Godzilla 2000 -Movie Review

I’m not that monster movie guy. I don’t have a long history of loving monster movies and I don’t know anything about that canon. Recently, I watched Gojira, the first Godzilla film ever made, and actually really enjoyed it. The big reason I liked it so much: It actually had subtitles, therefore, the plot and characters were penetrable.

My biggest problem with these type of flicks, and foreign B-movies in general, is the fucking dubs in English just make the film’s story impenetrable. The movies aren’t supposed to be funny just because the dubbing. It is a big fucking problem. If I was the filmmaker and made a cool fucking B-movie I wouldn’t want it ruined with some asshole from another country dubbing lines over it.

This is my problem with these movies and remains my biggest problem with Godzilla 2000 – I hate watching dubbed movies. Subtitles are not a big fucking deal on DVD and just because you can’t understand someone doesn’t mean delivery isn’t important.

A performer’s delivery has a huge impact on a film and subtitles are a huge part of combating the language barrier between audiences. Most people (Americans) won’t watch movies with subtitles, but will watch a movie that is dubbed. I find that immersion is effected quite a bit more by movies poorly dubbed in English than by having to read what people are saying.

Indeed, I’m rare in the film lovers world because I hate seeing subtitled movies in the theater and often refuse to do so. Why? Because the gap between the visuals and looking down at the subtitles is too fucking far. If the theater is an IMAX you might be looking down as far as three stories to read the conversation, then looking back up – it all hurts my eyes. Its as bad 3-D in my opinion.

The solution? I’m not sure, but Godzilla 2000 was really fucking fun to watch aside from the poor dubs. This conclusion made it all the more disappointing to me.

Godzilla 2000 comes off as a response to the American Godzilla film, which is, if you haven’t seen it, a big lump of Roland Emmerich’s shit. 2000 actually looks like a Godzilla movie (see above) Emmerich’s film obviously has better special effects, but it just isn’t a Godzilla film, it’s a Emmerich film.

Moreover, 2000 is the ultimate Godzilla movie. It has Godzilla as a bad ass destroying the city again, but also, incorporates ideas from previous Godzilla films were he is also a protector. The film follows a couple of scientists who are studying Godzilla’s cells. They find that his cells have a bizarre regenerative property. Then a bunch of scientists find a flying saucer underground. This is where I think the movie has a few problems.

Like, why did they have to bring in a flying saucer? Is this a Steven Spielberg movie?

The movie ends with a really cool Godzilla-type climax that just plain works and even when the visuals are a little…imperfect, you let it go because it is fucking balling.

Most people might give this film a thumbs up just out of awkward hipsterism. They’ll say, “Yeah, I love those movies man, they’re just so much fun”. Right. Truthfully, I’m somewhere in the middle. I find the movies a bit tedious.

Godzilla movies are hard to like when their dubbed in English. Not because they’re schlocky and ridiculous, but because I feel that they’re being degraded into something they weren’t’ supposed to be.

One of these scenes is where the villain, Katagiri, lets out the most ridiculous utterance since, “Oh my god” in Troll 2. Katagiri confronts Godzilla in a bizarre scene where he wants to look at him up close. He battle cries Godzilla Kamikaze-style, yelling, “Godzillaaaaaaaaa”. It is weird and I’ll have to make a video of worst lines ever and it is certainly up there as one of them.

I hate when Westerners take movies from the East and dub them over with cheesy/different narratives. Robotech Manga Cross being the only exception of when it is done well.