One of the longest movie titles ever, but still one of the best G-films of all time, second only to "Gojira". Where do I begin? I know, the crew, all veterans from the acclaimed Heisei Gamera trilogy. Shusuke Kaneko directs this film with the same aura of spectacle he did in the 90s, truly making him one of my top ten directors. This is definitely the darkest film in the series, with Godzilla at his top evil.
First off, the dubbing is excellent in my opinion (although the DVD has the original Japanese track) and the characters portrayed by the actors were very well represented. I think Ryudo Uzaki , who played as Lt. General Tachibana, gave the best performance. He delivers a lot of the emotions in the film, especially in the scene where he recounts his parents' deaths to the original Godzilla in 1954. The story by Kaneko, Keiichi Hasegawa and Mashiro Yokatani was a very well done piece of writing. This leads to one of my top reasons for loving this movie: there is tons of monster-human contact. In other words, the humans and monsters interact with one another, specifically Godzilla. I believe the best two examples of this is one: when the couple look up while taking pictures at Hakone to see Godzilla staring down at them from behind a hillside, who knocks boulders on top of several tourist manically. The second, when that girl in her hospital bed thinks Godzilla has spared her when all of a sudden his tail slams against the hospital, causing the whole building to collapse! There are plenty of others and all are excellent displays of SFX and Kaneko's view on Godzilla.
Now, to the monsters. Godzilla looks great, if not a bit chunky, but it works. He looks incredibly evil, with pure white eyes, a nice touch. Plus the very mobile head and curling lips add to his awesomeness. In this film, not only is Godzilla attacking Japan out of his own desire, but also because apparently the souls of the victims of WWII inhabit his body, who want revenge because Japan is trying to forget about the war, and to a degree, the original Godzilla's attack in 1954. I think it was a very good way to visualize Godzilla. His heat ray is beautifully brought to life, especially when he takes his first shot at Baragon. Baragon is a very nicely done monster and the fight between him and Godzilla maybe one of the best I've ever seen in the monster business. Mothra looks great, if not incredibly smaller than she usually is, but it works. The cocoon scene was beautiful plus the exploding stingers was also a nice effect. King Ghidorah returned, and he looks good for the most part. What I actually didn't like about him was that he was small and weak compared to Godzilla, instead of being huge and imposing as he usually is. However this is not enough to bring the film down, because Kaneko makes up for it with Ghidorah's stunning entrance and (few) flight scenes.
The SFX were superb, especially at adding monsters next to humans. One of the best moments was when Godzilla hurled Baragon into that parking lot, filled with people and buses. The jet sequence was incredible and showed us a new era of blowing up jets, along with the JSDF scene with the soldiers can actually be seen in the explosions. Beautifully done. Like G3, this film can actually stand up to Hollywood productions. The drill missile, D3, was a very nice new weapon, as well as the Satsuma subs. The monster CGI was fantastic!! Mothra looked great computer-animated, but Ghidorah's revival scene didn't look as good, mainly because he was so illuminated. The three-headed dragon looked far better as he was flying over Yokohama Harbor. Not to mention the deflection-attack he uses against Godzilla's heat ray makes up for it. The CGI Godzilla swimming was damn good I must say ( the CGI aquatic Godzilla 2000 scene was HORRIBLE). The Yokohama set is huge and well-built and the end battle is one to remember!! It manages to involve the cast and serves as a emotional peak for both the monsters and the humans. Plus, the score was one of Koh Otani's best ever. It was modern, and yet still very much like the original Godzilla films, the good ole Ifukbe days. Otani defiantly knows how to keep the flow of a film through his very original music.
The ending is amazing to say the least, not that I'll spoil it for those who haven't seen it. My personal favorite of the Millenuim series, matching up to "Gojira", GMK is pretty bad-ass!
First off, the dubbing is excellent in my opinion (although the DVD has the original Japanese track) and the characters portrayed by the actors were very well represented. I think Ryudo Uzaki , who played as Lt. General Tachibana, gave the best performance. He delivers a lot of the emotions in the film, especially in the scene where he recounts his parents' deaths to the original Godzilla in 1954. The story by Kaneko, Keiichi Hasegawa and Mashiro Yokatani was a very well done piece of writing. This leads to one of my top reasons for loving this movie: there is tons of monster-human contact. In other words, the humans and monsters interact with one another, specifically Godzilla. I believe the best two examples of this is one: when the couple look up while taking pictures at Hakone to see Godzilla staring down at them from behind a hillside, who knocks boulders on top of several tourist manically. The second, when that girl in her hospital bed thinks Godzilla has spared her when all of a sudden his tail slams against the hospital, causing the whole building to collapse! There are plenty of others and all are excellent displays of SFX and Kaneko's view on Godzilla.
Now, to the monsters. Godzilla looks great, if not a bit chunky, but it works. He looks incredibly evil, with pure white eyes, a nice touch. Plus the very mobile head and curling lips add to his awesomeness. In this film, not only is Godzilla attacking Japan out of his own desire, but also because apparently the souls of the victims of WWII inhabit his body, who want revenge because Japan is trying to forget about the war, and to a degree, the original Godzilla's attack in 1954. I think it was a very good way to visualize Godzilla. His heat ray is beautifully brought to life, especially when he takes his first shot at Baragon. Baragon is a very nicely done monster and the fight between him and Godzilla maybe one of the best I've ever seen in the monster business. Mothra looks great, if not incredibly smaller than she usually is, but it works. The cocoon scene was beautiful plus the exploding stingers was also a nice effect. King Ghidorah returned, and he looks good for the most part. What I actually didn't like about him was that he was small and weak compared to Godzilla, instead of being huge and imposing as he usually is. However this is not enough to bring the film down, because Kaneko makes up for it with Ghidorah's stunning entrance and (few) flight scenes.
The SFX were superb, especially at adding monsters next to humans. One of the best moments was when Godzilla hurled Baragon into that parking lot, filled with people and buses. The jet sequence was incredible and showed us a new era of blowing up jets, along with the JSDF scene with the soldiers can actually be seen in the explosions. Beautifully done. Like G3, this film can actually stand up to Hollywood productions. The drill missile, D3, was a very nice new weapon, as well as the Satsuma subs. The monster CGI was fantastic!! Mothra looked great computer-animated, but Ghidorah's revival scene didn't look as good, mainly because he was so illuminated. The three-headed dragon looked far better as he was flying over Yokohama Harbor. Not to mention the deflection-attack he uses against Godzilla's heat ray makes up for it. The CGI Godzilla swimming was damn good I must say ( the CGI aquatic Godzilla 2000 scene was HORRIBLE). The Yokohama set is huge and well-built and the end battle is one to remember!! It manages to involve the cast and serves as a emotional peak for both the monsters and the humans. Plus, the score was one of Koh Otani's best ever. It was modern, and yet still very much like the original Godzilla films, the good ole Ifukbe days. Otani defiantly knows how to keep the flow of a film through his very original music.
The ending is amazing to say the least, not that I'll spoil it for those who haven't seen it. My personal favorite of the Millenuim series, matching up to "Gojira", GMK is pretty bad-ass!