Godzilla 2000
The King of the Monsters returns to face his deadliest foe yet -- jaded American audiences.

When one is speaking of that unique cinematic genre known in Japan as the kaiju eiga (giant monster movie), one is either preaching to the converted or talking to a wall. To those who understand, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not understand, no explanation is possible. But my evangelist streak, as ever, gets the better of me. Let me confess my prejudices, as somebody who grew up on Godzilla movies, stop-motion animation, and the Muppets: For me, this summer was largely about Chicken Run (which was a huge hit) and Godzilla 2000 (which had a disastrous first weekend). I eagerly anticipated both of them, and was disappointed in neither case.

What do they have in common? Innocence. Naive good humored enthusiasm. Characters brought to life via SFX which mainly eschew computer trickery in favor of older, more substantive techniques. Small but adequate budgets -- Godzilla 2000 cost 1.2 billion yen to make, around 12 million U.S. dollars -- a B-film by our standards, not Japan's. Both were made by studios with a distinct identity and history, not by faceless media conglomerates.

But Toho Studios, of course, has a far longer and more impressive track record than Aardman Productions, and through artists like Akira Kurosawa, has wielded an incalculable influence on American films of the past few decades. Their most famous creation has now appeared in 23 movies (#24 on the way), over a period of 46 years, a record no other film series is ever likely to match.

And yet when you see the famous Toho insignia flash upon the screen as Godzilla 2000 begins, you are seeing something no American theatrical audience has seen since Godzilla 1985 kicked off the awesome "Heisei" series of G-films. Named after the reign of the newly crowned Emperor, these films updated the classic Toho stable of kaiju, and made them a real menace to society again. Most of these films weren't even released here on video until very recently. Some of them have been shown on cable, along with the more familiar pictures of earlier decades, but in point of fact, real kaiju pictures are rarely seen on American TV these days. Our loss.

The Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin 1998 film Godzilla (aka "CGI Lizard vs. Ferris Bueller") featured impressive but soulless SFX, horribly miscast "stars", and the most ineptly structured plot I have ever seen -- and I've seen Batman and Robin. It was actually more reminiscent of American "giant radioactive creature" movies of the 50's, such as Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them, It Came from Beneath the Sea, etc -- but not in a good way. Like its American predecessors, the 1998 Godzilla treats the monster as a plot complication. The humans take center stage and the personality deficient monster is just an excuse for them to meet, mate, and be merry, in a distinctly Middle American manner. Ewwwww.

The good people at Toho, while making polite noises in Godzilla 1998's general direction in press releases, have made little secret of their contempt for Gaijinzilla, and on one level, Godzilla 2000 is both a parody of the American film and a demonstration of superior kaiju-know how. It succeeds on both fronts. If you are making a monster movie, they seem to say, let the monsters be in charge. Makes sense to me.

The movie's Japanese title was Godzilla vs. Orga, and the title is not the only thing the U.S. distributors have changed. The movie was trimmed of about 20 minutes of screen time, the score was altered to include more of the majestic kaiju themes composed by the great Akira Ifukube (you can hum them all, admit it), and the dubbed dialogue was, in many places, changed or fabricated outright, to make the movie funnier to the MST3K generation. I'd love to see the original version, and I have every intention of doing so, but purism be damned. This is one enormously fun movie. And to see it on the big screen was an exhilarating experience.

Plot? Who cares about the damn plot? Okay, a grassroots collective called the "Godzilla Prediction Unit" is trying to study the Monster King, convinced he could yield a wealth of scientific knowledge -- and that his periodic assaults on Japan's nuclear power plants could be predicted, so the damage he causes might be contained. Their opposite number is the CCI (Crisis Control Intelligence Agency), a government agency headed up by a cool cruel guy who has an Ahab complex where the Big G is concerned, and simply wants to destroy him. This isn't quite as naive as you might think -- since most of the previous movies didn't occur in this new cycle of stories, they don't know yet that puny human weapons can never kill Godzilla. Don't ask me what Roland Emmerich's excuse is.

Then a new alien monster menace shows up, providing the movie with a chance to poke fun at both 1998's Godzilla and Independence Day, and lift ideas from just about everywhere -- often improving on them in the process. Yes, the movie is deliberately funny, and has been made even more so by the dubbing, but it's not a bad movie -- it's thrilling, awe-inspiring, fast paced, and beautifully crafted, as long as you don't try to make sense of the story. Which you are in no way required to do. It is, after all, the story of a 180-foot tall creature with purple spikes on his back, who breathes radioactive fire and is portrayed by a man in a 250 pound rubber suit. A creature who is not intended to simulate a real animal, but rather to symbolize a pissed off force of nature, who gets to vent his anger at human civilization on a scale the rest of us can only dream of. That's the beauty of it all. Check your rationality at the door.

By kaiju eiga standards, this is state of the art stuff, and not cheesy at all. Generations of accumulated knowledge went into this film, and it shows. Instead of computer generated trickery, we get to see real fake buildings destroyed, real fake monsters struggle to the death in huge miniature fake cities. They ask you to believe none of it -- which paradoxically makes it more believable -- you get sucked into the movie's reality, instead of looking for mistakes. The film does employ CGI alongside its more traditional techniques, and a lot of fun can be had just trying to figure out what's "suitmation", what's CGI, and what's actually real (and some of it is).

In the end, we get to see what happens when an alien monster (read Hollywood) tries to swallow Godzilla up and copy him. All this and badly dubbed dialogue, and an ending to die for. C'mon America! What's not to like?

DROOL FACTOR: Humongous seething gobs of radioactive droo -- oh. You mean as in hunks/babes? Kaiju films don't usually excel in this area, though I confess I had a bit of a yen (heh heh) for Miki Saegusa, the gutsy psychic who appeared in most of the "Heisei" films of 1984-95. Many of the actors in the Godzilla 2000 cast are well-known in Japan, but are not likely to become breakout stars over here. Then again, they never make you wince the way Matthew Broderick and Maria Pitillo do in 1998's Godzilla. They do make you laugh, and usually on purpose.

And let me put it this way: "Godzilla vs. Russell Crowe" -- STOMP! "Godzilla vs. Kevin Bacon" -- sizzzzzzzle! "Godzilla vs. Harrison Ford" -- well. That really would be the last crusade. There are hunks and then there are hunks.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Not much to speak of, though Orga is kind of icky. Some monstrous bloodshed, but nothing very extreme. You want that kind of thing, go rent a Gamera movie. Or Godzilla '98, which always makes me want to barf.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: Would you settle for a really kick-ass twelve year old? How about a kvetchy young journalist who grudgingly but effectively advances the plot and then helps save the little girl's dad from an exploding building? One thing I've noticed about the more recent Godzilla films is that gender is very nearly a non-issue in them. Women and men take on the same risks, and nobody makes a big deal about it. That was hardly the case in the Emmerich film, which depicts Pitillo's girl reporter as a shrieking ditz who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, and is shallow and self centered to boot. I've never seen such smirking condescension at the expense of career gals in any Japanese film, even those set in the feudal era. Which country is supposed to be backward in its attitude towards women again? I forget.

-- pisher

Godzilla 2000 opened August 18th, and will hopefully still be in theaters by the time you read this. And it'll serve us right if Godzilla reads the box office returns and comes over here to flatten our multiplexes. GOD-ZILLAAAA!!!!!!!

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