Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Clarissa Mora
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Payno
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Phillipa
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
robert60000000
In all honesty, I usually enjoy the campy, b-movie charm of the Godzilla movies. The great miniature work and the monster fights usually make up for nonsensical plots or cliché human characters. But nothing makes up for a boring Godzilla movie in my book. If you're making a movie about giant, fighting monsters the biggest sin you could commit is be boring. The perfectly simplistic plot still gets dragged out for most of the run time, where we're only introduced to a new kaiju in the last 30 minutes. The rest of the time we can watch Godzilla battle it out with a flying saucer. Riviting. You know your fight scenes lack any sense of emergency when all your villains basically die standing around being useless. The human characters are annoying. No one likable. The potentially charming father-daughter scientific duo never does anything besides being pretentious, self-important assholes. Honestly the movie could have been way better, have they focused on Godzilla and the monster fights. The effects (explosions, destruction of buildings, atomic breath) were great (save that flying saucer) along with the new suit. If they gave two shits about choreography or pacing the whole thing would have turned out fine. I understand that this movie was Godzilla's great return after 1995 and a lot of people may have major nostalgia for it, but in my personal experience with the franchise, there are way better flicks out there.
SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain
Not the best start to a new series of Godzilla movies, but it'll do. It did have some work to do after the shitstorm that was the American Godzilla. It mostly makes up for that. We get a guy in a suit, looking better than ever. The film also brings us some CGI, with a wonderfully dodgy looking spaceship. I praise this film for not holding back on its imagination. I wish people would stay away from the American dubs. I've never seen one, and I've enjoyed the series thoroughly. This film had everything I'd come to expect, but seemed scared of being too outlandish. Hiroshi Abe also ruined a lot of the movie by having ONE look. Was it fear? Was it determination? Was it confusion? I'll never know.
mastrmeb
In truth, I was planning on coming here and stating how disappointed I was in this movie the second time around . . .HOWEVER, that was before the movie ended. This may be the only Godzilla film I've seen thus far where I've enjoyed the later half more than the beginning, but I have reasons for that. Firstly, in the old movies, Godzilla didn't normally appear until the second half, allowing for background information and characters to develop. This film introduces him right away, and I believe that is so the on screen characters can begin their study and dissection of Godzilla on a scientific level (which is a "no-no." Godzilla is not science).Also, the first half of the film relies heavily on special effects, something I wouldn't recommend to any nation other than the U.S. (not because other nations are poor at producing good CG. It's just that America has such a reputation for "pretty colors"). Godzilla started as a guy in a rubber suit. Since then, the technique has greatly improved and I love it.Anyways, after the halfway marker, the two monster begin their final battle which is as glorious as ever in any film. I highly enjoy the miniatures and models more than any CGI. I can't remember a Godzilla flick with more on-screen destruction, and in such a modernized Japan as well.The very ending, I would also like to bring up, is very romanticized, exciting, and visionary. Probably my favorite ending of any Godzilla movie.Finally, I want to mention the music. Most of the soundtrack doesn't really make an effect on me, and sometimes it even stole the mood away from what it should have been . . . but as I said before, I liked the ending. I even spied the theme song from the original 1954 "Gojira" in the ending credits (Cool!) as well as other familiar tunes which I couldn't forget.I did, however, think that the acting could have done with some work. Otherwise, the storyline and ingenuity matched all previous film plot lines.There will always be fans of Godzilla, and from what I've seen there is only room for improvement.
winner55
I honestly feel that this is a great Godzilla film in many ways; but the negative comments written on reflection by some viewers are difficult to dismiss. Many of the negative reviews of "G.: Final Wars" reflect a frustration with that film's radical revision of the very look and feel of the series. Here, the problem is that, despite innovations, "G. 2000" remains narratively and stylistically bound to the traditional series, but can't quite deliver the goods some fans expected of it. This bodes ill for the whole "millenium" series that follows, and indicates why this Godzilla series, while developing a cult of its own, lost the interest of many older fans.I'll approach this by remarking an important point that, oddly, many missed, reflected in the American audio commentary to the US DVD version of the film. What astounded me, right at the beginning of the film, was that the Americans involved in the loop and re-edit of the US release had not the slightest clue that a great deal of the humor of the film develops by spoofing the wretched American "Godzilla" (-in-name-only, or GINO) of 1998; The opening has Godzilla at a light-house, not only as a tribute to the granddaddy of post-WWII dinosaur flicks, "Beast from 20,000 Fanthoms", but because "Beast is the film the American GINO was really remaking. This is quickly followed by a confrontation between our human protagonists and Godzilla in a roadway tunnel - clearly a comment, and spoof, on the tunnel sequence that ends the GINO film. Little digs at GINO pepper the whole film; and along with them, back-handed comments on the previous Godzilla series of the '80s and '90s.Visually, something odd is going on here, and I don't mean the new Godzilla suit some have a difficulty with; actually, performed well and photographed from the right angles, it can be very impressive.What's happening is in the background, but it shapes the whole look of the film. With the enormous development and reconstruction of Tokyo over the past few decades, the city has literally shot up, with enormous skyscrapers tossed together with every little over-all urban design. Let's face it - these buildings very nearly dwarf Godzilla; although technically larger than ever before in the series, he looks smaller because of the urban growth he has to wade through. This also accounts for some of the higher-angled placements of the camera, which have the audience looking down on Godzilla (without the jet or helicopter POV as in previous films).The fact is, the world around Godzilla is becoming ever more complicated; the film-makers are pretty savvy about it, but many audiences, although more sophisticated about such matters than they were in the 1960s, clearly feel uncomfortable with even minor renovations in the series, since these frequently reduce Godzilla in stature, in comparison with the legendary city-stomper of old.As for me, I really like the characters; I find the special effects impressive and the story engaging. And from what I have in the American re-release, I think the film-makers did a pretty good job over-all.Maybe the reason Toho decided to retire the character is because they had to; maybe the era of Godzilla is over and it's time to find new monsters and new heroes. Too bad; it was a pretty good era for vinyl puppet monsters and invasions from outer space. In that regard it was truly a fun ride, and if it is indeed over, I will miss the best of it.