Godzilla: Final Wars

[Andrew]

Marine Corps' duties have me in California for a few days.  Amazingly, this time not being field duty.  I should be able to get some work done.  First up is this review, completed on the plane ride out here.  Since it was a long day, with late flights and such, I hope the proofreading is up to snuff.

Godzilla:  Final Wars Review

[AndyC]

Loved this movie. It had absolutely anything I could want in a Godzilla film -- first appearance of Gigan (an old favourite) in years, flying battleship Gotengo/Atragon, Godzilla kicking the ass of his American imposter, and some great characters. Best characters by far have to be Capt. Gordon and the two loafers seen all too briefly at Area G, enjoying espresso and listening to jazz music from a 70s Godzilla flick (nice touch) while the world is destroyed.

[akiratubo]

I didn't make it through this movie on the first try.  I'll try again some time.

[trekgeezer]

It could have been much better if they had laid off the Matrixy crap and given more time to the monster fights.

Watching the character development scenes in one these movies is comparable to watching them in porno movies. Shut the hell up and get back to the action.

[Just Plain Horse]

AndyC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Loved this movie. It had absolutely anything I
> could want in a Godzilla film -- first appearance
> of Gigan (an old favourite) in years, flying
> battleship Gotengo/Atragon, Godzilla kicking the
> ass of his American imposter, and some great
> characters. Best characters by far have to be
> Capt. Gordon and the two loafers seen all too
> briefly at Area G, enjoying espresso and listening
> to jazz music from a 70s Godzilla flick (nice
> touch) while the world is destroyed.

I agree, Andy... the 70's music was a really nice touch, and the whole scene where Godzilla wakes up is pretty good too. Nice spit take, dude. Also, the young Xilian commander's behaviour was a refreshing change from the usually subdued villians whose clothes are the only things loud and obnoxious. All the music was pretty good, in my opinion... and finally Manda looks really good, instead of a stray Ghidorah head that's seen better days.

On the other hand, I agree with Andrew's review... sometimes directors just like to have Godzilla do absurd things. While Godzilla's spider tossing and goalie blocks weren't nearly as bad as Godzilla imitating Gamera in G vs. Hedora, I was somewhat annoyed. Not to mention the monster depictions were hit or miss: I liked King Seesar (? I can never get that name right) back in the seventies, but he was an embarassment here- while Rodan, Manda and Kumonga never looked better. The death of Kamacuras remains my favorite scene from this film.

All in all, a damn good film, and one of the few I didn't fast forward through to get to the battles. GMK was a milestone, but this is the first return to the glory days of Gojira since Monster Island stopped being used as a plot device. Screw the fanboys who whine about the direction the series has taken, I love it.

[Jim H]

I agree.  The human stuff was often pretty bad..  I did like the commander guy played by UFC champ Don Frye though.  He was quite amusing.

[daveblackeye15]

Awesome! YES! Another believer of "Final Wars"

I have to agree it needed more monster action and Don Fry was awesome. I liked Angirius updated look but his old look is better, it was pretty much the only monster look that still had a distinched "bad ass mother *****" look when the rest of the monsters were becoming cutsy.

If we can't have Godzilla movies that are as serious and as well done as "1985","GMK" or "Biolante" then they should be as fun and cool as this one.

[Andrew]

I considered for a long time before giving this one four slimes, because some of the monster battles are really lackluster.  I honestly wish that they had perhaps reduced the number of monsters some and also dropped the MonsterX fight (before it turned into Ghidrah).  We could have also done without some of the human plot.  Take that time and have a longer fight between Godzilla, Rodan, and Anguirus.  Plus, Spiga should have gotten squished.  Imagine Godzilla stomping in that spider like it was some sort of messy pie dance.  The whole tossed into space stuff just made me think of "Hercules."

I loved the inclusion of fantastic technology and the Mr. Frye as Captain Gordon did show a lack of acting talent at times, but he did pretty well.  Give him some more practice and see if he improves.  Probably not, but if he did it would be quite cool.

[daveblackeye15]

Now I thought Monster X was cool and it was neat how it transformed into Kaiser Ghidorah, which reminds me of Death Ghirodah from Rebirth of Mothra, which was a spinoff-cousin of King Ghidorah.

I would have had the very final battle go like this: Monster X become K.G., Godzilla get's pummeled for a minute, and Mothra didn't die she returns, then Angiruis, Rodan, and Ceasar come back. All five take on K.G. a la Destroy all Monsters. Now that would have been cool.

I didn't know you knew about Dragonball Z, among other things. And did you intend to spell 'Guyver' and it came out as 'Gyver.?

[BeyondTheGrave]

I liked Final War because it felt like a throwback to the Godzillia flicks from back in the day that I love so much. The recent more serious ones like Godzillia against Mechgodzilla just were stupid IMO. It seemed they tired way to hard to have some kind of continuity and to much human drama.

Like a broken record though I just wished some of the monster fights were longer.

[Andrew]

daveblackeye15 Wrote:
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>
> I didn't know you knew about Dragonball Z, among
> other things. And did you intend to spell 'Guyver'
> and it came out as 'Gyver.?

Ah, you saw my other post about proofreading.

Yes, I even reviewed the live action Dragonball movie (based on the legend from what I have heard, it might not be a total pirate or unauthorized movie).  I used to have hours and hours of it recorded off of Okinawa TV stations back around 1991.

[Scott]

This ones been on my list ever since I first heard of it. It looks like a good one. Hope to catch it sometime.

[Fearless Freep]

How did Yul Brenner get in there?

[daveblackeye15]

No I saw your metion about spell checking. I was just making sure it was "Guyver" and not something else. I wasn't sure if you even knew about the Guyver or not.

Oh yeah and Hedorah needed a LOT more screentime. It was like Varen or Baragon from Destroy all Monsters, a monster that didn't get any monster vs monster action or any monster vs military action, or neither.

[AndyC]

Andrew Wrote:
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I honestly wish
> that they had perhaps reduced the number of
> monsters some and also dropped the MonsterX fight
> (before it turned into Ghidrah).  We could have
> also done without some of the human plot.

I actually thought the human plot was handled pretty well. Usually my complaint with Godzilla, particularly the newer movies, is that the human plot tends to drag things down. In this case, the characters and situations were interesting enough to be worth watching. And the elements ripped off from other movies were so blatantly ripped off, and so entertainingly presented, I just enjoyed them. It was like somebody took a remake of Destroy all Monsters, and crammed in a whole bunch of other cool stuff -- Atragon (and maybe a bit of Star Blazers), Dragonball, Matrix, Independence Day, a bit of Return of the Jedi, etc. Not just that, but tried to make it the biggest Godzilla reunion imaginable, fitting in just about everybody, along with various nods to earlier movies.

The fact that they were thorough enough to include Minya was just funny. After the other monsters make their dramatic appearance, there's an old farmer waving a rifle at Minya asking "What the hell is that thing anyway?"

As for Monster X, I thought he looked pretty cool (and made a great entrance), and having him turn out to be Ghidorah was pretty effective. We got right to the end of the movie, with fans no doubt wondering where Godzilla's toughest enemy was, and boom, there he is for the big finale. It's like a band leaving their biggest hit for the encore. Although it was kind of weird that they gave Ghidorah four legs.

It really was a movie for the fans. I have few complaints. Even Don Frye's wooden acting can be excused because he was just so damned much fun to watch. What a badass.