Raptors Final Wars

This week I managed to catch Godzilla: Final Wars. I like Godzilla and his big rubber suit but I’m by no mean the biggest Geek fan there is. I can’t tell you ever name of ever monster Godzilla has ever fought or what movie they were in but I can tell you this I have seen a handful of Godzilla movies and I can fake it with the best of them.

Yes more heads, more monsta! What FOOLS! I say more monsta!!

So in Final Wars monsters start attacking cities around the world and the Earth Defence Force (EDF) are overwhelmed with the task of trying to stop them. Suddenly the monsters all disappear due to the Xillien race having arrived and removing them. Of course the Xilliens are bad and this is all a big scam to rule the earth. After being revealed as bad they throw away all pretence of being good aliens and give the earth an ultimatum. Surrender or die…NEVER! That’s what the EDF guys say only more dramatically overacted and in Japanese. Que the release of the monsters again. In desperation the EDF decide to free Godzilla from an icy prison and then monster mayhem ensues.

and so it was that the Xiliens became a boy band...oh and one girl

There are a lot of monsters in this one. Gaigan is the main monster (half cyborg creature) and there is a big battle with him at the end but a lot of the other monsters get barely a 1 or 2 min fight if they were lucky. Also Godzilla doesn’t appear until roughly the last 30 mins of the film and it is 2hrs long. Other monsters that make an appearance are Mothra, King Caesar, Zilla and Rodan to name a few.  The monsters were a mix of practical rubber suits, let’s call this the classic look, and new age CGI. I have to say the CGi just wasn’t up to scratch. Also the America Godzilla makes an appearance and get’s trashed.

Yes a gratuitous Godzilla shot

Of course the EDF now has mutants to help save the world but they are nothing on Godzilla. As I hinted at previously, the acting is over the top Japanese action with much dramatic posing. There’s a lot of Wire-Fu action which is always cool but the one thing that I thought was great was the rough take no shit Texan Captain Douglas Fry who spoke actual English while everyone else spoke Japanese. Good stuff. He was probably my favourite cast member. Another note for Australians, Sydney gets trashed which is really what we all want to see isn’t it.

In conclusion, Godzilla wasn’t the best Godzilla movie I have ever seen but for sheer volume of monsters I rate this 6.5 and some guy in a rubber suit.