Wonderful Movie

Very Cool!!!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Once again, the Godzilla-verse undergoes a major remake, with kaiju-amnesia eliminating all previous encounters with the monster except the original 1954 event and the 1998 attack on New York (allowing a couple of sly digs at the American "Godzilla" film). Baragon, Mothra, and Ghidorah (Earth, Wind, and Fire?) now serve as Japan's 'guardian monsters' to counter a politically- and metaphorically-charged Godzilla, who is a manifestation of the uneasy souls of the people destroyed by the Japanese military during the Pacific War. The movie opens at a JSDF meeting at which the threat of Godzilla is being discussed. A nuclear submarine has been lost at sea and the crew of the submersible sent to investigate catch a glimpse of what might be Godzilla near the wreckage. Inland, an inexplicable earthquake kills some thoroughly unappealing Japanese bikers and a second monster (Baragon) is sighted, while in a nearby lake some even less appealing teens are drowned by what turns out to be a larval Mothra. Paranormal documentary maker Yuri Tachibana (Chiharu Niiyama) uncovers a legend about three guardian monsters who will protect Japan and who have now awakened as Godzilla approaches. Most of the rest of the film follows Yuri as she investigates the monster legend, attempts by the JSDF (in which Yuri's father is a commander) to destroy Godzilla, and, of course, duels between the various diakaiju. Godzilla is a bit of a throwback to earlier iterations: less massive and more Tyrannosaurus- like, but with dead-white zombie eyes. Baragon, a bit player in the franchise, is now red with big floppy ears and has been stripped of his heat ray, making for a fairly one-sided fight with Godzilla, who still wields his formidable 'atomic breath' death ray. Mothra looks good (albeit more like a butterfly than a moth) but Ghidorah is a bit of a letdown. Rather than having all three heads manipulated externally, the left and right neck are clearly puppets on the arms of the actor in the suit. This necessitates the necks being thicker, shorter, and much less sinuous and graceful than earlier versions of the monster. The film features a lot of CGI, some very good (such as shots of the monsters in the distance or the underwater scenes); some not so good (some of the shots of ships at sea are terrible). The monster fights are generally quite good but are diminished by too many 'deux ex machina' moments involving some kind of spiritual sparkles. To some extent the film (number 26 in the franchise) is a throwback to the pretentious, new-agey Heisei series, differing from the two straightforward kaiju-action films that preceded it in the Millennium series. Akira Ifukube's iconic themes are heard occasionally but otherwise the sound track is pretty uninspired. The script and acting were on par for the franchise (I watched an English subtitled version) and, although played straight, the film does feature some very black humour (most notably the scene of the girl in the hospital room). Generally speaking, the kaiju scenes are quite good but the film is trying too hard to be 'meaningful' and suffers for it (and there are way too many golden sparkle moments for my taste).

Many people praise this as one of the best Godzilla films. As expected, we get great allusions to the original 1954 film. They refer to it as the original Godzilla attack so it's kind of ambiguous as to whether or not they're aware it was a different Godzilla that time. We get to see the return of some of our favorite monsters in a massive all-out attack. Glad this made American theaters as it deserved to be seen. Godzilla's look is quite unique especially with his dead looking eyes. This was an attempt to get back to the roots of the original film.A pity that original film didn't have Godzilla fight other monsters. I especially like the ending here. Godzilla defeats Mothra who ends up sacrificing her energy to help Ghidorah. It was interesting to see Ghidorah on the side of good this time. Apparently, I've been pronouncing that guy's name wrong too. Ghidorah is also beaten by Godzilla! It takes direct help from the human character to plant bombs in Godzilla's body to do him in. It's rare you see Godzilla fighting other monsters and also destroying cities. I think even the 1998 Godzilla movie is alluded to here. ***

Wow. That's all, just wow. This is one of Toho's best Godzilla films. GMK is action-packed, exhilarating, and their are a few cheesy moments to give you a chuckle. Godzilla looks awesome in this film. His white eyes give you one of the more menacing looks of the monster. The action scenes are great as G-Man faces Mothra, King Ghidorah, and another monster that for some reason wasn't used in the title, but I don't really want to spoil anything if you haven't seen the movie. The effects are fairly spectacular, and the actors really do do a good job...I think, I mean I really can't tell because I'm not from Asia.Anyway, this is one of my favorite Godzilla films. You won't be disappointed seeing this film. I LOVE IT!

The "Gozilla" movie series has gotten a bad reputation over the years as overlong toy commercials for undiscriminating children and nerds with no standards. Well, the next time someone knocks the Godzilla movies, you should show them this entry.This is the way Godzilla himself was meant to be. Not a giant superhero like in the movies from the sixties and seventies. Not some big animal just trying to make it in the world like in the nineties series. The Godzilla depicted here is all powerful, pure evil, and nigh-unstoppable, the just way he was in 1954.The thing most people don't realize is that the more serious a giant monster movie is, the better. And Shusuke Kaneko takes his monsters seriously, as anyone who's seen the 90s "Gamera" movies will tell you.Unlike most of the series where cities were destroyed yet casualties were barely (if ever) mentioned or shown (you'd see people running away or standing around watching, but hardly ever killed), when a city gets destroyed in this movie, a lot people die and we see it. We see the people in the buildings just before they topple or are crushed. We see the people running and screaming just before they're vaporized by Godzilla's beam. We see the soldiers fighting Godzilla die instead of him just frying seemingly unmanned toy jets and tanks. In an early scene where, a woman gets pounded when all the pots and pans in her kitchen fall from the walls and shelf just because of Godzilla's footsteps.The "Godzilla verses other monster(s)" action is at some of it's all time best here. No Saturday morning style, over the top, highly unbelievable fights here. Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah fight Godzilla with their claws, jaws, and a few simple abilities (Baragon's burrowing, Mothra's stingers, Ghidorah's electric bite) instead of everyone firing beams at each other with little or no effect and using silly wrestling moves.The monsters themselves come off particularly effective this time around. Godzilla is very fearsome and looks the more like a dinosaur than ever, using his mouth ray as the ultimate weapon. Mothra gets new hornet-like look that makes her(?) much more intimidating. Baragon gets some great moments, mainly because he was barely used in the older movies. He makes surprisingly good use of his meager burrowing ability and puts up a good fight for a little guy. One wishes that Kaneko had been allowed to use Angilas and Varan like he wanted to before Toho made him use Mothra and Ghidorah just because they're more popular and would attract a bigger audience.Ghidorah, sadly, doesn't fare so well. While the idea of Godzilla's mortal enemy playing the hero is kind of fitting, there's something about his new look that doesn't stick. He's much shorter, has somewhat dog like faces, his wings are droopy and almost useless until he powers up near the end, with his mouth beams are sadly absent until said power up.The humans characters are the best here since the first Godzilla movie. For once you actually care about these people instead of wishing they'd hurry up and go away. The humans here act like actual people with actual concerns instead of the usual gang of annoying, unlikable idiots and whiners with lame personalities and motivations.The plot has a lot to do with spiritual energy and mysticism, but Kaneko makes it work surprisingly well, which is a nice change of pace from all that junk about aliens, weird mutations and high tech science mumbo jumbo that doesn't make much sense that the Toho writers like to fall back on.A lot of people were initially disappointed with it for some reason. Something about "hurried pace and not enough development". But in future years, when compared to lesser entries of the Godzilla series, this will probably be considered the second best Godzilla movie, after the first one of course.