In the years since Godzilla was trapped in ice, M-Force, made up of humans and vinyl-wearing mutants, has protected the world from the threat of giant monsters with sophisticated sci-fi weapons, wire-fu, and posing–lots and lots of posing. When a 1200-year-old “fossil” of a giant cyborg is discovered, mutant good-guy Ôzaki is assigned to bodyguard hot Molecular Biologist Miyuki Otonashi, who has been sent to study the specimen.
At the same time, giant monsters start attacking all the Earth’s major cities and aliens appear claiming to “Come in peace.” Could the aliens be controlling the monsters and be connected to the fossil? Well, this is an old-school Godzilla picture, so the answer is obvious. It is up to Ôzaki Miyuki, Miyuki’s equally hot reporter sister, Anna, he-man American Colonel Gordon, and Godzilla to save the world.
Essentially a remake of 1968’s Destroyed All Monsters, Godzilla: Final Wars is less a movie than it is a celebration of 50 years of Godzilla, as well as genre filmmaking in general. It is one homage after another. In addition to nods to almost every Godzilla film, there are references to a dozen other Toho features, Independence Day, Gamera (the flying giant turtle from a competing company), The Dark Knight, Star Wars, The Matrix, and six or seven more. Plus there is all the John Woo rip-off fights (so much John Woo…). It makes for a fun if nonsensical ride for geek fans, and an overly kinetic mess for anyone else.
Like the ’60s and ’70s alien-invasion Godzilla films it copies, Godzilla: Final Wars doesn’t have that much Godzilla in it. It is mainly humans (and mutants) and aliens. Unlike those earlier films, they don’t spend all their time talking (and talking and talking). Instead they split their time equally between talking, posing, and fighting. This is an improvement, but with a run time over two hours, the fights go on for too long. Maybe if they weren’t so very derivative of The Matrix and the works of John Woo (the slow- mo motorcycle shoot-out is painful) the middle of the film wouldn’t drag quite so much.
There is also a subplot with Godzilla’s son Minilla and a Kenny (a Japanese trope involving an annoying little boy, usually dressed in oddly tight shorts) which is best to never speak of again.
Of course the main event is the Godzilla combat, and when it comes it is joyful and violent, and significantly loopy. If you are a fan of suit-mation and puppetry in your giant monster movies (and who isn’t?), you have reached Nirvana. Godzilla: Final Wars was announced as the last Godzilla film, at least for a decade. He could have been given a better send off, but Final Wars is one of the better Godzilla films.