Godzilla 2000: Millennium - Refreshing

So imagine this: you invent a character that is loved by all and a respected cultural icon. The only problem is, not everyone understands this character, so you give another company the rights to adapt the character to introduce him to a larger audience and gain more popularity. This adaptation comes out and no one likes it. Not fans and especially not the general public who now not only don't understand the character, but find him dumber than before and have sprouted misconceptions about who the character actually is. You'd be outraged, wouldn't you? Maybe even embarrassed. Your child who you created and shared with the world now seen as nothing more than a bad movie. That is definitely what Toho was feeling after laying witness to TriStar's Godzilla. A mockery of the character that actively went out of its way to be everything that the character was not. Toho in my opinion did exactly what I would have done: fire back immediately. With TriStar's plans for a sequel to Godzilla pretty much always destined to fall through, Toho got to work and made Godzilla 2000: Millennium, and aimed to restore the character to not only his home turf, but show the world who he truly is. And while Godzilla 2000: Millennium isn't anything spectacular, it is like when you've had a really crappy week and you clean up your room and feel rejuvenated. While it's not going to land in my top 10, this movie is a great palate cleanser after TriStar's embarrassing revision.

In 1954, the original Godzilla attacked. 45 years later, a new monster keeps emerging and attacking the world. This new Godzilla being slightly bigger than the original attacks the country often and is seen as a force of nature, being watched by the Godzilla Prediction Network. But when a 60 million year old UFO reemerges on the planet, this Godzilla must prepare for battle in this new era and make a stand as the rightful monster ruler of Japan.

Alright, let's jump right in. First and foremost, this is one of my absolute favorite Godzilla designs ever. I see a lot of influence from the KingGoji suit used in King Kong vs. Godzilla, and that's a good thing. I know a lot of people will and have made complaints about his dorsal fins. But I think they're a great evolution of the character's design. It's nothing too improbable, and with this Godzilla being just as, if not even meaner than the original Godzilla, then it makes sense his opinion would share in that. Which I think his dorsal fins do a good job representing. My only honest complaint about him in this movie is that his atomic breath is never blue, and with it having a fiery explosion whenever it is used, it is basically nothing more than a simple fire breath attack. Which in my opinion is a misstep, but, hey. At least he actually has the power in the first place. Something I find fascinating about this movie is that this is the second most screentime Godzilla receives in any movie, but it doesn't always feel like much. Most of his action is saved for the end of the movie with his big battle with Orga and on. Of course he still appears before, getting an awesome introduction scene and a pretty cool encounter with the military, but there's a solid chunk of the screen dedicated to figuring out Orga and what makes Orga up. But he's still mean as hell. My favorite part of the entire movie is how he just blows Orga up from the inside, being devoured like a snake's prey, and then BOOM! It's pretty awesome. He gets to kick a ton of ass in the movie, so watching this after TriStar's Godzilla is just refreshing. He's indestructible, he gets to blow stuff up, he gets some great city destruction and gets to fight another giant monster. This Godzilla is just awesome. He was one of my first versions of Godzilla I ever saw, so I'm glad he's always seemed to age well. I will definitely say he does get some rather crappy shots however with a few CG shots underwater that just look like garbage and a really weird shot that looks off of him chasing a jet, but, it's whatever. He gets in some awesome action, so I can kind of look the other way with some of the cinematography.

For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, seeing mention of another monster must be odd. So far, in Godzilla's introduction movies, he's solo. But yeah, ain't that a shock?! Godzilla does indeed have an opponent, and a pretty good one at that. The only issue about Orga is that the effects on him before he fully transforms are all CGI and look really bad. The interesting thing about CG in this series is how much we can see it affect the effects. Because we get two see two different varieties of effects: the great practical, and the sloppy CG. Tangent aside, Orga! In his UFO and Millenian form, he is entirely CG and he just doesn't look very good. It looks like an incomplete model of CG or from something before Toy Story came out. But then when Orga becomes Orga, he is awesome. Absorbing Godzilla's cells to try becoming the perfect organism, but is incomplete. With massive claws, what looks like a giant turtle shell and a giant hole in his shoulder that is used as a cannon to launch a flawed atomic breath, he looks really cool. I didn't really like him for a good few years, but I like him A LOT more now. There's a lot of intentional flaw in his design and it is inherently perfect for his character. Literally the entire purpose of the character is that he is a flawed failure copy of Godzilla. So when he has ridiculously huge claws and the reused roars of Cretaceous King Ghidorah that make him essentially sound like he's in pain, he has a good look about him. One of my favorite Godzilla channels on YouTube put it best in his review of the movie when he said it is "... at once both pathetic and unnerving." Fun fact, Orga's head was designed in a way to replicate "Godzilla" from TriStar's Godzilla, because Toho wanted to A, blow it up, and B, show the dominance of the real Godzilla over a cheap foreign knock off. It's a nice subtle jab you might not know, but I just love it. It's subtle enough and yet not subtle at all. It's hilarious.

A big plus for the movie is its genuinely interesting human narrative. With Godzilla commonly cropping up in recent events before the movie, people learn to adapt and survive the monster. Essentially, Godzilla is a storm. So what do you do when the storm is coming? You check the news and see how bad it's going to be. The people in charge of this task are the Godzilla prediction network, run by father and daughter team, Yuji and Io Shinoda, played my Takehiro Murata and Mayu Suzuki respectively (pictured right with Naomi Nashida as Yuki Ichinose). Yuji and Io have a really fun to watch dynamic in the film with them being parent and child. They get into a little bit of trouble, but all they want to do is keep people safe from the actual menace that is Godzilla. They even get to dive into the science of Godzilla a bit, diving into the G-Cells we first learned about in Godzilla vs. Biollante. They have a really fun partnership running this team together, but who really takes the cake in this movie is Hiroshi Abe playing the character of Mitsuo Katagiri (pictured left). He gets to have a lot of fun banter with Yuji, them both viewing the solution of Godzilla with two different perspectives: trying to kill the monster with Abe, and trying to simply adapt and protect others with Yuji. Abe just has this menacing "I'm in charge" type look that commands the room and makes you think that he's the one to get behind. As it turns out though he's just a nut and kind of crazy. But he gets one of my favorite direct deaths from Godzilla ever. Him angry at the destruction and death Godzilla causes, he just yells "GODZILLAAAAAAA!" as he knocks the building over and he falls to his death. Yes, this is the dub, please forgive me. It's kind of hilarious, but it's a great way to end the movie. Him realizing his mission is fraught and just accepting his death, it's great.

I feel like despite enjoying the movie, there just isn't a lot to actually say about it. Godzilla 2000: Millennium is basically the movie TriStar should have made. It adapts the character well, has a solid human cast and with the budget they had stateside, they could have made the digital effects look a lot better than they did coming from Toho. The movie is very solid and makes everything feel a lot better after the heartbreak of TriStar's adaptation. If you want a simple enjoyable movie and need a pick me up after the depression of TriStar's botched movie, then give this one a watch.

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With the third series officially under way, let's get the train rolling. Tomorrow we're going to meet an evolution of a monster first established a little over 60 years ago with the original Rodan. So let's get reintroduced to some giant prehistoric dragonflies as we watch Godzilla vs. Megagurius.