Movie Review - "Fantasy Island" (2020)

Never heard of the TV series "Fantasy Island"? It’s fine. I’m pretty sure this films’ producers haven’t heard of it either.

While I’ve never watched an episode of the series, I do find the premise interesting – a magical island that brings your biggest dream to life, regardless of what that may entail or how impossible that might be. For a television show, that has a lot of potential, each episode bringing in a new guest with a different fantasy. Much like "Star Trek," the possibility for episodes is endless and each episode could be a different genre, some going for more dramatic and introspective, while others could be funny or action-packed or thrilling.

The new "Fantasy Island" movie though decides to take none of those routes, remove the wonder and awe of an island that can grant your wishes and make an uninspired and forgettable horror movie that has no business being a horror film. Not only is a movie the wrong format for this premise, because there are about six different plotlines that have no business being connected, but then it doubles down on the stupidity by trying to go deeper in an "Inception"-style plot where everything is a fantasy-within-a-fantasy, without ever making any of these characters seem like anything more than walking stereotypes.

It was honestly painful watching "Fantasy Island," mostly because the rules of the island don’t make any sense. From the beginning, they make it clear that everyone only gets one fantasy and that everything they imagine isn’t real – if they imagine a certain person, like a long lost lover. Except the movie contradicts itself almost immediately. While one guest wants a second chance to fall in love again, and gets a not-real copy of her former boyfriend, another guest wants revenge on a childhood bully and they fly in the actual bully for her to literally torture. Why did they need to kidnap the bully? Couldn’t the island make a fake bully like it made a fake boyfriend or a fake dead father for another guest?

But it doesn’t stop there – at least three different guests get multiple wishes, even some getting another wish while their former wish is still playing out. The film can’t make up its mind on what these characters truly want and it is infuriating, especially since the rules get thrown out the window. Why should any of this matter to these people? If there really are no rules, then if anything goes bad, they could use another wish to undo everything.

Even then, it’s not clear how the island knows what to wish for, especially for one character whose wish keeps changing. At first, he makes it clear that he wants to serve in an active military situation and be a soldier, but then it quickly changes to fighting alongside his dead father, then changes again to saving his father, only for all of that to be completely pointless when we find his real fantasy was "to be a hero." Why go through that whole ordeal when the island could have just given him superpowers and fight crime? It is unnecessarily convoluted and never gives us a chance to like this guy when his motivation is all over the place.

That’s the problem with "Fantasy Island" in a nutshell – way too many ideas, and not enough talent to execute them all. It feels like they tried to cram an entire television season’s worth of ideas into a 90-minute movie. Nothing comes organically, everything feels rushed and the characters have no defining traits or development. It all feels hollow at best, and insulting at worst. Ultimately, a massive waste of time.


Final Grade: F

Movie Review - "Cats" (2019)

Coughing up a hairball is more pleasant than being tortured watching “Cats.” 

I can’t recall a more inept or poorly conceived film in recent memory than “Cats,” with the most butt-ugly visual style, laughable or nightmarish special effects, and devoid of any life or intelligence. If you put a real cat in charge of this production, I’m sure it would have done a much better job of capturing the essence of what it feels like to be a cat, instead of this joyless mess. 

“Cats” is like attempting to put together a thousand-piece puzzle, only to quickly realize that the pieces you’ve been given belong to a dozen different puzzles that don’t fit together at all – it is exhausting, unnecessarily chaotic without any semblance of reason, and above all else infuriating. There is no sign of a coherent story, just random ugly “cats” that sometimes sing about how it sucks to be a “cat,” and these actors are given no room to breathe or emote so we never really learn anything about these “cats.” Some “cats” only get one or two scenes, like a James Corden “cat” that loves to eat and nothing else, or a “cat” who works on a train and sings about how much he loves trains. While other “cats” that do get more scenes always wear the same expression throughout the film, like Francesca Hayward who always has a look of dull surprise. There is no connection, no empathy for any of these “cats” – they are all blank canvases we have to watch for two hours. 

