Godzilla 2000 (1999)

After the end of Godzilla's Heisei era in 1995, Toho put their resident monster on ice for another break, especially with an upcoming American remake on the way. The Japanese are a gracious bunch, and are more than willing to let others take the limelight for their own takes on the monster. Of course, then that film would prove to be a major disappointment for series fans, particularly the Japanese!...

After the original Godzilla's attack in 1954, the Japanese government has set up a strike division to try and destroy him, now led by the fanatic Katagiri. Meanwhile single father Yuji Shinoda leads the Godzilla Prediction Network, which seeks to understand the monster, and see the good in him. Things take a turn when the government uncovers an ancient alien spacecraft, which comes to life and begins taking a disturbing interest in Godzilla...

Godzilla 2000 is a perfect definition of a mixed bag. It's got a lot of good in it, but some bad too, and the whole film just came way too soon. There was only a 4 year gap between this and the last era, compared to the 9 year hiatus between the Showa and Heisei eras. The film was also rushed, coming only a single year after the American remake.

The story here is pretty basic, and gets off to a surprisingly quick start! The Godzilla Prediction Network is a neat concept, like storm chasers for giant monsters. There are familiar story beats, like aliens, but handled in a new and interesting way. Rather than a race of snazzily dressed invaders from Mars, we have just the one ship, which is like an unknowable techno organism.

Where this film excels is showing what the Godzilla series is after the disappointment of the 98 American version. Now I don't hate that movie (except its length of course!), and it has some good in it if you squint, but as a Godzilla film, it's just too different! 2000 goes out of its way, even in the opening minutes, to show that the true King is back, and this is how you handle him.

Whereas the Heisei series was heavily linked by continuity, the Millennium series was the opposite, with each entry resetting the continuity. This is hard to tell though just going from this first entry, and it being in a new continuity doesn't really add much. This could easily be part of the Showa canon and it wouldn't make a difference.

Godzilla 2000, like other entries in the series, was tinkered liberally for the American release. In this case, 8 minutes were shaved off the runtime, and it was dubbed, leaning into the comedy more. This all sounds terrible, as per usual, but in a surprise twist, it's this US version that's considered the better cut of the film! The Japanese version is considered by many to be overlong, and badly in need of an edit. Which this one provides, tightening up the pace considerably.

The humour mainly comes through in intentionally cheesy dialogue, like "Great Caesar's ghost!", "Gott in himmel!", and "I guarantee it'll go through Godzilla like crap through a goose". Thankfully it never goes too far. The dub director by his own admission added in some amusing dialogue to make audiences less likely to laugh during the monster action, which I think was a good call. And the monster action here is pretty serious, so a little levity is nice.

The characters are established very quickly. Shinoda is a likeable guy, and never comes off like an overly idealistic moron. He's a good dad too! The film provides good justification for his viewpoint with how DNA from Godzilla can provide many boons for humanity. It's just a shame aliens picked this day to invade earth and hijacked the DNA to clone their own Godzilla, but how are scientists supposed to know these things?

While not outright villainous, Katagiri is an ideological enemy for Shinoda, and has a fanatic grudge towards Godzilla. He has a great screen presence, even against giant monsters. His arc culminates when Godzilla somehow singles him out, leading to a memorable end.

The supporting cast include Shinoda's clever daughter, a plucky female reporter who'll do anything for a story, and a scientist with mixed loyalties, working for Katagiri, but friendly with Shinoda and his ideals.

Godzilla is a neutral figure here, arriving in Japan almost like a natural disaster. He causes trouble, but isn't outright evil. The film delves into his biology, and is quite interesting. His regenerative properties are exaggerated a little, when even a broken off skin fragment is immortal on a cellular level.

The spaceship is guided by an unknown intelligence. What little we do know is that it can hack into computers and understand our language, and it's presumably pissed at being asleep for hundreds of millions of years! After absorbing Godzilla's DNA, it changes shape into the monster Orga, so it can remake the planet as its own.

Orga is a misshapen creature, like a machine cobbled together its own Godzilla out of raw material. I wasn't wild on him literally trying to copy Godzilla, since the Heisei era had more than enough 'clones', but thankfully he's destroyed before that happens, so he's still visually unique. He also gets a memorably gross moment, and an explosive end! That Godzilla's a thinker!

The action in Godzilla 2000 is plenty of fun, with a nice balance throughout, and a good monster bash. Though there is a bit too much standing around and reacting in the final fight, and Orga's transformation does take a little long.

The ending is just plain weird! After Orga is destroyed, the humans pontificate about humanity and Godzilla, leading to the funniest line of the movie. "Why does he keep protecting us?"-"Maybe because Godzilla is inside each one of us." It's so cartoonishly cheesy they may as well have said "The real Godzilla is the friends we made along the way." What follows is even weirder though. You'd expect Godzilla to just stride off into the sunset, but the opposite happens. It's oddly destructive and very abrupt.

The effects are one of the film's biggest mixed bags. The monsters are great! Godzilla has a new costume, which shows off his grouchy side really well, and looks formidable. Orga is an odd looking kaiju, in a great way.

There are also some great miniatures and pyrotechnics. But where the film falters is the excessive amount of early CGI, and green screens. I'm glad Toho were experimenting with something new, but the effect here is really bad half the time! It looks like an incomplete work in places.

I liked the direction here. It shows Godzilla's size and sense of scale in really effective ways. The lighting is standout too, particularly the rich oranges in the final act, and ending.

Onto the acting, the original Japanese cast are good, especially the impressive Hiroshi Abe as Katagiri. The dubbing is still cheesy, especially for a modern film, but the performers do decent jobs.

The music here is pretty neat, with the main theme in particular being a strong one. We also have some reprises of the Akira Ifukube classics, to remind us which monster is king.

In some ways, Godzilla 2000 is a flawed start to the Millennium series. But in other ways it's a return to form, showing how it's done. If only it had an extra year of work, maybe even coming out in the year of its title. But as it stands, this is still a more than watchable entry, and plenty of fun for Kaiju fans!...