Godzilla: Final Wars

I would definitely rank this movie the best in the Godzilla series hands down. It's immediately engaging, but as ther movie progresses the scenes begin to "hurry up". Many of the monster fight scenes are far too short. Some fight scenes leave the viewer wondering why some of the monsters were even included. I would definitely recommend this film to any Godzilla fan. I would suggest the film to non-Godzilla fans with the following reservations: - The main characters, although interesting (especially the lead alien), are somewhat two dimensional - The plot weakens as the film progresses - The monsters are cheesy (On purpose) - The film is a bit long - The ending is somewhat silly - The American actors are awful - There are a few scenes that may disturb small childrenNow, if you want to see a BAD monster film, watch the newer version of Yonggary or Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla! These actually made me feel somewhat sick to my stomach (literally).

Godzilla is on ice in Antarctica. There’s an Earth Defense Force made up of mutants. Manda shows up and the captain who destroys the monster is removed from office. A mummified monster is discovered, who the Shobijin twins claim is Gigan, the alien cyborg. Speaking of aliens, a mother-ship shows up filled to the rafters with aliens called Xiliens, asserting they are peaceful..........although humans do appear on their menu. A mess is made of the Earth. Monsters go on a rampage. Even Minilla returns in an unwelcomed cameo appearance. The alien villain is a cackler who looks more like the lead singer in a bad 80s rock band (he needed more work on his evil laugh).Very glitzy and flashy, this Matrix wannabe is too much and yet not enough of a story to satisfy. In Japan, this entry in the franchise has the distinction of being the least attended film in 29 years, since Terror of Mechagodzilla.

I purchased Godzilla Final Wars HD for my son who loves all things Godzilla but this movie I watched with him and it was pretty good compared to some of the older Godzilla movies.Lots of action and Ill just say Godzilla has his hands full in this movie.I bought Amazon Prime to save money on shipping because I order a lot of stuff and the free 2nd day shipping is pretty cool and for around $5.00 I can have most products sent to me in one day which is a price that cannot be matched anywhere on the Internet.Anyway, when I bought Amazon Prime I got a year of FREE Prime movies which is like NetFlix that was costing me about a $100.00 bucks a year. I pay $100,00 for Amazon Prime but I get unlimited movies along with free 2 day shipping for a year which is great plus Amazon now delivers 7 days a week. On the new releases and movies that are not on Prime I can just click a button on my TV or device I am watching it on and rent the movie for a really cheap price or buy the movie to keep it in my Prime library which is what I did with Godzilla Final Wars and my son watches it all the time.I give Godzilla Final Wars and Amazon Prime 5 stars !

Since most people looking at this product already know what to expect from the movie (Gojira!), this is strictly a review of the US-released DVD:VIDEO: AVERAGEBlurry is the first thing that comes to mind. It isnt so much a problem when Godzilla is on the screen, but any time there are people (or aliens), it is immediately obvious.Another problem is that during dark scenes, there is a LOT of grain and even some artifacts. It is quite watchable, but you shouldnt be expecting much when you put this disc in.AUDIO: AVERAGEThe included "Japanese" (I'll explain the quotes later) 5.1 track doesnt sound very good, and is sometimes even confusing. Effects are spread around like butter on toast, like the mixer wanted to use every channel regardless of whether or not it was appropriate. I actually switched my receiver over to stereo for the second half of the movie and found it to be better (as in: no longer distracting).Bass seems to be great in some places and nonexistant in others -one of the latter is part of the biggest explosion in the movie, totally neutered by the almost complete lack of bass.I did not try the English 5.1 track.FEATURES: POORAside from some previews (that are played before the disc menu loads anyway, Joy!), there is a "behind the scenes" of some godzilla fights. It can be interesting to some to see how the fights are made and then see the end result, but if you have any of the other Sony-released Godzilla movies on DVD, then you've seen it all before. Those are all the "Special Features".Also, I find animated and "fancy" DVD menus to be annoying, but it is a decent judge of how seriously a publisher takes a particular DVD. In this case, you get an ugly static image and no music. If there were no "Special Features", then I suspect they would have gotten rid of the menu altogether.ANNOYANCES:-As most know, the twins on Orphan Island speak the same words at the same time. When english subtitles are enabled, there are subtitles for each twin. Of course the subtitles say the exact same thing. It is technically correct, since there are two people speaking, but it is just stupid. They dont say anything separately or differently. Annoying.-The "Japanese" track is edited. They dubbed out some swear words that were spoken in english. This isnt really a big deal in that it doesnt affect anything, but it is just annoying that this sort of stuff keeps happening. After respectable releases from Sony in the past few years, are we going back to "Edited for Americans" R1 Godzilla DVDs, or is this just a "Godzilla is for kids, so lets take out the swearing" edit? Dissapointing, either way.OVERALL...this is a very dissapointing release. For what is supposed to be "the last Godzilla for the next 20 years" (yeah, right), they released one of their worst Godzilla DVDs.With no features that are special, a crappy video transfer, a chaotic 5.1 Japanese audio track, and some stupid subbing and kidding-down problems, all we can do is hope that theyre just messing with us and will release a real DVD (2-disc with some real extras?) after everyone has bought this one up. Unfortunately this is about the only option anyone has, because the Japanese DVD has no English subtitles, this is the only non-bootleg Godzilla Final Wars DVD that has English subs.

