The first Toho-born Godzilla feature to play our shores since Godzilla 1985, the equally unimaginatively titled Godzilla 2000 is seriously silly fun, wringing unintentional laughs out of every stab at earnestness. And of course, the nearly wall-to-wall scenes of demolition and destruction don’t hurt, either.
As the film opens, the Japanese equivalent of Fisher Stevens and his young daughter are carousing about Tokyo with a female reporter in their Godzilla Protection Network Mobile Unit. As soon as the novelty of atrocious dubbing wears down, Godzilla makes his first appearance, and it’s good to see him downright mean and pissed again, bent on reckless abandon.
He then spends a great deal of time trashing the coastline and downtown, either via unconvincing miniatures or poor composite shots. He meets his match in the form of a flying, prehistoric rock that emerges from the sea and eventually breaks open to reveal a shiny, silver UFO that sucks the power of the city via tentacles that only can be seen via infrared vision. (The Japanese are obsessed with tentacles, you know. They’re also obsessed with vaginal imagery, and just when you think the movie will be over before they get to that, it’s “Hello, labia monster!”)
The flick’s Americanization is wildly apparent, perhaps most evident in lines like, “Nice try, you asshole!,” “Oh, bite me!” and “It will go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!” Despite its shortcomings in the special effects and story departments, this Godzilla is at least a true Godzilla — something than Roland Emmerich cannot say. —Rod Lott