Some things withstand the test of time. And some things separate those who can laugh and have a good time from those who sadly cannot. After 50 years, Godzilla has done both. In short, this is the most fun I have had at the movies in a long, long time.

So, if you giggle with childlike glee when Godzilla jumps through the air, dragging his tail behind him, as he lands two dusty rubberized feet into the chest of the latest alien environmental mutation that has gotten too big for its britches, I guarantee you will absolutely love this movie.

The movie is for all intents and purposes a complete remake of the classic Destroy All Monsters. But it outdoes it in every way. In short, aliens try to take over the world using all the monsters beaten down by Godzilla over the years. And once the dust has settled only Godzilla (and a friend or two) are left to save what’s left of humanity’s sorry excuse for an ungrateful hide.

But I know the questions you want to ask. So from one Godzilla fan to another, here are the answers, as spoiler free as I can make them:

Is this Good Godzilla or Bad Godzilla?

True believers know that Godzilla started his existence really quite pissed off with the puny mortals who turned him from a desponded lonely dinosaur into the great atomic age monstrosity we see on the silver screen. So, during 50 years of trampling cityscapes, Godzilla has alternated between mankind’s greatest enemy and its greatest defender. In this movie, he is very satisfyingly…both. Godzilla actually has a friggin’ character arc here! It isn’t much, but it covers the gamut of his entire career and remains true to the entire 50 year span of his reign. You won’t be disappointed.

What about monsters? I want monsters!

Oh baby! All your favorite monsters are here and most are used to their best effect ever. Mothra in particular finally earns all his press (and all those lovely ladies he is always surrounded by…ahem). Rodan kicks it hard. Nobody except that silly sludge monster gets short shrift and I liked him better in Dogma as the Golgothan anyway.

There are also two wonderfully monstrous cameos in the film. One involves taking care of a notorious imposter to Godzilla’s throne once and for all, while the other comes from the depths of outer space and takes us straight on through to a very satisfying finale.

How can Godzilla fight all these monsters in just two hours?

Well, let me tell ya’. Without revealing spoilers, Godzilla runs the tour de force of arena combat here. From pro-wrestling to ultimate boxing, one-punch knock-outs to acrobatic martial arts moves, Godzilla takes on and takes down as many as three monsters at a time. And this isn’t a six year old’s fight choreography. Godzilla KILLS some of these punks this time round. That’s right…FATALITY! Bereft of life they’ll roar no more.

Is it a masterpiece of story, character, and the cinematic art?

Not even close. If you are looking for that, go see The Incredibles. Brad Bird is the man.

Despite the plot holes and overall cheese that comes with the kaiju (giant monster) genre, Godzilla: Final War is probably the tightest and least “cheesy” Godzilla movie yet. There are actually character arcs as well as plot and story elements that are introduced and resolved by the end. I kid you not.

Is any of this handled with art and genius of the The Matrix (the first one)? Of course not. But this movie does know to introduce only what it needs, make every minute of screen time count, and the director delivers on each and every promise he made to his audience by the end of the film.

I really hate Baby Godzilla/Minya/Godzuki. I hear he is in this. Is that true?

Yes, he is. And I’m with you. I HATE Minya…really despise the obnoxious little bugger. But, you know what? He is redeemed here. And I’ll be darned if the always uber-lame Ichiro kid character doesn’t actually manage to keep his mouth shut as well! Ichiro and Minya not only avoid being annoying, they actually become critical to the ultimate resolution of the story. Yet they mercifully only appear very sparingly and are never onscreen long enough to become even mildly dislikeable. So have no fear of Ichiro and Minya. Jar-Jar Stinks still rules the Land of Cheese.

What about the human race? Do we sit around and watch or do we get down and dirty?

Mankind is smack dab in the middle of things and we are critical to the ultimate success of the war. And again, the overall theme of mankind/mutant/monster is woven throughout the story and tied up nicely at the end. This isn’t The Matrix 2, where you get 15 minutes of Gnostic pseudo-philosophy force fed down your throats by a clone of Colonel Sanders, or The Matrix 3, which ends with a big, “Huh? Where are my answers? I paid for three films and I want some friggin’ answers!”

A great example of this is the M-Force. When I first saw them, I thought “Oh God, Power Rangers wearing armor by Techniques.” But the director does a great job of keeping the Power Rangers-isms far, far away. He also puts in a few twists here and there, and even manages to pull off the first acceptable puny humans versus giant monster battle. Think Dune and the capture of the sandworm for a sense of scale here. Can such a sequence be done better? Absolutely (as it was in Dune). But this guy did it first and did a bang up job of it. Kudos to the director with kaiju cahones.