My son and I like to watch the older Godzilla movies together, so when I saw this monster melee on instant video I grabbed it. I have never felt like I absolutely wasted money before. By that I mean I could've literally burned the money and I would feel better about it than spending it on this movie. At least if I had bought the dvd I would have something I could sell, but this piece of junk's digital presence is always going to be felt. So, enough of my bitching about my lost $10. Here's why the movie is so terrible:First off, the CG is really bad. The transition between when the monsters are physical entities to when they are cg creatures is so jarring it's like someone changed the channel. Everything is also color corrected to give it this gritty look and it's done terribly. The whole thing is just ugly to look at.Secondly, the monsters are an after thought in this film. Manda attacks the sub Atragon and is destroyed in a minute or so, then Godzilla gets frozen in the north pole in another scene that last a minute, then, what feels like days later, all of the monsters show up and each one is shown wreaking havoc for a couple seconds each before the aliens take them away. After that it is a terrible sci-fi throw-away about a comet that is heading towards earth and the aliens are here to help (but they're really the bad guys who don't blink). That part of the story goes on FOREVER. The humans who are mutants get taken over by the aliens (except for one guy), there is a horrible fight on motorcycles, more people not blinking , this guy doesn't remember his dog and then everyone on earth(except like 5 people) is dead. Then someone remembers it's a Godzilla movie so all the monsters come back after they go break him out of the ice and he one punch knockouts all of them in a half-assed montage. Then Gigan(who Godzilla killed in the afore mentioned montage) and Ghidorah show up to hand the big G his ass. Mothra shows up, dies a minute later, Gigan dies again, Ghidorah is too much for Godzilla to handle but one of the five people left alive on the planet has God powers and saves the day. All of the aliens are dead and some lady and her dog survived. Godzilla out. The monsters make an appearance for literally less than fifteen minutes of this two hour assault on my senses, and it's right in the beginning and right at the end.Never buy this. If you can see it for free you might do it just to see how bad it is, but never spend money on this in any form.

I do not regret buying this movie. The first three times I watched it, I was thrilled. But if you don't watch eca-Kaiju movies for the Monster battles and the like, then this movie will be a bummer for you. The main human character, Ozaki, is basically a 'Gary-stu' having no real background, weakness, or anything like that. In fact, all of the characters have that problem, even the invaders. This made the human-side of the movie un-enjoyable besides Douglas Gordon, played by Don Frye.Nevertheless, even the battles leave something more to be desired. Once Godzilla's let loose again, he takes out Gigan, Zilla, Kamackrus, Kumonga, King Seezar, Rodan, and Anguirus in about 7 minutes. Then he takes out Hedorah and Elibrah in another 30 seconds, and then has to struggle through the rest of the movie to overcome Monster X/Keizer Ghidorah. With all of these short battles, it almost leaves you feeling like your playing a 1990's video game where the first XX number of levels are easy, then you go through a medium-difficulty level, and suddenly your hit with a real long battle.The movie itself I'd only give a 3.5/5. However, I'm upping the rating to 4 because I have to compliment how fast the order got to my place. I think it was like four days. It was in great condition, and I still would not revoke this order for anything...unless I could get the last two 1990's Gamera Trilogy movies for the same price.

