Godzilla: Final Wars

“Listen kid, there are two things you didn't know about the Earth. One is me. And the other is... Godzilla.” Ryûhei Kitamura’s Godzilla: Final Wars was an absolute blast from start to finish and tied with Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack as being the strongest film in the Millennium Series of Godzilla films. This was possibly the most action packed Godzilla film I’ve seen and even so it managed to deliver a solid social commentary about power and the way people choose to use it for good or for ill. At the start of the film I was a bit unsure about how much I was going to like it because it seemed to be using CGI quite heavily which unless extremely impressive I prefer to be left out of Godzilla and other Kaiju films but I’ve it kicked in and was clear that the practical effects that are a staple of the franchise were still being included notably I warmed up to it a little. The film was overall very over the top and ridiculous in all the best ways. The Parkour hand to hand combat mutants, nearly constant explosions and the Kaiju combat were all so fun. This at times really reminded me of Kamen Rider and Power Rangers in it’s vibes which was very enjoyable. Masahiro Matsuoka was memorable and entertaining as the mutant soldier Shin’ichi Ôzaki who serves as the film’s primary protagonist throughout. He has some delightfully amusing one liners and combat scenes that are thrilling and reminiscent of The Matrix and Power Rangers! Rei Kikukawa was fabulous at playing the biologist Miyuki Otonashi and brought a lot of sass and likability to the role. Some of the comments made towards her character were not great but I’m glad she called people out when they were doing that shit. Finally I absolutely had a blast watching Don Frye play Douglas Gordon, a takes no shit and will do everything in his power to prevent the antagonists of this film from wreaking complete destruction on Earth. The message about how power should be treated and used was quite topical and well executed. The antagonist in this wants to reduce humanity to cattle for his alien race and conquer Earth. Everyday I see more and more examples of people abusing their power to further selfish agendas that hurt everyday people. It resonated with me quite a bit and was not dissimilar to the Destroy All Monsters. I absolutely adore the music in Godzilla: Final Wars and would definitely listen to the score separately. The songs involving Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer were synthy, memorable and unique and I loved it. Overall, Godzilla: Final Wars was an extremely fun watch that’s among my favourite Godzilla films now and also is the last Toho Godzilla film I needed to watch in order to be caught up on Toho Godzilla. Really great music, social commentary, (that mostly echoes a lot of the Showa Era social commentary but is effective at that) memorable characters and a lot of really awesome human AND Kaiju action.