"Godzilla 2000" (1999) d/ Takao Okawara

Tonight, I'm the bearer of both good and bad tidings here at the Wop. Bad, first: This review will wrap up the specialty month of Kai-June. I had planned on writing about several more movies before June ended, but they don't call it summer for nothing. Since we've already covered what I believe to be the best all around Godzilla movie to date here, some nine years ago, I figured we could close up shop this time around on a similarly high note, with the first in the Godzilla Millennium series, which also happens to be the first Japanese movie to utilize a completely cgi-Goji in a shot while lessening the overall impact of miniatures. Fear not, purists. It all works somehow. And then some.


"Park by Macy's I said! This is the last time I let you drive the flying saucer in the mall parking lot..."
By the turn of the twenty-first century, Godzilla is a devastating nuisance to his native Japan, meriting a "Godzilla Prediction Network", that studies the great beast at every opportunity like he was a tornado with dorsal spikes and nuclear breath. Elsewhere, the science chappies have uncovered a UFO dormant in the Japan Trench for the past sixty million years, that awakens just as they're in the process of raising it for further studies, and flies off. Unaware that Japan's defense forces are equipped with full metal missiles that will undoubtedly pass through him like fecal matter in a goose's turd cutter, Godzilla carries out a fierce attack anyway when the flying saucer suddenly interrupts, looking for genetic hand outs from the big green goliath. When Godzilla is defeated by the interstellar interloper, he retreats underwater to rejuvenate himself a la Gamera, while the ship hits the pause button, landing itself on terra firma,  to recharge it's own space batteries. Everybody needs a break, man.


"Jump over my tentacles! Bubble gum! Bubble gum! Five cents a packet!"
Shinoda (Takahiro Murata), the head of GPN, discovers that the secret to Godzilla's constant cell regeneration lie in something called Organizer G1, but the alien craft soon obtains the knowledge and heads for Shinjuku, where it lands atop Tokyo Opera City Tower, and begins to hack all of Japan's computers for more information. While changing the surrounding atmosphere to better suit it, the ship issues an obligatory invasion message to all Earthlings, as it seeks out Godzilla DNA so that it might transform into something more comfortable for it's coming efforts. Godzilla makes the scene, and takes down the UFO, but not before it can absorb some of Big G's mojo, transforming itself into a monstrous Millennian before the DNA takes control of the hulking form, changing it even more drastically into the monster, Orga, whose giant mitts pack a serious wallop. Godzilla v Orga for bragging rights over the planet, with no time limits, and to the death. Just the way you want your kaiju movies to wrap up. Check it out to see how it finishes!


"C'mere, you ticklish? Coochie coochie coo..."
I'd merit a guess that the drastically divergent Mire-Goji here is the natural adult progression of Godzilla, Jr., who survived the eye-popping, jaw-dropping finale of Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995). He'd reappear in the next entry, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, the following year, with a lighter green skin tone and brighter spikes, before undergoing further modifications for his 2002 scrap against Mechagodzilla, who'd undergone some big changes himself by then. Despite a few flubbed effects match ups here and there, 2000 remains one of my favorite Godzilla movies, with a script made wittier for Western audiences ("those full metal missiles will go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!", for example.), packed to the dorsal spikes with loads of good giant monster action, and the most wicked-looking Godzilla suit ever committed to celluloid. For those reasons and more, three Wops have been bestowed upon it, and it comes highly recommended to kaiju fans everywhere. As we watch the radioactive beast once again lumber off into the ocean on his lonely journey home, and little high pitched Japanese kids in vasectomy shorts wave him on, we ponder his triumphantly destructive return one day and smile.


Of all the buildings he could eat, Godzilla foolishly picked a Sriracha sauce factory.