Just the Ticket #229: Godzilla (2000) - Millennium

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.

I will warn you now that today's Goj-Year-ra review is going to be pretty negative and cynical in tone because there was a kaiju-sized amount of things I did not like about this movie, and I'm apparently in the minority on this.

But there were some positives, too, so don't expect a pure rage-fest.

When money became the deciding factor in ending the Godzilla franchise with the Heisei Era (not the overstuffed, derivative human plots, the mishandling of the franchise's second most important character for six films in a row, the snail-shit pacing, the safe monster choices, the brain-melting continuity, the soulless beam struggles, or the repetitive, idiotic, shovel-fed morality..., but money), and Roland Emmerich thought it was a good idea to have Ferris Beuller, The Professional, and a bunch of Simpsons characters fight a nuclear iguana with resting dick-face in 1998, Toho immediately responded to fans calling it the Dragon Ball: Evolution of Godzilla movies (obviously, before that movie existed) by giving us Godzilla: Millennium (later edited into an English dub by the company that distributed Godzilla '98, because the world makes sense), a jokey reboot where Godzilla has resting bitch face and is treated like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. So...you know; totally different from what Emmerich did, right?

1999's Godzilla: Millennium was directed by Takao Okawara (Godzilla vs Mothra, Mechagodzilla II, and Destoroyah) and co-written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara (Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla) and Wataru Mimura (Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II) with effects by Kenji Suzuki (Godzilla vs Megaguirus) and a score by Takayuki Hattori (Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla).

My biggest general complaint about Godzilla 2000 (I watched the Japanese original, but will be referring to it by the edited dub's title, or as G2K, going forward) is that it doesn't feel like a Godzilla movie for much of its runtime even though Godzilla shows up almost immediately (drowned in thick fog and pitch-darkness such that I had to check the movie's resolution and my phone's brightness setting to make sure I was having the best possible viewing experience for my chosen device, and...I was, unfortunately). In addition to the constant jokes, physical comedy, and the use of a "must go faster" sequence in the opening,

Godzilla 2000 is theoretically a reboot sequel to Gojira '54 that makes no reference to the events of that film, has no meaningful thematic ties to it (instead throwing in a line about this Godzilla possibly hating man-made electricity and a brief ticking clock sequence where Japan has to shut down its nuclear reactors before he arrives to drink them, and pitting Godzilla against a kaiju representation of Y2K—a Y2Kaiju, if you will, because everyone in 1999 was worried about stack overflow making the world's computer infrastructure shit itself), has a boring, non-presence of a score (until it falls back on Ifukube staples in the third act and really locks the fuck in), and features what might be the worst Godzilla design I've ever seen, especially with regards to his hyper-realistic lizard-Muppet face and dorsal spines that look like someone ran their abstract shop class sculpture through an AI image generator. In head-on silhouette, Millennium Godzilla looks as imposing as any other design, but in the full light of day, he looks like ass-flavored slop. On top of that, he doesn't even roar right for most of the runtime, either. I suppose it could be the sound department expanding Godzilla's vocal repertoire, but to me, in the moment, it felt like another aspect of Godzilla that the movie got wrong.

So, after Godzilla attacks, the Crisis Control Institute (this movie's version of the Heisei Era's UNGCC, using the same tiered Godzilla warning system, but not having a training facility for psychic child soldiers this time) discovers a "possible new energy source" (because dicking around in the ocean is always a good idea in a Godzilla movie) for no relevant reason that turns out to be a petrified UFO from the Cretaceous period that looks like a feminine contraceptive device with a Flock of Seagulls haircut and only one nostril. The movie spends entirely too long on trying to convince the audience that the UFO poking out of the ocean and slowly hovering over the city so it can get penetrated by skyscrapers (like a proper tentacle monster should, even if you can only see the tentacles on your computer half the time)

is a compelling, credible threat on the level of the Harvesters from the first Independence Day, when it's really just a Tripod from War Of the Worlds (the Amazon commercial with Ice Cube that wouldn't come out for another twenty-ish years, not any of the good or passable adaptations).

The "Millennians," as they're called in the fandom, aren't really consuming the data they collect; it's just the first connection my brain made between the bad movie I was watching and a bad movie I'm aware of but will never watch. Instead, this movie's pseudoscientifically provided, stupid, wild-ass guess tells us that they turned their bodies into plasma inside the ship to attain a kind of stasis immortality, and are hacking the world's internet from Japan (because turn-of-the-millennium sci-fi and action movies thought every problem could be caused and/or solved by a "here's what they were really playing!" interpretation of hacking, and because the Millennium Era so far isn't as visibly global as the Heisei Era was, so Japan is the center of everything) to learn about the strongest organisms on Earth so they can assimilate a new physical body. Thankfully (or however sarcastic adverbs work), the JSDF developed a new anti-Godzilla weapon (that causes him decent damage but otherwise works as well as you'd expect "the most powerful anti-Godzilla weapon ever made that will totes unalive Godzilla this time, for realsies, we promise" to work on a Godzilla—except for the Oxygen Destroyer that doesn't really destroy oxygen in a franchise where water is hydrogen peroxide; that technically worked one and a half times...). And that damage left behind cells that led to documented, digitally published research, so now the villains (who also want to terraform the planet because sci-fi writers and aliens alike don't have any original ideas) have every justification they need to target Godzilla. But because the one-nostriled alien diaphragm can't withstand Godzilla's nuclear body temperature or healing factor long enough (yes, this is the first depicted instance of Godzilla having a healing factor like he would in Minus One, which is a cool fact to discover; it was suggested in Biollante that Heisei Godzilla might have one, but we get to actually see it here because digital effects have improved enough to make it feasible) to take over his body, so they instead copy his healing protein, termed "Organizer G-1" by Godzilla chaser and former CCI geneticist Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata, The Fugitive; he's also been in multiple Heisei and Millennium entries, but I just wanted to share that there's a Japanese TV movie remake of The Fugitive where Ken Watanabe is the Richard Kimble character) to print themselves a kaiju body. It looks like something from an Eiffel 65 music video, and that makes me blue.