Director Ryuhei Kitamura's "Godzilla: Final Wars" commemorated the 50th anniversary of the franchise with appearances from several past monsters, including Anguirus (1955), Rodan (1956), Mothra (1961), Manda (1963), Ebirah (1966), Kamacuras (1967), Kumonga (1967), Minilla (1967), Hedorah (1971), Gigan (1972), King Caesar (1974), and the 1998 TriStar Godzilla, now dubbed Zilla. This was the sixth and final film in the Millennium period (1999–2004).The story begins with the Earth Defense Force (EDF) trapping Godzilla in ice after he battled Gotengo in Antarctica. It then flashes forward to the present, where the EDF and a group of human mutants (like the X-Men) work to combat monsters. When aliens called Xiliens show up (dressed like characters from "The Matrix"), tensions flare between the EDF and the new arrivals. The EDF soon learns that the Xiliens are not as friendly as they seem and, when exposed, the aliens send the monsters against humanity. The EDF frees Godzilla, who then goes around the world battling the monsters while the EDF fights the Xiliens.Despite the cool battles, "Godzilla: Final Wars" contains much of the worst film elements from the late 1990s and early 2000s. There's overly-fast editing, choppy cuts, disjointed music, and Kitamura attempts to work too many plot points into the film for the audience to follow at times. The expected anti-nuclear proliferation message feels out of place as it doesn't match the scenes that bookend it. At points, "Godzilla: Final Wars" feels more like a Sci-Fi Channel movie or a music video from 2004 instead of a major motion picture. That said, fans who disliked TriStar's "Godzilla" (1998) will certainly enjoy seeing the Toho Godzilla destroy the CGI monster in the span of 30 seconds. Don Frye's Captain Douglas Gordon is a lot of fun and he plays off the other actors wonderfully with his gravely voice and supportive demeanor. The final battle has more than enough to entertain. Though fun enough to watch for an afternoon, as the final Toho Godzilla film until 2017's "Shin Godzilla," it leaves something to be desired for long-time fans.

What else can be said about a Godzilla movie. You either love 'em or hate 'em. Toho was once asked why they never decided to make Godzilla a C.G.I. Monster, they replied that Godzilla will always be a "guy in a rubber suit". That's the charm of a Godzilla movie, but if you have never seen any of the Godzilla films made after 2000 you are in for a very big suprise! This flick, claiming to be the last in the saga, is a fitting end, if this is truly the case (we hope not). The plot is simple, Aliens, who claim to be friendly at first, come down to earth only to wreak havok by briging back all the world's monsters to destroy mankind. A special breed of "super humans" with great powers are sent to fight them off. When they can't do it alone, they have no choice but to awaken the sleeping Godzilla to help defend earth. Plenty of fast action, in fact the first 15 minutes of this film's sets the stage for what is to come. If you are a godzilla fan, I'm sure you will find your fav monster here. One great scene has the Amercian version of Godzilla appear, and our Japanese counterpart nails him with one quick blow of the tail (are the Japanese trying to tell us something?). Anyway, you will love the film, the action, the monsters, the soundtrack is very fast paced, perfect for a modern Godzilla movie. A great view by all. Highly reccomended!

Godzilla : Final Wars is the latest movie in the Godzilla series aliens come to Earth to save it from all the monsters, such as Rodan, Zilla, Kumonga and so on. The only monsters they seem to miss capturing is Godzilla and Mothra. You'd think they would notice, but maybe they don't have very good information on Earth?Anyway, the UN decides to join the aliens, forming the Space Nations, because the aliens were not just nice enough to capture all the monsters but warn our planet of a upcoming rogue planet that will hit our's soon. We must combine our power to destroy it or it will destroy us.Or will it? Yes, you guessed it, something stinks in the heart of Denmark, well, Japan. The aliens are NOT all what they seem. And the monsters they took have been changed to make them easy to control. Easy for the aliens to control.Now Earth is truly in trouble, as the aliens seem to hold the cards, all the monsters, and lots of spaceships. NOW the fun begins. Godzilla kicks [...] and keeps kicking [...] till the end of the movie. I enjoyed the quick, smooth movements of the monsters, and the background rock and roll music also seemed to fit the new style.The fighting happens all over the world. New York, Paris, and, of course, Tokyo.Oh, yeah, and Minilla is in it. I don't know HOW he got into the film. The ending with him felt kind of weak. I won't take away a point for that but he can be a pest.

