Movie Reviews from
By John Ruch
© 2000 CM Media, Inc.
Godzilla 2000 (2000)
Here’s why Planet Movies sucks.
The place is such a huge, inefficient money pit that it must precede the trailers with filmed, TV-style commercials in order to pay for itself.
On my recent trip to see “Godzilla 2000,” these included a painful Coke ad (a short, exceedingly dumb movie by a director with Coke funding, proving that corporations can simultaneously score a tax write-off and push more conventionalized junk on the world) and a shocking example of media violence (an Air Force ad).
Then after all that, the movie came on, screwed up. No theater worker noticed because there aren’t any in Planet Movies’ robot booths. And once workers were informed and fixed it, they didn’t offer us passes to a better screening.
Arnold Schwarzenegger bailed out of the whole Planet Hollywood morass way back in January. Why don’t we take the hint?
Now, here’s why Godzilla rules.
A nuclear-powered monster, he is one of the great pieces of 20th century folklore. His resonant scream is one of the most brilliant movie inventions ever. He is as lovable as a puppy dog and as terrifying as a hurricane. He has spikes on his back. Also, he is a dinosaur.
He is neither good nor evil. He is simply pissed about being woken up early.
Furthermore,
a single segment of his tail is the size of Planet Movies, which he could
easily crush into powder, though I doubt he’ll ever come to
Godzilla is a Japanese monster who first appeared in a self-titled 1954 film. It’s a still-impressive, dead-serious B-movie that plays as a disturbing allegory of nuclear war and proliferation.
It was followed by a couple dozen sequels that were lighter in tone, with Godzilla transforming into the world’s lifeguard. Humans would regularly do something stupid and call down some kind of bizarre monster; Godzilla would grumpily get up, beat the monster’s butt while indiscriminately destroying anything in his way, then go back to his ocean bed.
In 1995, the Godzilla did the unthinkable—they killed Godzilla in “Godzilla vs. Destroyer.” (Well, actually, they also killed him at the end of the first movie, but you know how these things work.)
But far
more fatal was the American assault on the legend. Sony bought rights to the
series and in 1998 put out a
The
disgusted Japanese have now fired back with “Godzilla 2000,” which is not only
a pretty good classic Godzilla movie, but also a satire of the
The film
begins with solar-power-friendly Godzilla tearing up fossil-fuel and nuclear
power plants in disgust. Then he’s attacked by a giant meteorite that is
actually a spaceship, which is actually an alien. Displeased with the rude
visitor, Godzilla destroys it, raising
All the classic Godzilla elements, from the scream to the sexism, are here. Godzilla is still a guy in rubber suit, though it’s not your dad’s Godzilla—he has meaner eyes and longer spikes.
If you don’t understand why Godzilla has to be a guy in a rubber suit, you get a big fat F in pop and folk culture. The idea isn’t to have coldly “realistic” effects; it’s to symbolize ideas and inspire emotions. (I must admit, though, that Godzilla doesn’t get to do as much “acting” as he usually does. Was that Ethan Hawke in there?)
The ridiculous dubbed dialogue is also in the house: Favorites include a guy inexplicably speaking German, and a general promising that his new super-missile will “go through Godzilla like crap through a goose.”
One thing that’s different is that the movie is fairly well-paced and has some striking visuals, especially an excellent introductory sequence (though oddly, no big deal is made about Godzilla coming back to life). Definitely an improvement over the 1960s Godzilla flicks.
There’s
even a sense of humor—the evil alien looks a heck of a lot like the Hollywood
Godzilla; a bystander even remarks that the creature is “trying to become a
Godzilla clone.” I wanted to stand and pledge allegiance when he toasted its
rip-off butt with his gamma-ray breath. (Not that the movie is itself above
ripping off “
The film is loaded with social commentary (proving that B-movies remain a haven for ideas)—overloaded, actually. Plot threads are left hanging, motivations are obscure and nothing makes much sense when the deliciously cheesy “THE END?” title pops up.
But that’s missing the point. The importance lies not in what Godzilla does, but in what Godzilla is—a massive force of nature and fate to which we must ultimately submit and thank for cleaning up our messes.
It’s all summed up nicely in the concluding line, which like all things Godzilla is no less true for being hilariously silly: “Godzilla is inside each one of us.”
I’m just
happy that one of us is finally back inside Godzilla.