looking costumes for the main monsters, fantastic miniature work for the city destruction and rampage scenes, as well as some nifty CGI at times to provide the film with a lot of positives.
This one had some severe flaws to it, though thankfully all of them are simple to understand their placement here. The biggest and most obvious is the extreme length as there’s very little to justify the two-hour running time here. This is mainly due to how long it takes for the ruse to be uncovered as the secret plan of the aliens is given way too much time in the first half as the investigation gets carried along quite slowly despite the obvious trickery making for some really dragged-out parts in the opening. This then means that the monster battles, quite possibly the main reason to see this one, are rendered especially brief and barely worthwhile in the end, as the jungle confrontation, the seaside battle, and the Australian encounter all attest to being. These are so brief that there’s very little enjoyment to be had from them, which is quite a contrast from the three-on-one battle scene that’s long enough to be fun but there’s so much cheese to be found in it that it clashes with the serious tone of the rest of the movie. There’s also little point in including Mothra in this one as it’s shoehorned into the film to get an appearance regardless of the connection to the other films, it doesn’t do much when she’s added in and is part of an overabundance of cringy CGI the rest of the film features when it’s not used sparingly which end up looking quite bad. These are the film’s problem areas.
Overview: **/5
A likable if somewhat flawed effort overall, it has some fun times but comes off with more than a few issues centered around the same drawback which overwhelms the positive points feature here. Those who are fine with these drawbacks, who are general fans of the series, or are just curious about it will have the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution.
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