The third Godzilla era has it’s ups and downs, and probably isn’t the most consistent, but it does have some of my favourites in the whole series.
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
The second film in this era has Godzilla fighting a brand new enemy (well, essentially brand new), a cool-looking bug creature which was created when Godzilla got hit with a black hole weapon. The movie is okay, and the final fight is very solid (a common occurrence in the millennium era), but it shares a huge problem with 2000, which is that the CGI is overused and absolutely abysmal. It’s genuinely enough to take you out of the film every time, by the end of the first two films in the era I was gagging for a miniature. Thankfully this did get a lot better, but it’s so bad in these first two that I couldn’t focus on anything else. Since they are standalone and otherwise pretty fun, these could be great recommendations for a new viewer, but I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone, I’d be too embarrassed because the CG just looks that bad. In summary, you don’t need to see this, nothing is new, nothing is special.
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla’s BACK! And with worse effects than ever before! Basically every complaint about vs. Megaguirus is also relevant here so I won’t repeat them, but the enemy monster, final battle, and story are a bit better, so it just comes out on top.
Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S
Toyko S.O.S is the only direct sequel in the millennium series, following up the really quite good Godzilla against Mechagodzilla. It has a lot of the same positives as Against, but unfortunately just does all of them slightly worse. The human story is fine, but a bit worse than Against. The final fight is great, but a bit worse than against. It even has Mothra but doesn’t use her particularly well. Basically, you wouldn’t watch this without watching Against first anyway, so feel free to watch it after if you want more of the same, but there’s no reason to watch it on it’s own.
Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
This is such a default Godzilla movie, but in the best way possible. It doesn’t particularly excel in any one way, but it does everything to a really solid level of quality, and because of that, I would definitely recommend it to newcomers. It quickly sets up Godzilla, then gets into a pretty good human plot about creating and piloting a new Mechagodzilla, which they now call Kiryu. Mechagodzilla has a great design in this one, I much prefer it to the Heisei era, although the Shōwa design probably just overtakes it, mainly by virtue of looking like a Wallace and Gromit invention. Kiryu’s arsenal is the best yet, bristling with rockets and lasers which are used very liberally. It all ends with what is probably the best 1v1 fight in the whole series, and one of the best fights in general. It all ends really nicely too, despite the fact that its sequel came out just a year later. All in all, its a super fun and watchable Godzilla movie.
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
After 25 movies, I thought I was done being surprised by a Godzilla film, but I can genuinely say this is unlike any other film in the franchise. Godzilla is back as a bad guy, but not a bad guy like in the Heisei era, where he helps out too, or even a bad guy like the original, where he more felt like an animal. The Godzilla in this movie is genuinely evil, he actively wishes to cause harm to everything and everyone he comes in contact with. He comes with a menacing new look too, more aggressive and beastly looking than before. It makes you wonder what could possibly deal with such a demon. Luckily, Japan has three ancient guardians that can be called upon in the case of such a foe, and luckily for Japan, they are Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah. But despite the 1v3 odds, the guardians still need some human intervention to take down the monstrosity. All this is packaged with excellent use of special effects, and an insane score which genuinely makes you feel like the world is about to end, while still keeping motifs of all the monsters for you to recognise. Another one I’d happily recommend for a new fan.
Godzilla: Final Wars
Now, I have to preface this by saying that this may only be this high because I literally watched the entire series in a row before it, but since I did do that, you couldn’t really ask for a more perfect ending. Final Wars is essentially a remake of Destroy all Monsters, with aliens letting lose a bunch of monsters on earth, and Godzilla taking them all out. And by ‘a bunch of monsters’, I mean basically everyone you could reasonably want to see, at least from the Shōwa era. I was especially glad to see my favourite Gigan back, and in a relatively large role too. And while Godzilla is slapping monsters left, right, and centre, the human cast is busy beating up aliens, there’s barely a second of downtime. Yeah the story isn’t too great, yeah some of the monsters only have about 10 seconds of screentime, yeah it could have focused a bit more on Godzilla himself, but when watching, you just kind of ignore that, and let it all wash over you.
