So, if you're like most people, you're probably aware of Godzilla, but have never heard of Godzilla: Final War. I'm a big Godzilla fan and I thought I'd do a little review. Let me share a tiny bit of Godzilla history to start off.
In 1998, Tristar came out with an "American" version of Godzilla, starring Matthew Broderick simply titled "Godzilla." As many of you know, this movie sucked.
"Oh no! My acting career!"
Toho, the studio who created Godzilla, was so horrified by how much that movie sucked, that they started making movies again to help reclaim Godzilla's right to be called the King of the Monsters. The result was 4 excellent modern monster movies, the best of which is the last one called Final War. Here is my review.
So, Final War begins with arguably, the best beginning to a movie ever: A gold dragon being blown up by a nuclear drill shaped submarine that shoots lasers. Also, mutants are now quite common and have formed into a earth defense force that flies around the world in fighter jets killing giant monsters. So, like I said, the best beginning to a movie ever.
Submarines with Drills are obviously better that regular ones.
At this point, all the monsters are inexplicably scooped up by a huge flying saucer that's driven by a bunch of aliens who are all dressed entirely in black pleather. This is of course, really bad ass. They have a few negative issues though, one being that they are really egotistical (which is obnoxious) and another is that they want to kill and eat everyone (also obnoxious). They announce the latter issue to the earth, start to blow the crap out of everything and let all the monsters they scooped up loose.
Cower before their black pleather jackets!!
Luckily, the earth still has a few cards up its sleeve. One is all the random ass kicking mutants that are everywhere and another is, of course, Godzilla. Oh, and there is this one completely random sword toting American as well.
You can tell this American is a bad ass by the size of his mustache.
Well, the mutants and the American go to free Godzilla (who is apparently frozen in a huge block of ice). They do this pretty damn quickly considering they need to fly from Japan to the South Pole, but who cares, Godzilla is finally in the movie!
Fuck Yes!
What follows is even more bad ass than the intro. Godzilla begins kicking the crap out of almost every monster he's ever fought, ever. This is accomplished by zooming around the world in a series of short 10-15 min fights. Also important to note is that he doesn't just win, he dominates the hell out of these monsters. This includes using every possible move that could be made by a man dressed in a rubber monster suit (which is surprisingly a lot). The movie even pulls out the random monsters of Godzilla's past like"King Cesar" and "Giant Spider."
Godzilla: Takin' care of business
My favorite fight is the where Godzilla tail whips the American Godzilla (or "Zilla" as Toho refers to him) into the Sydney opera house, making it explode while Sum 41 plays in the background (yes, this actually happens). the proof.
At the same time as all the monster mashing is going on, the mutants are trying to fight the aliens. How do they do this you ask? Why, by a high speed motorcycle fight of course. The aliens are also ninjas and of course, they ride on Kawasaki ninja bikes. Some nice Ninja on Ninja action for you.
Like this but with more ninjas and lasers guns.
So, as this is happening, the leader of the aliens, who is named X (he chose it because he though it made him sound like a bad ass) is getting increasingly more pissed off. This is pretty understandable since he's pretty much getting his shit fucked up on two fronts. He finally manages to catch all the mutants and the American. He then releases his last monster, who he named "Monster X" and ends up having to fight the mutants while Godzilla fights the monster.
At first, it seems like the movie is actually going to pit Godzilla against a new monster, but no, That would be stupid. Instead, Monster X turns out to be none other than Godzilla's own worst enemy ever, King Ghidorah!
Shit just got real.
Meanwhile, the American now has to fend off three ninja aliens and does pretty good until the last one, who is a girl. He tells her that he would never punch a girl and promptly karate chops her in the face, killing her instantly. God bless America.
Anyways, Godzilla's still fighting King Ghidorah who is doing pretty damn good against him. Nothing really happens for a while but then, all of a sudden, Godzilla gets a super power burst and starts punching the hell out of King Ghidorah. Just when you think they've both had enough, Godzilla completely kicks his ass! At this point, he doesn't just kill him, he decapitates him! Three fucking times!
After this, Godzilla's pretty proud of himself so he starts roaring and breaking things and the mutants finally killed X the alien with some super stylized ninja fighting. The rest of the movie is pretty much the same as that, only with everything blowing up all over the place and X yelling NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
X the Alien and his bald friend getting all pouty
Anyways, that's pretty much all I have to say. Its a great movie that shows up now and then on the Sci Fi Network so if it comes on, you should definitely see it!