And not a reboot either.I've been watching a lot of Godzilla movies, and many of them are similar: a monster arises, destroys Tokyo, and Godzilla saves the day while the humans try to do something useful (but rarely succeed).Here, the humans have helpfully confined a lot of monsters on a single island, where they can be studied and confined.Unfortunately, when space aliens decide to take over the planet, the monsters are handily confined in one place, and so easily knocked out and implanted with control devices. Whereupon they each attack a different city. But don't worry: Tokyo is eventually attacked by all of them.The filmmakers really went all out for this one. A nice twisty plot involving space aliens, lots of monsters, loyal humans who fight back -- this gives great value for money.

Let me just say this about Godzilla Movies in general: Forget about trying to understand the "plot", if there was one to start with, it gets lost in translation/dubbing to English and none of these Millenium Series movies makes any sense at all. They seem to be an odd mix of fantasy, sci-fi, horror and drama. You really need to take a leap of faith into the Godzilla Universe to sit through an entire movie, the dialog and themes are hard to take. I'd say it probably boils down to nothing more than a difference between Japaneese and American story telling sensibilities. After watching the whole thing, My son and I like to watch it again a time or two, but we jump right to the best Monster battle scenes - that's the beauty of the DVD format, you can go right to the good stuff and pass up all the weird parts in between. That said, the MS movies are absolutely awesome. Compared to the older "guy-in-suit" Godzilla Movies, the new ones (90's-2000's) are cutting edge. They have mind blowing special effects, huge sets of cities built with models, and they seem to have a creepy, chilling, & darker look to the night scenes. The "behind the scenes" part is neat, showing how they shoot the films - just as enjoyable as the movie. Final Wars is great because Godzilla tears through an entire army of bad monsters by crushing, throwing, stomping, and blasting away with his Atomic breath. The new improved Gigan with buzz saws for arms is awesome.

Let's just get this out of the way right now. As a film, Godzilla: Final Wars is very flawed. However, this is not a film that was meant to be the Citizen Cane of giant monster films, as the original Gojira is. The year was 2004, and it was Godzilla's 50th anniversary. It was for that reason that Toho made a grand decision, deciding to go all-out and produce a film devoted to pure fan service. It's an anniversary special, and a great one. This is a film which brings the kaiju action to a previously unexplored level. Sure, some of it can get a little silly (at one point Godzilla uses Anguirus as a soccer ball), but that's all part of the fun. Anyone who's familiar with the director, Ryuhei Kitamura, and has seen his 2000 opus Versus can see the DNA of that film amplified here, and with Giant monsters (who make everything better). Furthermore, this is the Kill Bill of Godzilla films. Godzilla kicks so much ass in this film, culminating in the final battle with an old rival. However, the best part of the film is definitely the scene in Sydney, Australia where Godzilla faces off against the horrendous 1998 version of Godzilla (of which Toho was so ashamed they have officially re-named him "zilla"). The fight is certainly the shortest of the movie, as it well should be. Godzilla easily dispatches his iguana counterpart, and all of us G fans who were outraged in 1998 had our thirst for vengeance quenched and quenched good.In short, don't buy this movie if you're looking for Oscar material. Because it isn't. But it wasn't supposed to be, all it's supposed to do is be a fun, action packed tribute to Godzilla and it does it beautifully. If what you want is a darker, more thematic end to the franchise, they already did that on the 40th anniversary in 1994 with Godzilla vs Destroyah, which at the time was gonna be the end of the series. With Final Wars, what we get is one hell of a montage to the genre I love.

