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"Godzilla 2000" is the REAL real thing

© Elizabeth Burton

It's delightful to know that even with the extraordinary abilities inherent in computer-generated graphics, there are still moviemakers who know just how to balance the new with the old--and not take themselves too seriously in the process.

I refer, of course, to Toho Productions and their latest addition to the Godzilla library, Godzilla 2000. As it happens, I watched it with someone who had never thought much of the previous offerings--and who enjoyed this one immensely. So did I.

But, then, what's not to like? There's our old pal Godzilla, Christmas-tree spinal spikes glowing, atomic breath roaring, trashing half of Japan as he does his bit for the environment by knocking down power plants. Nobody every explains what he has against them--maybe all that acid rain is doing a number on his roof.

Anyway, while Big G is smashing megawatts, the ambitious deputy secretary of the department of the interior, one Mitsuo Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe), is not only working out a way to do in our reptilian hero but come up with a way to line his pockets. He's located a mysterious meteorite on the bottom of the ocean that's giving off energy. He figures there has to be a way to channel that energy into power production.

Only the meteorite isn't a meteorite. And the good guys--scientist Yuji Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his precocious daughter, Io (Mayu Suzuki), with the help of a reluctant newspaper reporter, Yuki Ichinose (Naomi Nishida), are trying to save Godzilla so they can find out what makes him tick. Let's face it, anything that could survive what this old boy has had thrown at him the last fifty years has to have a few useful secrets, right?

So, once again, Godzilla goes to bat for an ungrateful world, battling a really terrific alien monster; and the result is a delightfully corny, wonderfully well-done tribute not just to Godzilla movies past but to the entire SF film genre. Indeed, one of the best parts of watching the film is identifying the many subtle references to other movies--and not all of them are SF.

Godzilla 2000 is pure, unadulterated camp, and yet it's camp that never goes too far overboard. Underlying all the silliness and the wry inside jokes is a a serious commitment to both entertainment and honoring the dedication of the legion of fans this series has acquired since the World's Greatest Atavistic Reptile first rose from the bottom of the sea.

It's easy to make fun of something, sometimes without meaning to. In the process, it's all too easy for the result to be a parody. Godzilla 2000 manages to admit that it isn't ID-4 or The Phantom Menace without feeling the least bit guilty about it. There's no embarrassment here that the plot is the same one that's been done before, that the characters don't suffer deep existential angst or that any resemblance between the movie and reality is purely a plot device. This is our guy--the King of the Creature Features--and we love him.

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