If I could describe “Cats” in one word, it’d be “embarrassment.” There was certainly talent behind the screen. Tom Hooper has proven that he can direct good movies with “The King’s Speech” and even some segments of “Les Miserables.” Acting-wise, you’ve got vetern actors like Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, as well as some powerful singing voices with Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo, and Taylor Swift. Even Idris Elba is given a chance as the “villain” of the “cats.” With all this great talent and people who seem to know what they’re doing, it’s all the more saddening that this is the film we got. The scenes with actors like Dench, Elba and McKellen are the more painful to watch, because there is no dignity or character to be found here – they’re so bad that even furries don’t want anything to do with this movie. 

It is very rare that we get such a big mess like “Cats.” It is poorly executed at best and abysmally thrown together at worst, all on a budget that would suggest that there’s something of value. I have no clue how a film that was made for over $200 million could be as ill-conceived as this, but Hollywood continues to impress me, even on this kind of level. While I know next to nothing about the Broadway musical, I can still tell you this film isn’t worth anyone’s time or money. The only reason worth seeing this is because you want to see how bad it really gets, like I did. And even then, you’d have to be stupidly drunk or insanely high to get anything out of “Cats.” 

Final Grade: F

Movie Review - "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018)

Talk about a film that sucked out all the fun and imagination of the original and made it as dull as listening to actual bank discussions. "Mary Poppins Returns" is the "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" of the next generation, taking something that should be simple and universal yet making it so boring and tedious to the point of betrayal. Like all of the recent Disney remakes, the film simply tries to cash in on the nostalgia and zeitgeist of its original without ever trying to add anything new or worthwhile, simply a watered-down copy.

But what makes this one so bad is the insistence to move away from the joy and wonder of "Mary Poppins" by hardly ever making Emily Blunt smile or look like she's enjoying herself. She always looks pissed off and never stops being snarky. To make matters even more contrived, the filmmakers feel the need to include a cliché villain. If there was ever a film that never needed a villain, it was Mary Poppins. So rather than focusing on the bliss of childhood, they spend the entire third act fighting something that was out of style by the mid-90s in the stupidest way possible.

"Mary Poppins Returns" is an abomination. Disney only sees this classic character as dollar signs, not what she represents. It's like Disney forgot they made "Saving Mr. Banks" only a few years ago and the message of that film. I feel like Walt Disney would be ashamed of this picture, for failing to capture the whimsy that only Mary Poppins can truly bring.

Final Grade: F 

Movie Review - "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle" (2018)

In case you were wondering if things would get better after "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters," don't you worry about that - things get much worse in its sequel "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle."

This is a horrendous film with no drive or passion other than to release a disappointing product. It doesn't care about Godzilla or what makes him such a fascinating monster that been involved with 33 movies, nor does it even care about its bland emotionless characters and their "struggle" to bring Godzilla down. It is a waste of time that put zero energy into something so many people care about and is an insult to the Godzilla franchise. I hated every second of this boring, derivative movie that squandered all of its potential and I'd be perfectly fine if this film and its future sequel never saw the light of day.

"City on the Edge of Battle" is a deserted landscape of broken promises, with the biggest one being that this would serve as a massive climatic confrontation between the remaining human forces and a 20,000-year old Godzilla that now dominates the planet, with the poster and plot teasing us about the arrival of a MechaGodzilla that acts like a T-1000 from "Terminator 2." Even the title promises a big battle.

But instead, the most we get is a couple of tiny single-occupant robots flying around Godzilla doing nothing to him and the dead carcass of MechaGodzilla. There is no giant monster fight, and Godzilla does little more than lumber around like he doesn't care about anything around him. In fact, Godzilla doesn't show up until an hour into the movie.

I thought Toho had learned from the mistakes they made in "Godzilla: Final Wars" and not put enough Godzilla in their movie, since he is the main reason people want to see these movies, but I guess I was wrong. Toho is apparently convinced that we're here for the characters that have the personalities of cardboard, or this futuristic world that is so poorly animated that it looks like a really awful video game, because that's the main focus for the first hour.

