Godzilla: Final Wars

(Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 12.13.2005)

I don't quite know how to put this but, as it turns out, humans are cattle. Worse yet, the alien race that thinks so is going to slaughter us like cattle. Once you have a moment to collect your thoughts, I recommend that you read on. Take your time, it's okay. Alright, that`s enough. Crying time is over. This alien race has control over all of Godzilla's enemies, monsters from around the world who are destroying the planet at a rapid rate. Godzilla is vacationing at the South Pole, frozen in ice and unconscious, and the only way to get to him is by going through the enemy. The situation`s bad, but damn it, we've got The Earth Defense Force on our side.

The force is composed of Japanese males with supernatural powers and, for some unknown reason, they're led by a guy who looks like a Brooklyn policeman from around 1960. He's overweight with a full moustache and he's got one-liners to spare. I hope you don't think I'm throwing a coat of candy on what's going on here, though. Even with these guys on our side, the situation is tense and I don't like our odds.

I still don't feel I'm capturing the craziness that is Godzilla: Final Wars. I could try to fill out the plot details of this movie, but I'd be wrong. There are too many of them and the plot here is really nothing more than an afterthought. Godzilla's turning the big 5-0 and he's going to celebrate in style: a birthday bash in the form of taking on every enemy from his past. Mothra's invited. So is Gigan. Rodan's coming, but he didn't bring a present (unless an ass-kicking counts as a present). Given a choice, Godzilla probably would have preferred a cake with some candles and a quiet get-together at a restaurant, but we don't choose situations like this, they choose us.

What makes this movie difficult to review is it's not really a movie. Godzilla: Final Wars is more a highlight reel of the most ridiculous science fiction scenarios you could possibly put on film, held together by the tradition that is Godzilla. The monsters look super fake, despite competent effects everywhere else. It's actually a nice homage to the legacy of Godzilla: include evolved space and laser battles, as well as extended Matrix-style fight sequences, but give fans of Godzilla the cheap-o, strictly welfare guy-in-a-suit effects that have defined the series for decades.

The extras on this disc consist of a super cool featurette titled "Godzilla: B-Roll to Film," in which we move from human-sized Godzilla on set to the same scenes as they look in the finished film. It's a great extra that gets around the problem of paying for subtitles by simply focusing on the actors, who never speak. We hear crew chatter throughout, but we don't need to know what they're saying because the point of this feature is to contrast how a scene looks during filming and how it looks in the finished film. -- Jason Woloski