blacksundae

[rating:2]

Well, this was a lost opportunity. Hire a hotshot young director, throw in almost every creature from the series, plus some martial arts and digital effects to spice things up. Yeah… not so much.

Problem 1: That hotshot would be Ryuhei Kitamura, director of the zombies-vs-yakuza action flick, Versus, a film that manages to be both hyperactive and dull at the same time. Yeah. Pretty much the same thing here.

Problem 2: Martial arts? In a Godzilla movie? Eh… yeah. It could work. As a garnish. We come for the city-stomping, not people punching each other. Once you realize that you’ve gone twenty or so minutes without seeing a giant monster, and are stuck with a bunch of cybergoths flying through the air, bickering over who has spikier hair, you tend to get a bit impatient. Less wannabe-Matrix bullshit, more kaiju asskickery.

Problem 3: Having tons of creatures from past movies, some unseen for 30 years, sounds great in theory. But there are a lot of monsters in this movie, and the human-scale fisticuffs take up a big chunk of the running time, so most of the monsters kind of get shafted. Blink and you’ll miss them. If Kitamura could have trimmed some of the martial arts and given us a little more time with say, King Caesar, I would have been a much happier camper.

I’d give this only one star, but Final Wars does have some good qualities. Foremost among them is Ultimate Fighting Champion Don Frye. Think Jesse Ventura without the acting ability. Yeah, no bald statuettes for this guy, but he nonetheless rocks. He plays a rogue airship captain who can fight with a katana and is the only person in the movie who speaks English. He only speaks English. Everyone else speaks Japanese. I can only assume that, like Chuck Norris, Don “The Predator” Frye speaks the universal language of pain. Pain and one-liners. Gruff, world-weary one-liners.

Anyway, when Kitamura finally gets around to the kaiju throw-downs, he delivers the goods, and that’s really this movie’s saving grace. The suitmation is nicely enhanced by the CG, the explosions are massive, and the destruction is total. Actually, this was the first time I’ve seen Godzilla destroying a city and thought, “Wow! That would suck!” It really is pretty apocalyptic, as you can see in the picture above. Fun stuff.

One wonderful moment is when Godzilla goes up against Zilla (aka Fauxzilla or American Godzilla). That’s right: the mutated iguana from the 1998 Roland Emmerich version of Godzilla. I’m one of the few people on Earth who enjoyed that movie, but I still got a kick out of seeing Godzilla mopping the floor (or Sydney, to be precise) with the American impostor. The bad guy’s response? “I knew that tuna-eating monster was useless!”

Priceless.

In the end, Final Wars is only really worth seeing if you’re a Godzilla completest. Otherwise, watch Destroy All Monsters and see how it’s really done.

P.S. The thematic connection between Godzilla and The Bomb is well known, but as far as I know it’s always been subtextual. In this movie, a character says that Godzilla’s motivation for destroying cities is that he’s angry about The Bomb. Yeah… guys? Let’s not do that again. Thanks.