After watching the American version of Godzilla released in 1998, I was utterly disgusted. Godzilla isn’t supposed to be a 3 hour epic with crappy effects and Jurassic Park rip-offs—Godzilla was meant to be the big G and some wacky monster going at it for 90 minutes! My heart skipped a beat when I saw the trailer for Godzilla 2000. This time the Japanese were going to do it, and they were going to do it right! Did they succeed? Well, yes and no.

The plot boils down to this: A middle-aged guy, a reporter chick, and his daughter go looking to take pictures of Godzilla to prove their pro-enviromental (AKA pro-Godzilla) stance. A wrench is thrown in their plans when some wacky corporate guys try to uncover something from the bottom of the sea: A UFO that looks like the bottom of a toilet bowl! The Japanese Army try to destroy Godzilla using “shit through a goose” missles, but fail. The UFO tries to kick Godzilla’s ass, almost succeeds, and then turns into a alien/Godzilla hybrid bent on destruction.

While the trailer promised “Let’s get ready to crumble!!” the movie initially falls short of the mark: the trailer should have said “Let’s get ready for exposition!!” The first hour of the movie (2/3 of the movie) is talking heads with hilariously bad dubbing. The last thirty minutes have a long, drawn-out battle between Godzilla and the UFO. True, the original movies had lots of dialogue, but the battles were interspersed throughout the movie.

The dubbing was always funny, as was one specific music theme. Early in the movie, goofy circus music plays when two bumbling workers smack each other with ladders. In one scene, they both try to push a piano into a truck while the music plays. I was hoping the piano would fall back and smack them in the crotch, but I was wrong. More comic relief instead of more plot development would have helped Godzilla 2000 immensely!

The special effects range from mediocre to awful. The worst FX in the film come in the beginning when the heroic trio drive their car and somehow break a window. The window breaks apart using poorly done CGI, looking more animated than realistic. The UFO looks OK, but always pasted on to the background.

So is Godzilla 2000 worth it? While certainly better than the American counterpart, and definitely a must for Godzilla fans, I wouldn’t advise everyone to see this film. If you need to laugh, the bad dubbing should do nicely.

*** out of ****.