The 23rd Godzilla film came out in 1999 in Japan as Godzilla 2000: Millennium. It came out in the US as Godzilla 2000. I'm watching the US version first on a TriStar dvd that came out in 2000. It's a bit shorter, at 99 minutes, than the Japanese release that ran 107 minutes. I have a copy Hong Kong dvd that has subtitles and runs the original length. G2000 was released in the theaters in the US. TriStar spent $300,000 dubbing the film, more than $10,000,000 promoting the release, and had a box office of about $4,000,000. They never released any Godzilla films in US theaters since then. Toho spent just over $8,000,000 making the movie and they took in about double that in it's Japanese release. The movie restarts the story again. This Godzilla is smaller than the previous few films but larger than the orginal G-monster. See Chart above.
The guy in the car is a Godzilla chaser; the other two are his daughter and a reporter looking for a story. Dad started the G-spotting club and they have a lot of high tech gear to keep an eye out for him. They have a close encounter with the big guy at the opening of the movie. They are so close that his breath clouds their windshield. That would make me poop my pants! They all escape, as does the poor lighthouse keeper who has a metal tower dropped on him Buster Keaton style. The movie plot falls back on the alien invasion theme. A huge meteorite is found in the ocean. It's been there for 60 million years. They try to bring it to the surface but it takes off on it's own. Godzilla shows up again and they shoot him with missiles while he's tossing some buildings around. The meteor takes off, files to where Godzilla is and attacks him. G fights back but is knocked into the ocean. The rock surface is broken and the spaceship within is revealed. Oh oh! The ship clamps onto the top of a building and starts drawing all sorts of data about Godzilla from the network. The ship looks fairly good but at times the CGI shows. The military tries to blow it up but that doesn't work. Godzilla and the ship battle again, G gets knocked down and sampled. Dad guesses that the aliens are trying to use Godzilla's regenerative powers to re-create their bodies. Sometimes I think that the characters make such accurate guesses based on little knowledge that it makes me think they had read the script. Things don't go well in the genetics department and the big monster the ship made turns into the monster battling Godzilla in that picture above. Orga only appears in the one film. He gets trampled after a bit and things go back to normal. Not the best of the lot that's for sure but a watchable film with a fairly solid story. The Japanese version is a bit better story wise, the US translation isn't my favorite. It's a matter of taste, Toho liked it enough they didn't release their English dubbed version.
Godzilla returns in 2000 with the 24th film Godzilla Vs Megaguirus. It too looks to the 1954 Godzillaas it's start. The movie shows us a montage of appearances culled from older films. There is a group devoted to destroying Godzilla, the G-Graspers. Terrible name, huh? Their scientists have created a black hole weapon that they hope to capture Godzilla with. A test opens a worm hole to the past and a prehistoric dragonfly pops out to deposit an egg before returning to it's own time. How convenient. As convenient as the stupid kid who picks up the egg and delivers it to Tokyo. It starts oozing goo and the kid tosses it into the sewer. It hatches into a
plethora of murderous bug critters. They grow to larger than human size and flood the city. Inspecting the flooded area the G-Graspers find more eggs. They soon hatch and cause great problems. Godzilla destroys some and the G-Graspers attack him with the black hole but they miss. The big guy is pissed and follows the remaining bug critters to the city. The bugs have a giant queen named Megaguirus. It soon starts
battling with Godzilla and that results in some nice collateral damage. The G-Graspers have smaller ships than the previous G-Force. Gone are the ponderous flying vehicles, they are replaced with nimble VTOL fighters. Of course they don't work any better and the monsters are free to rampage around for a time. Godzilla toasts Megaguirus with his super atomic breath and then gets blasted by the black hole device for all his trouble. He's gone but don't worry his roar is heard off camera in the
epilogue. Even if the audience that saw this in the theatre suspected there would be some more Godzilla films I know for sure there are 4 more coming. Most of the CGI looks ok or better. there's a lot on the screen for the $8.3 million they spent. It didn't do as well in the Japanese release as the previous film, only grossing $10 million. The suits are pretty darn good and mostly the movie is entertaining.
Comments