70 YEARS OF GODZILLA! - 'Godzilla 2000' (1999)

'Godzilla 2000' (1999)

REVIEW BELOW THE RATING!

NOTE: For this review, I watched the American dubbed version of “Godzilla 2000” that was released by Tri-Star.

In “Godzilla 2000”, things kick start right away with Godzilla returning to terrorize Tokyo once more. Also, this movie started the “Millennium” era, named that due to the fact that the movie was called “Godzilla 2000: Millennium in Japan. It was a series of films that was largely noted for ignoring the events of all preceding Godzilla films aside from the 1954 original.

While Godzilla is also terrorizing the good people of Japan, the group called the Crisis Control Intelligence (CCI) has uncovered a meteor that is millions of years old under the ocean. When they try to lift it up to the surface, it suddenly comes to life and it is revealed to be an ancient spaceship/lifeform.

When the ship, known as Orga, senses Godzilla… well… you know what happens then.

The main protagonist of the movie is Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata), a man who runs his own Godzilla Prediction Network (GPN), something that he runs with his daughter Io Shinoda (Mayu Suzuki). They also have Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida), a freelance photographer that’s trying to get good photos of Godzilla for the paper she works for. Shinoda feels that Godzilla is a force of nature that should be contained but also protected and studied. 

Godzilla returned to terrorize Tokyo again in 'Godzilla 2000'!

The antagonist is Mitsuo Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe), the head of CCI who thinks that Godzilla should be destroyed. I will say that Shinoda is clearly the good guy as Mitsuo is more than a bit over-the-top with his menacing demeanor. I think it would have been better had there been two protagonists who disagreed with how to deal with Godzilla and that would have led to more genuine drama.

My only other problem with the movie is that Orga is not really a memorable monster. It’s just a monster that is there for Godzilla to fight because at this point in the series, Godzilla had to fight something.

Beyond those minor complaints, though, I actually found that I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Now, of course the suitmation and other effects are dated as hell and if you can’t get over that, then why are you watching this movie to begin with? For me, though, the dated effects and the old school suits add to the movie’s charm and you know you’re watching a classic Godzilla film.

There are primarily two fights in the movie between Godzilla and Orga and it’s actually quite impressive to see how far suitmation had come along by the end of the 20th century. I also found that I really enjoyed the characters, particularly the trio of Yuji, Io, and Yuki as they feel like a solid trio that support each other even if they sometimes annoy each other.

At the end of the day, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. Aside from a laughably over-the-top human villain and a forgetful monster for Godzilla to face, I enjoyed the old school effects, most of the characters, and most importantly, the monster fights and destruction!