Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah finished off the 1990s "Hesei" period for the giant radioactive dinosaur in a grand way.  It was not only one of the best movies of that era, but one of the best Godzilla films period.  It still had some corniness but, in many ways, brought back some of the horror that had been missing since Toho decided to make the big guy more family friendly.

It was good enough that Toho was happy to give Tri-Star Pictures a chance to make their own trilogy of American Godzilla films, with the plan being that the next Japanese one would show up in 2004 for the 50th anniversary of the original Godzilla.  The problem was, instead of hiring someone who was a fan of the Japanese films and had grown up watching them on Saturday mornings, they hired Roland Emmerich.  Emmerich is German, and Godzilla films were not something he was too familiar with, nor did it turn out to be something he particularly liked.  He had ideas, not all of them bad, but he still spent a good bit of the movie trying to get revenge on Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel for their negative reviews of Independence Day.  

The result was that Godzilla, though not a financial failure, did nothing to dissuade critics of Emmerich and upset actual fans of the series.  The resulting blowback made it impossible to get the planned sequels financed.  In the absence of those Toho decided it needed to redeem its property and rush a real Godzilla film out as quickly as possible.  The result was Godzilla 2000: Millennium. 

Prof. Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his daughter Io (Mayu Suzuki) are the core of the Godzilla Prediction Network.  With reporter Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida) in tow hoping to get some pictures they do manage to see the creature, albeit a bit too close.  Shinoda begins to realize that, for whatever reason, Godzilla (Tsutomu Kitagawa) hates any attempts by humans to generate power, thus drawing him in to attack.  Meanwhile, a source of clean power may have been found.  Mitsuo Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe), deputy minister of the Crisis Control Intelligence Agency (CCI) - a group that also tracks Godzilla and similar monsters to eliminate them - finds a meteorite at the bottom of the ocean and dispatches Prof. Shiro Miyasaki (Shirô Shano) to investigate.

It turns out the rock is able to move under its own power when activated by sunlight.  During a battle between Japanese Defense forces and Godzilla when he shows up to destroy a nuclear power plant the rock suddenly takes notice and attacks hm, revealing itself to be an alien ship.  It soon becomes apparent that they are not friendly as they begin gathering what information they need from humanity in order to remake the world as place for them to colonize.  Godzilla, however, is only out for revenge, and leaves a trail of destruction behind him to get to the craft.  However, by using Godzilla's own cells, the aliens have managed to clone a creature (Makoto Itô) in his image.

Released as Godzilla 2000 in the United States, this was the first Japanese film in the long-running series to be released in the United States since a recut The Return of Godzilla showed up as Godzilla 1985.  Despite flubbing the American version Tri-Star had the rights to the property at the time (as it did most of the Heisei series) and decided to make some money by giving American audiences the real thing.  The problem is no one took it seriously.  Toho, as usual, did a faithful English dub based on the Japanese script, but when it hit theaters the movie was severely edited and the dialogue bore little resemblance to what was being said.  Instead, references to Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Patton were thrown in.  Additional sound effects and music were thrown in to make the movie more comical.

While it does contain some corny humor and, as usual, some attempts at serious environmental or philosophical statements that just come out hilariously hackneyed, the original movie is not played as a comedy.  Instead, Godzilla 2000: Millennium turns out to be one of the better Godzilla films of any series.  Director Takao Okawara himself was not a big fan of kaiju films, but he still took the material far more seriously than Emmerich and new the fans would respect that kind of reverence.  The human drama, which seems to take up a significant part of any of these films, does not detract from the action, and we get Godzilla from the get-go.  In fact, this stands as the movie with the second most screentime of the creature. 

The suit on this one is fantastic, with Godzilla looking like a predatory animal, and this has one of the best first appearances of any of the movies.  The miniature work is also top-notch.  Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the CGI, which is where the movie stumbles.  Occasionally some computer imagery showed up the Heisei films but, with digital effects becoming more of a norm, Toho fails to step up to the plate.  Happily, there is only one digital shot of Godzilla while he swims, and Oruga quickly becomes a guy in a suit before their battle.  Good thing as the digital version just looks like a bad rendering of a Tentacruel. 

It is also a good thing because, though not as drawn out as some of the previous battles, this is one of the more satisfying.  It is also on of the more realistic as Godzilla, at no time, is a friend or defender of humanity in this.  He considers humanity a nuisance and every structure between him and his goal merely an obstacle.  This doesn't change by the end of the film.  That is where some of the worst dialogue comes in, after a fantastic climax.  It doesn't ruin the ending but it does make one's eyes roll, and it was unfortunately one of the lines of original dialogue that made it through the American version. 

The unfortunate thing is that, as usual, to get the real version of the film one needs to get physical media, as the only version streaming in the U.S. is the one we saw in the theater.  It isn't bad, and was kind of done in the spirit of What's Up Tiger Lily?, but it is always best to see these in their original form.  It doesn't always make for a better film, but it does make for a more authentic experience, and in this case I would say it is worth it for both.  

Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999)

Time: 99 minutes

Starring: Takehiro Murata, Naomi Nishida, Mayu Suzuki, Hiroshi Abe, Shirô Shano; Tsutomo Kitagawa, Makoto Itô

Director: Takao Okawara