I get that Godzilla should be about the lives of those he has effected and ruined, but these people, especially the main character Haruo, are so generic, so single-minded, and so lifeless that I feel the filmmakers should know this and just give us more monster action instead. That's what made films like "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II" so much fun - the creators knew their characters were bland and just gave us great monster scenes instead. Yet this film believes in its protagonist that you could exchange with any other generic anime and not miss a thing. Haruo gets an hour to develop his character without Godzilla around, the most we get is him talking to one of Mothra's twin fairies. That's what I like to call a waste.

The other problem with "City on the Edge of Battle" is that nothing is accomplished. Compare this to any other middle film of a trilogy, such as "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Two Towers," where our heroes go through the most pain and suffering than any other point in the series, experience possibly their most personal growth and normally reach their lowest point. But here, the characters have learned nothing, nobody has changed, and they're all just as insufferable as they were in "Planet of the Monsters." We got through this slow, unbearable journey and achieve nothing of value. Mostly because the film offered us nothing of value.

Don't waste your time with "Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle," even if you're a big Godzilla fan like me. It never feels like a Godzilla movie, but instead a poorly animated and put together post-apocalyptic film that features a monster that sometimes uses Godzilla's roar. It doesn't care for the source material and focuses far too much on its unlikable characters. On top of not fixing the problems of "Planet of the Monsters," it adds new problems with its horrendous pacing, lack of focus on what's truly important, and a terrible ending that made me throw my arms up in frustration. If it weren't for the breath-taking first trailer of "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" coming out, I wouldn't be surprised if people laughed at Godzilla for this embarrassment. "City on the Edge of Battle" is garbage and deserves to be forgotten.

Final Grade: F+

Movie Review - "Gamera: The Brave" (2006)

I didn't think it was possible to hate another daikaiju movie almost as much as I despise "Godzilla: Final Wars," but then along came "Gamera: The Brave," a film so insufferable and insipid that it makes me weep at how bad mid-2000s monster movies were. There is no joy to be found in this film, nor any love for Gamera's past. It doesn't even feel like a monster movie most of the time, just a slow and forgettable Japanese drama that relies way too much on terrible child actors.

I'd rather watch the cheesiest and most obnoxious 1960s Gamera film ten times before I watch "Gamera: The Brave" again. At least those movies are fun in a "so bad, it's good" way, especially when they think traffic safety is as big of a problem in the world as war and pollution. There's a certain charm to those movies, especially with their light-hearted and carefree tone - they're perfect for rainy day monster fun. "Gamera: The Brave" on the other hand, rams its message of children saving the world down our throats to the point that it is poisonous to this film, all while forgetting that the audience is here for Gamera.

The film follows a young boy named Toru (Ryo Tomioka), who lives in a small Japanese village and is mourning the death of his mother. Toru eventually swims out to a nearby island and finds an odd egg, which hatches into a baby turtle that he takes in and names Toto. He falls in love with his pet turtle and shows him to all his friends, especially when Toto starts to fly and grow very fast.

Toru learns from his friend that Toto might be a reincarnation of Gamera, Japan's favorite fire-breathing flying turtle, after Gamera sacrificed himself to stop a flock of murder birds thirty years ago. Toru refuses to believe that his friend is Gamera, because that means he's a monster and apparently monsters always have to sacrifice themselves? Either way, things get more complicated for Toru and Toto when a giant man-eating monster shows up to terrorize their town, forcing the growing turtle to step in.

A big problem with "Gamera: The Brave" is that it is slow and takes far too much time and effort to set up these kids that we have no reason to care about. The film spends about 25 minutes setting up Toru's life in his town with all the passion of a bad after-school special, all of this before introducing the monsters. Even after Toto shows up, it follows the same antics of a kid trying to hide is new pet from his parents, all while Toru shows as little emotion as possible. This goes on for more than half of the runtime before the idea of Gamera is even brought up.