All the humans matter – not more or less than they are needed. There are a few expository pacing problems here and there, but nothing like what you are used to with kaiju (i.e. monsters at the beginning, monsters at the end, nothing but lab coats, obnoxious kids, and precocious reporters in between).

What’s in it for us Americans?

I’ve heard this director was schooled in Australia. It makes sense to me because he has tons of classic Japanese references (like all of the old school Godzilla stuff), but lifts entire sequences from the Matrix (too much so I began to feel), dialogue from Star Trek (re: in the subtitles), costume design from Bill and Ted’s second excursion, and imagery from all of the above and Berry Gordy’s camp kung-fu classic, The Last Dragon. I am sure I missed a score of tongue-in-cheeky references. See how many you can find. :)

And if Godzilla, almost a dozen monsters, aliens that represent clones of Keanu Reeve’s entire career, and some of the hottest Japanese ladies ever to grace a Godzilla movie aren’t enough for you, how about a smart-assed, sword wielding Tom Selleck clone as the captain of ye old drill-equipped space ship XYZ? Actually, he’s just an American casting of the thick mustachioed, square shouldered captain character from many Japanese anime classics, but this guy delivers the most absurd lines (in English mind you) but with such personal conviction that you just can’t help but like him and laugh. For most of the movie, the guy is armed with a sword and I was like “why?” When he finally does draw it, I believed it was worth the wait.

Can I take the kids?

There are a couple of places over the course of five to ten minutes (first ½ hour) where the aliens are finally revealed in true form via a head-split out of the bodies of their human hosts (re: John Carpenter’s The Thing/Invasion of the Body Snatchers). While it is played rather campy, it might be a bit much for your youngest kids. So, cover up their eyes when the big reveal happens (it’s telegraphed pretty clearly) and you’ll be fine.

Otherwise, the movie is perfect for kids, big and little.

The one place where they will get bored and ask “Where are the monsters?” is where you can say, “They’re coming right back.” I promise they won’t ask again.

Okay, what didn’t you like? Anything “cringe-worthy”?

Let’s see. I thought the Matrix elements went from beyond homage to blatant rip-off in a few places. If I’d been on the picture, I would have put a little more time into making these a little more original. Maybe he meant these to be “extra funny” or an “extensive homage”, but it falls flat after one too many references.

Not since Jeremy Irons was forced (at gunpoint?) to butcher the master villain Profion in Dungeons & Dragons, has an uber-villain overacted to this level. He goes from being quite surprising early on to just bloody awful by the end. I was able to look past it once but I know that upon repeated viewings, he will stand out like Minya did in the old Godzilla’s movies…an infected sore thumb. The good news is I really did want him to die by the end, so the director did elicit the desired emotional response…ahem.

Like the overall production design, the visual/special effects are a mixed bag. Some are quite well done, rivaling today’s better studio releases. Some match the classic Godzilla style and are thus acceptable to an audience conditioned to suspend their disbelief. The remaining shots were just amateurish. But they all conveyed the intended story element and I didn’t find any of them gratuitous (i.e. only there to make you go “ohh” and “ahh” – re: Blade: Trinity), so it’s a barely passing grade for now.

And while this director executed many things well, there aren’t a whole lot of original ideas here. Now, he is undoubtedly hamstrung by the very nature of this material, and a total production budget that was probably less than Van Helstink’s catering, but even the places where he steps out of the classic Godzilla genre (and should therefore have had free reign) seem to fall flat on one level or another. I’m getting a kind of a sophomore effort vibe here, but I do think he is one to watch.

In Conclusion…

The good news is that this movie rarely stops to take a breath. The director introduced it to the audience as a “roller coaster”. I have heard that enough times to reflexively roll my eyes. But sure enough, he delivered on this implicit promise to me and the rest of us lucky enough to attend the screening.

And in a time when such big budget abominations such as Van Smelsing, Matrix Dumb (2) & Dumberer (3), League of Extraboring Gentlemen, and Terminator 3 get all the press and all the media push that comes with a huge P&A budget, it’s refreshing to go to a “popcorn movie” that says you’ll enjoy yourself and then actually have a great time.

Rating

Against “regular” movies, how can I rate this? How about “better than the stink-bombs I mentioned above?” 3.5 Stars maybe? Impossible to say, so...

…as a Godzilla movie, 5 out of 5 stars.

It made me completely forget the Devlin/Emmerich bastardized “iguana-dog” that I was worried I would never be able to erase from my mind. And I guess that goes to show you that a movie really can tangibly improve your life.

Click here for video interview with the Director of Final Wars

Click here for full photo gallery of the world premiere