Godzilla 2000: Gotta love a 'by the numbers' Godzilla flick!

City stomping fun!

Surprisingly, I'm not a huge Godzilla movie fan. I watch them if they happen to be on, but I never embraced them so much that I took the story or character of Godzilla very seriously. The older ones with their deliberately awful English dubs and cookie cutter plots are always good for a laugh, and are easy to watch. Godzilla 2000 was the first release since 1985 that hit North American theaters, and I remember seeing previews for it and wanting to go for the train wreck and camp. It was obvious to me that it was meant to be a lot of fun, and now that I finally had a chance to sit down and watch it in the comfort of my own home, that point was proven without a doubt.

We have a Godzilla Prediction Network dedicated to tracking the big guy around Tokyo, which is fronted by a father and his young, 'I need to be smacked for being a snot' daughter. A cute little reporter hooks up with them hoping to get pictures of Godzilla, and thereby get herself promoted to 'real' news at the paper she works for. We have a bad guy heading up Crisis Control Intelligence. His voice dub is really close to fitting him, but not quite, which brings out the giggles in me right away. This guy is focused on a large space rock that landed in the water near Tokyo, and he figures it's a great idea to bring it to the surface to study and figure out how to exploit. Naturally he and the head of the Godzilla Prediction Network have a frosty history as former co-workers, to the point that the bad guy tries to blow the good guy up in a building on the pretense that he can't stop the countdown, or the alien will win.

Oh, that's right! There's an alien! Of course the space rock is really a spaceship, fueled by solar power, and determined to suck up all the data from Tokyo, and all the genetic code from Godzilla so it can adapt to Earth and properly take over. We get plenty of monster fighting, models of Tokyo smashed to bits, and cool looking energy beams from both Godzilla and the alien.

The main characters are a lot of fun to watch, because everything is over the top, especially with the English dubs. We get exchanges like this:

Good guy head of Godzilla Prediction Network: "Are you sure you remembered to take the lens cap off?"

Cute little reporter: "Oh, bite me! Grrr!"

The "Grrr" is seriously in the dialogue. It's those kinds of gems of witty banter that kept me laughing and thoroughly entertained the whole way through, even when the monster fights seemed to drag on a little too long.

At the end there's a debate over whether Godzilla is a destroyer or protector of Tokyo. The good guy makes the case for 'protector' as Godzilla heads back out to sea after his monumental fight with the alien that surely bankrupted several insurance companies. What makes that commentary completely ludicrous is the fact that Godzilla is doing even more damage as he leaves, tromping on cars, knocking down even more buildings, and leaving plenty of fire and chaos in his wake. Yep. That's just how I like my city to be protected...

Never mind that the plot leaves a lot to be desired. The plot isn't the reason to watch a Godzilla movie, and anyone willing to sit down and waste an hour and a half or so of their life watching a man in a rubber suit hop around while that classic Godzilla roar sounds in their ears knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's campy. It's cheesy. It's timeless. It's a great way to ignore the scary real world and giggle yourself silly!