I want to say that "Gamera: The Brave" was trying to replicate the tone of the first Gamera film, which spent a considerable amount of time setting up a little boy and his pet turtle, but even that film gave us some good old-fashion monster action that was interjected throughout that film. For the first half of this movie, it doesn't do anything with its monsters, instead giving us a tepid melodrama that is hindered further by bad pacing and even worse acting.

Even when it does get to the monster scenes, they're just as slow and low energy as the rest of the movie that they come across as uninspired. The movement of the monsters is janky and the color palette ranges from gray to dark brown. This gets even worse when the film tries to shoe-horn in as many children as possible into the finale to preach its cringe worthy message about the power of children and their connection to Gamera.

The filmmakers somehow make their children worse than the 1960s Gamera films, where the kids always seemed to have military clearance and the approval of the Japanese government, by showing they are more powerful and important than any adult in this movie, and doing so in the most over-the-top manner possible. This movie loves kids, but can't understand why they're so great.

I hated "Gamera: The Brave" from start to finish. If it wasn't confusing about it's "monsters always sacrifice themselves" message, it was boring me with its horrendous pacing and acting, all while never embracing its monster heritage. It hurts to see so much potential after the 1990s Gamera trilogy wasted on such a disrespectful movie. There is nothing fun or enjoyable to found here and it is best left forgotten and alone.

Final Grade: F

Number 26 - "Godzilla's Revenge" (1969)

I've actually debated about not including this in my countdown, mostly because there are many Godzilla fans that do not see this one, "All Monsters Attack" or "Godzilla's Revenge," as a Godzilla movie.

To be fair, I see where they are coming from on this. Unlike every other Godzilla film where the King of the Monsters plays an active role and most certainly exists in that world, one could argue that Godzilla does not exist in "Godzilla's Revenge." Instead, the film takes place basically in our world, where Godzilla is nothing more than a movie character and made to sell toys. Any time Godzilla is brought up by our main character, Ichiro, a seven-year old boy, the other characters role their eyes, like they are aware that Godzilla isn't real since all of this takes place in Ichiro's imagination.

Since Godzilla isn't really in this movie that makes it hard for me to talk about. What I will say is that, as a kid, I despised this movie, probably more than I hate "Godzilla: Final Wars" now. If you're going to advertise the movie as Godzilla getting is revenge on something, I expect to see Godzilla throwing his biggest rampage of all time, with an unbelievably angry Godzilla ready to destroy plenty of monsters. Instead, what we got was a film about a some little kid who wanders around empty warehouses and gets kidnapped by bank robbers, and ony briefly cuts to Godzilla.

But what really made me angry as a kid was that anytime the movie cut to scenes of Godzilla, they were just stock footage fights taken directly from other movies in the franchise, in particular "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" (or "Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster") and "Son of Godzilla." Anything cool about this movie was taken directly from other movies, so why even bother with this one? I could just put in my copy of "Son of Godzilla" and watch the best parts of "Godzilla's Revenge" there.

It also did not help that I utterly hated Godzilla's son, Minilla, when I was young. I just thought he was annoying and took away from the better parts of Godzilla movies, and he was even worse here because they gave him an annoying voice. Oh yeah, Godzilla's son talks in this movie, and can change his size too so he can interact with Ichiro. My opinion on Minilla has changed since then, but my thoughts on "Godzilla's Revenge" haven't changed too much (clearly, otherwise it wouldn't be this low on my list).

Strangely enough though, a few years ago I started noticing that some Godzilla fans admitted that they loved "Godzilla's Revenge." For the longest time, I couldn't understand why - all the best parts of the movie were taken from other better movies. But this peaked my curiosity, so I looked into this a bit further.

To these fans, "Godzilla's Revenge" isn't about Godzilla at all, but an entertaining children's story about standing up for yourself against bullies. Ichiro lives in the industrial district in Tokyo, his parents are always working so he spends most of his time playing with his Godzilla toys and imagining what it would be like to meet Godzilla. He has a very vivid imagination and has grown accustom to lonliness.