If you're a Godzilla fan, you're going to get this. Of course you're going to get this. It's easily the most anticipated G-film in years. So I'm not even going to try to stop you from getting it. But, you'll enjoy it a lot more if you just lower your expectations. Despite the hype being thrown on it here, it is not "OHMIGHOD IS TEH GREATEST GODZILLA MOVIE EVER". It's not even a good movie by any standards, and those who rate it with a "5" apparently have very low standards. It doesn't even work as "so bad it's good". The film shows little or no respect to Godzilla or the kaiju eiga genre in general, and was certainly no way to "celebrate" or pay homage to the 50th anniversary.But get together with a bunch of friends and a bunch of beers, kick back, and apply a MST3K audience participation experience to it, and groan your way through the fun. If laughing at Godzilla, hack directing and bad acting is your thing, then GODZILLA FINAL WARS is the film for you.SPOILERS FOLLOWThe special effects in some ways manage to illustrate the problems with the entire movie. They ranged from a very few that were breathtaking and new, to pathetic. More often than not, the awful effects were the result of poor CG or clumsy compositing. This is not new to the Godzilla film, of course, but the sheer amount of overly-ambitious and poorly executed effects left me wondering, 'If you didn't have the time, money or skill to do it, then why do it?'The acting is almost uniformly mediocre and unconvincing, even from Toho veterans such as Akira Takarada as U.N. Secretary General Daigo and Kumi Mizuno as EDF Commander Namikawa. Kazuki Kitamura as the evil Xilien Commander easily turns in the best (if not over-the-top) performance, and delivers the best line in the movie (which is COMPLETELY BLOWN in the English dub!!!!).The biggest weakness other than the lazy direction is the story itself. Whether one takes the approach to film that a story should follow a traditional structure of introduction, protagonist, conflict, resolution, etc., or that the rules can be broken to tell a story in a more compelling fashion, GFW fails either way. The story simply throws too many components into what could have been a rather straightforward story. Elements and ideas are introduced, often out of the blue without reasonable explanation, and sometimes abandoned for no reason at all. Challenges arise, and are conveniently resolved via deus ex machina.And how many unoriginal ideas can Kitamura and co-writer Isao Kiriyama introduce into a single movie? Quite a few apparently. The entire MATRIX TRILOGY is covered quite well in GFW, both in terms of visuals and what passes for character development. Ozaki is roughly the equivalent of Neo. The 'Burly Brawl' of MATRIX RELOADED is duplicated in 'lite' form as Kumasaka (Masakatsu Funaki) takes on the converted M-force. Similarities to INDEPENDENCE DAY, ALIENS, and X-MEN are obvious, but nothing can prepare you for the horror of the 'tribute' to RETURN OF THE JEDI when Kazama (Caine Kosugi) makes his final run on the Death Star. These moments were not taking something familiar and giving them an original twist, nor even paying homage. It was copy and paste laziness.The score by Keith Emerson is, like everything else, all over the place. It often sounds like cheap synth music from a CASIO or straight-to-video films of the eighties. Fortunately, I could console myself that the film opened briefly with Godzilla's theme from KING KONG VS GODZILLA (over an old 'Tohoscope' banner no less!), and cues from Masaru Satoh's SON OF GODZILLA (Minilla's theme) and GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA make brief, if strange, appearances.'But wait,' you are probably saying to yourself at this point. 'This is a Godzilla film. Stop talking about your CITIZEN KANE scale expectations, and tell me about the monsters!' Of course. After all, it's not unprecedented for a Godzilla film to fail on one or more of the above counts (MEGALON and GIGAN come to mind). I was thrilled at the opening sequence with the original Goten and Godzilla. Favorites such as Manda, Gigan and Anguirus are certainly seen as never before, and the scene with the EDF battling Ebirah was great. The initial invasions of the kaiju are generally well-executed, albeit brief. And that's my problem with all of the monster action: it is so very short, and beyond the first 20 minutes, it is poorly integrated into the rest of the story. Although the concept of "the King of Monsters, so powerful he takes out enemies with one punch", may sound good on paper, it leaves a lot to be desired when it actually happens within seconds. Even the final battle is anti-climactic, and falls victim to yet another out-of-the-blue plot device that left this viewer feeling cheated.In the end, this is a movie that you will see no matter what I nor anybody else says. I only hope that you someday get to see it on the big screen with a house full of fans, because that at least takes some of the edge off. ...