So let's finally talk about the positives of Godzilla 2000. Yuji Shinoda is a great human lead. He has varying dynamics with multiple characters, including his snarky genius daughter Io (yes, the main character's daughter in a Godzilla cyber thriller is named I/O, and she's played by Mayu Suzuki in her only film role, though Google will suggest otherwise because there are at least five Mayu Suzukis on IMDB), tabloid reporter Yuki Ichinose (a stealth love interest of sorts for Shinoda and a strong female presence here, played by Naomi Nishida, Sadako DX), and his former CCI colleagues Miyasaka (Shirō Sano, of GMK and Final Wars) and Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe, a.k.a. the voice of Kenshiro).

On that note, Katagiri is probably the best human villain in the franchise so far. His dynamic with Shinoda gives us a glimpse into what Serizawa and Yamane's relationship could have been without Emiko serving as mediator (Shinoda having quit the CCI to do Twister research on Godzilla's behavior and biology so he can form a reliable positioning network, and Katagiri wanting to exploit as many resources as possible to destroy Godzilla through military might). He's ruthless enough to put Shinoda's life in jeopardy if it means stopping a global threat, yet badass enough to face getting crushed by Godzilla's rampage with a cigarette in his mouth and a smile in his cold, calculating heart. An incredible bad guy worthy of the voice of anime's manliest man.

And finally, the entire third act absolutely fuck-slaps. It's where Godzilla 2000 finally becomes a Godzilla movie, from Ifukube's Godzilla march that feels like "Frere Jacques"-meets-"Dark Horse" as the big guy does his walk-up (still mostly done with suitmation, now by Super Sentai costume actor Tsutomu Kitagawa, who would perform Godzilla through the rest of the Millennium Era as well), to the roar being right, to the fight with Orga (the mutated Millennian clone kaiju body, played by Makoto Itō of the Kamen Rider franchise and the live-action BEM adaptation) being bloody and visceral while also including a beam struggle or two. The CGI is very much of its time, but Orga's practical final form design is cool as hell, looking like part Cloverfield monster, part Gamera, part Doom boss, part Godzilla, with the off-center laser cannon (based on the ship's quasi-asymmetrical design) being a nice touch that adds to the intimidation factor of the creature (like, Orga could literally be slapped into a Doom game as a boss and no one would question if it fit or not). And then it switches fetishes from tentacles to vore, and things really get awesome. Again, the CGI is modern SyFy Channel/Asylum levels of bad, but Orga growing dorsal spines as it tries to swallow Godzilla whole, Godzilla heating up his own body (a Millennium equivalent to his Heisei feedback pulse) to blow Orga in half from the inside, and the added insult of roaring triumphantly until the half-exploded Orga corpse falls over and dissolves was just so badass. One of the best final battles in Godzilla history.

Closing out on a negative note, though, it sucked that such a strong cast of human characters mostly just stood within fatal distance of said fight, narrowly avoiding death multiple times (except for Katagiri, of course) and watching him rampage and nuke everything because Godzilla is a Frankenstein's monster created by the wrath in the collective human consciousness to do the quiet part out loud or something; down with electricity and nuclear power, we're all going to die of radiation cancer some day, and fuck you so very much for watching.

Godzilla: Millennium was an experience full of enjoyable human characters with a fun, visually interesting final monster brawl that lost me with its dated digital effects, ugly Godzilla design, uninspired original music, unfaithful and weak sound design (I forgot to mention, but as good as the final fight is, the hit impact sounds of Godzilla striking Orga sound like two Tupperware lids slapping together underwater), and how its initial presentation utterly contradicts its stated purpose for existing as a response to 'Zilla (leading to a obvious, biased, "we know best, so when we do what you hate, it's okay" message that doesn't seem like it was totally intentional). I can't fail it because the good parts were so good, so....

D+

There was a direct, American sequel planned (Godzilla Reborn) to be directed by Gremlins' Joe Dante and effects by Toho, with a more consistently jokey tone like the English dub of G2K had (that sounds like as much of a home run as my sarcasm...), where Godzilla would fight a giant lava-bat named Miba. But for unknown and easily speculated reasons, no funding could be secured for its development. Toho apparently approved the script, though, so maybe it could have been good?

Farewell, July, please Stay Tuned for tomorrow's Time Drops calendar, and continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder (you haven't already), leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can fund the un-filmed, developmentally delayed production hell that is life, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

31

Ticketmaster,

Out.