ゴジラ FINAL WARS
**½/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B+
starring Masahiro Matsuoka, Rei Kikukawa, Don Frye, Akira Takarada
screenplay by Wataru Mimura and Isao Kiriyama
directed by Ryuhei Kitamura
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Applying critical standards to Godzilla is a useless endeavour. You don’t have to be schooled in Kracauer and Mulvey to know there’s something cinematically delicious about grown men in rubber monster suits having at each other, nor do you have to have a seat at the Tisch School to figure out that everything surrounding that is gravy. So the most and least a critic can do is to note that the latest (and perhaps last) entry in the series is: a) a big dogpile on the Green One by most of his old adversaries; b) nearly upstaged by some hilariously derivative human/alien backstory; and c) that you probably know before renting or buying whether you’ll come away thinking Godzilla: Final Wars is the greatest movie ever. You could quibble that nobody bothered to shoot Godzilla with the iconic artistry he deserved, but the monster has never been merely represented by cinema. Like John Wayne or Marlene Dietrich, he’s cinema all on his own.
Breaking news: the persistent irritation of the plot slows things down. After a spirited beginning wherein Rodan, Angurus, and the digital whatzit from the failed Roland Emmerich movie attack several cities, there’s a lot of ludicrous exposition involving aliens who are apparently friendly and trying to turn the United Nations into the Space Nations. It’s all a ruse out of “To Serve Man,” of course, meaning that a bunch of trained mutants, including the one with latent special powers (there’s always one), have to rouse the big G from his Antarctic tomb. An amulet provided by Mothra’s tiny women proves to be a deus ex machina, a dogfight around the alien mothership is unmistakably swiped from Independence Day, and a tsunami of clichés and/or borrowings from The Matrix and Star Wars are fitfully uproarious but entirely beside the rubber-suited point.
It’s unclear how much of this we’re supposed to take seriously: the script is a constant exercise in writers painting the characters into corners and inventing magic solutions to extricate them. Which is fine for a Ryuhei Kitamura film (he made Versus and Alive, which similarly inflated dunderheaded ideas), but really, it’s the same old frustrating tease that’s annoyed in entries past. True, there is the weird presence of lone Western good guy (and ex-Ultimate Fighting champ) Don Frye, who in his moustache and greatcoat suggests Mike Ditka playing Joseph Stalin. But aside from noting the film’s use of grotesque black stereotypes as instant signifiers of America, we’re mostly left to wait for the moment at hour two when Godzilla rises from the ice, takes down Gigan, and heads for the world’s other monster hotspots. These aliens and mutants can have their tiffs another time–I came for the glorious moment where the Sydney Opera House gets crushed by a monster.
The main drawback is that the need to apportion equal time to the rest of the monsters spreads Godzilla pretty thin. The tag-team idea that looks good on paper just abbreviates the fights, making you savour the final grudge match between our hero and what I believe is Monster X-II. This is mirrored in the backstory, in which a huge pile of bad ideas and cheap digital effects are crammed into a runtime (and a budget) that will only accommodate a few. Still, Godzilla: Final Wars is the most packed Godzilla movie I can remember, a film in which your attention flags because of its silliness instead of because nothing is happening. It’s a movie that isn’t marking time but rather trying its damnedest to dazzle you with bigness it can’t possibly deliver–except, of course, in the personage of the monster we love like a giant green brother. If you have no love for Godzilla, this ain’t gonna change your mind. And if you have no love for Godzilla, try not to move into my neighbourhood.
THE DVD
The film receives a so-so R1 DVD treatment from Sony. The 2.40:1, 16×9-enhanced image is a little soft and a tad oversaturated with what few bright colours there are; fortunately for the film, it’s art-directed in the grim grey James Cameron mode. Still, fine detail could be improved. Subwoofer aficionados will want to know about the 5.1 soundmix (in Japanese and dubbed-English flavours), which piles on the rumble of flying vessels and the synth soundtrack with admirable thrust. Everything else is a largely standard albeit harmoniously mixed torrent of dialogue and effects. The only significant extra is “Godzilla: B-Roll to Film” (17 mins.), a comment-free look at the production of various monster scenes compared to the finished product. The unusual (for Godzilla) angles and total lack of music and effects cast the monsters in a new light–and almost make you wish that a real director would seize on the implications of this unwitting new context. Trailers for Steamboy, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, a ten-disc Godzilla compilation, Dust to Glory, Mirrormask, and Madison round out the platter.
125 minutes; PG-13; 2.40:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, Japanese DD 5.1; CC; English, French subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Sony