This is a cheesy movie. Godzilla is only in it at the beginning and again at the end. The middle and majority of the film focuses on matrix style martial arts action, which isn't bad at all. There are other giant monsters throughout the film, which is great to see, but the battles with Godzilla are far too short.A note on the middle portion: The plot is generic. Aliens come to earth under a banner of peace but are really interested in enslaving the human race by controlling earth's giant monsters. There is a race of mutant humans who have super human strength, speed, agility, and stamina, and most of the action centers around them. The dialogue is also pretty cheesy, but this is a Godzilla movie after all, even if the big guy isn't in it very much. Actually, Godzilla plays an oddly small roll in many of his older films as well (Godzilla vs. the Sea Monser, Godzilla vs. Monster X, Terror of Mechagodzilla...).For those interested in special features, this one's a dud. There is some behind the scenes footage, but it's all fragmented images of filming certain fight scenes with Godzilla that contain no dialogue, interviews, or real insights into the filming process.Overall, this is a fun movie. Don't take it too seriously; it's all about the over the top action and martial arts. If you're looking for an abundance of Godzilla, though, look elsewhere.

Fun movie fun twist as the monsters are not the only ones with powers, Matrix like as the one chosen mutant believes and takes on a super powerful alien in martial art fighting while Godzilla puts on his own show as to why he is is king of all monsters by fighting pretty much every monster he ever fought like chopped liver, awesome new look for him and all the other monsters, if you want to see all the monsters again .......Merry Xmas here's a gift and a happy birthday to you, if only Hollywood can learn to make Godzilla look this instead of like Spiderman's villain the lizard.

2nd best Godzilla move only because G-1 is the all-time best

This movie is a loose re-make of Destroy All Monsters, which just happened to be my favorite Godzilla movie while growing up. From what I understand, this movie starts off where the last movie ended, with Godzilla buried under the ice in Antarctica. The classic repertoire of Toho monsters appears, and they start to destroy the world. Then some aliens appear, extinguish the monsters and call for earth to join the united universe or something - behind a ruse that a planet is on a collision course with earth. A group of earthlings expose the plot of the aliens, and the aliens unleash all the monsters, which are under their control, as well as a group of "mutant" humans because they all share a common gene.The humans respond by waking up Godzilla, who then proceeds to tackle on his rival monsters one on one, or one on two, until they are all destroyed. The humans do their part and destroy the aliens. Godzilla turns on the humans in order to finish the last fight, but Minya, or Minilla (current name), steps in and convinces Godzilla to leave the humans alone.Do we watch monster movies for the human actions? Generally, no, but this one has some pretty good fight scenes. You can see the influence of the Matrix films, and a little bit of Tarentinoesque action in this film. Score one for that. Don Frye knows how to use a samurai sword - bonus points for that.Now onto the important aspects of the film: the kaiju fight scenes. Overall, I am disappointed on many fronts. 1. That it was Godzilla and Mothra against all. If it wasn't going to be Ghidorah vs all like Destroy All Monsters, it should have been earth monsters versus space monsters. But this is a minor nit. 2. Many of the monster fights were too short, including the non-fight with Hedorah and Ebirah because these two took each other out before the fight with Godzilla began. But then again, Godzilla vs the Smog Monster started a rapid decline in the enjoyment of this franchise and should Hedorah even have been included in this? 3. Mothra was her noble self, but for taking on Gigan 12,000 years ago, she should have been a little bit more help to Godzilla. 4. Ghidorah is a much stronger opponent and especially that fight should have lasted longer. 5. I think Minya should have put the finishing touches on Ghidorah - that would have been icing on the cake. Disappointments aside, this Bruce Lee, Enter the Dragon type, one after the other type of fighting done by Godzilla was really enjoyable to watch, and a nice tribute to the essence of the Godzilla franchise.On fight scene I did like though, and, it must be an inside joke because Angurus is strong against humans, but he is always the weakest monster, and I think it is a fight with Gigan that Angurus is treated like a soccer ball between the other two monsters.When the movie was over and done with, I was very satisfied at the end.