Shobijin wrote:It's easy to understand why the movie is hated. It's a bad riff of The Matrix, the plot is recycled from previous G-Movies, Godzilla takes a back seat to the mutant vs alien war, and the director is too stylish with the long mutant vs alien combat scenes. The Minilla character arc is forced in the movie. It was billed as the 50th anniversary and last movie, so expectations were high.
On the other side of the coin I could see why it's loved: the roster of monsters is massive, the cast is sexy, the atmosphere and costumes are hip, the battles feel like a homage to Showa, and Don Frye was an interesting pick.
Like quite a few G movies, it feels like the main plot was created for a different movie and Godzilla was inserted into the film.
All the negatives aside, I envision myself rewatching clips from Final Wars more in the future.
This summarizes it quite well. As an anniversary film, Final Wars doesn't do much well at all; it homages completely unrelated films, it has a completely off tone in comparison to the other Godzilla films, the pacing and storytelling overall are incredibly strange... you understand the idea.
Final Wars seems to be divisive among Godzilla fans, but in my experience, older fans tend to dislike it, while younger fans are the reverse. All things considered, it does make sense; not only is Final Wars, bluntly put, incredibly juvenile, younger fans also have the benefit of hindsight. In other words, Final Wars is simply another one of the older Godzilla movies for them, while older fans may have been under the impression that Final Wars would set a new standard for Godzilla at the time. Fortunately, this has since been proven to be incorrect.
When all is said and done, I find Final Wars to be enjoyable enough if you are willing to turn your brain off, and accept it for what it is. Even so, I completely understand why many dislike it, even if they try to enjoy it.
January 1st, 1929 - August 8th, 2017. May Haruo Nakajima Rest in Peace.