This is the final Godzilla film of the Millennium series, and is supposed to be the final one for at least a decade. Like most of the Godzilla movies in the series, this feature has no continuity and is supposedly not related to any of the other movies in the series.
In this story, evil space aliens called the Xilians unleashed all the Earth's monsters to conquer Earth. Therefore, it is up to Godzilla and the Earth Defense Force (mutant humans with special powers) to vanquish the monsters and aliens to rescue the world. This is the first movie since the Showa series in which Godzilla was depicted as a hero.
A good thing about this film is that it brought back a host of monsters, some that have not appeared in a Godzilla film in decades. The monster line-up: Godzilla, Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra, Manda, Ebirah, Zilla (from Roland Emmerich's U.S. "Godzilla"), Kamacuras, Kumonga, Minya, Hedorah, Gigan, King Seesar, Kaiser-Ghidorah and a new creature called Monster X. One other good aspect of this film is that it provided many homages to past Toho films, including bringing back veteran actors Akira Takarada, Kenji Sahara and Kumi Mizuno, along with actors who appeared in Godzilla films from the Heisei and Millennium series. The movie's introduction showed Godzilla's origin, which paid homage to the original Godzilla film, as well as a prologue of other monsters that attacked Japan before; we are shown scenes from past Toho movies, where we see stocked footage of monsters Titansaurus from "Terror of Mechgodzilla," Gezora from "Yog, Monster from Space," Gaira from "War of the Gargantuas," Varan from "Giant Monster Baran" and Godzilla Jr. from "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah." Even though this movie referenced monsters from past films, it is not connected to them in any way; this movie only referenced them to tell the viewers that many creatures besides Godzilla invaded Japan before. In addition, this film even brought back the Gorath star from the movie "Gorath" (1962), the super submarine from "Atragon" (1963) and the Xilians from "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero" (1965). Other homages included music from Akira Ifukube and Masaru Sato, and the appearance of the Shobijin, Mothra's tiny twin fairies. Wataru Mimura, who wrote the screenplay for "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" (1993), "Godzilla 2000" (1999), "Godzilla vs. Megaguirus" (2000) and "Godzilla X Mechagodzilla" (2002), returned to write the story for this film. Eiichi Asada returned to helm the special effects and he went all out on it. And, this film showed that Godzilla is truly the King of the Monsters; he is a force to be reckon with, battling monster after monster (unlike the previous two films, in which he was portrayed as pretty weak).
While a film with the potential to be one of the best Godzilla movies, this feature was, however, a bit of a disappointment. The directing and plot were rushed through and almost every monster were not given an introduction; they just appeared on cue. Most of the monsters were also given very limited screen time and most of the battles were very short. The city destruction scenes were also very brief. The plot focused too much on the Earth Defense Force human mutants, unfortunately, overshadowing the monster action, and many of their action sequences were overkill - they were rip-offs from "The Matrix." Many of the cast members lack depth and charm, particularly actor Don Fyre's Douglas Gordon character; his personality is out-of-place for a Toho movie. And, the music score was terrible - easily the worst in a Godzilla movie. It is just metallic and techno garbage, nothing like the orchestral scores from composers like Akira Ifukube, Masaru Sato and Michiru Ôshima, who scored Godzilla X Mechagodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. The editing with the monster battle scenes constantly being interrupted by the human fight scenes was distracting. Lastly, the color cinematography was awful - very bland - and some of the special/visual effects, especially the overuse of CGI action in the Matrix-style fights and spaceship battles, were a big departure from the trilogy, making it seem at times you are not watching a Godzilla film, but rather a human vs. space alien B-movie.
This movie, though, still has its memorable moments, considering all the elements of a Godzilla movie are here: monsters, gun battles, aliens, spaceships, city destruction, fleeing citizens, scientists, reporters, military members, islands, city landmarks (Mt. Fuji, Tokyo Tower) and super-weapons. And, the homages to past Godzilla films, the many monsters that appeared and the ending credits montage were awesome.
It is great that so many elements (actors, monsters, homages) came together for Godzilla's 50th anniversary bash. However, I thought director Ryûhei Kitamura crashed the party somewhat.
Grade C-