But anytime he begins to enjoy himself in public, the school bullies seem to be right around the corner ready to ruin Ichiro's fun. At first, he never stands up for himself and just lets the bullies do what they want to him. He nicknames the lead bully "Gabara" and retreats further into his fantasies. Eventually, he goes as far to imagine himself on Monster Island, befriending Minilla as the two watch Godzilla reenact many of his fights from other films. Minilla's life seems to be just as chaotic as Ichiro's though, as Godzilla keeps pressuring his son to be more like him and stand up to a monster that is bullying him, also named Gabara.

The point that lovers of this film make is that they were Ichiro at his age. They played with their Godzilla toys, they imagined what it would be like to meet him, while at the same time having to deal with the difficulties of growing up and standing up for yourself. Ichiro isn't meant to be some annoying little brat that moves the story along, he's supposed to be every little kid who admires some fictional character. His vivid imagination is what makes him so relatable, since we've all done something like that at one point in time.

And to the fans of "Godzilla's Revenge" I say that I understand where you're coming from and I respect that you love the movie on such a deeper level than I ever thought of when I was a kid.

That being said, I think most Godzilla fans either love or hate this movie, and it all depends on how you reacted to it as a child. If you found Ichiro relatable, sympathetic yet at the same time heroic, and didn't come just for the stock footage monster fights, you probably liked "Godzilla's Revenge" then and love it now. But if you didn't care about Ichiro or his struggles through childhood, only interested in who Godzilla has to get his revenge on, then you probably hated this one and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Personally, I fall into the latter group. While my hatred for this one has died down in recent years, I cannot bring myself to enjoy any of it. This one has a big focus on monster scenes, even if it wants to tell a story about a little kid. So when you make that a large portion of the film, but mostly focus on stock footage, it is bound to leave very little impression on me.

So while I appreciate that love for "Godzilla's Revenge" has grown in recent years, far more than I ever expected, this is still a bad Godzilla movie to me. Maybe it gets better if you don't look at it as a Godzilla film, but I've never seen it as anything else since Godzilla still plays a major role in the movie. This will always be about Godzilla to me, and in that regard, I've always had a bad time with it.

 

Number 27 - "Godzilla X Megaguirus" (2000)

As a whole, the third series of Godzilla films, known as the Millennium or Shinsei series, is just as spotty and hit-or-miss as the Heisei series, but takes it in the opposite direction of that era. While the Heisei films focused on having a continuous continuity between entries, the Millennium series were mostly self-contained entries, with each movie taking place in its own little universe where none of the other Godzilla films happened outside of the first movie. Even then, these movies would often change the events of the 1954 movie to suit their needs.

We've already seen one film from the Millennium series, "Godzilla: Final Wars" and that didn't turn out so well for anyone. Now we meet another terrible entry in that series, "Godzilla X Megaguirus." This is one of those movies that changes things about the first Godzilla film, namely that after Godzilla's initial rampage on Japan, rather than using the Oxygen Destroyer to kill him, they decide to do nothing and let Godzilla continue to roam the oceans. There is no mention of the Oxygen Destroyer or it's inventor, Dr. Serizawa. They simply just let Godzilla go free after leveling Tokyo.

To me, the Millennium series is a bunch of "What if" questions, but most of the time they're not interesting questions. It can often be great to explore alternate paths through history, especially with established fiction, to see how differently the worlds we've come to know and love would change, as well as its characters. But with "Godzilla X Megaguirus," the question it wants to pose is "What if the Oxygen Destroyer was never used on Godzilla?"

Well, then Godzilla would still be at large. There, that was an easy answer.

If the question is a simple and boring one, then it's going to lead to a simple and boring movie. If they wanted to go with a far more fascinating route, they could have asked something like "What if Dr. Serizawa chose not to use the Oxygen Destroyer on Godzilla?" Not only could they still continue their many of the plotlines this movie starts, but have the addition of Dr. Serizawa still being alive and watching the destruction Godzilla causes, possibly regretting every day his decision to protect his invention from the world. Or maybe he doesn't regret it, thinking that he made the right decision because the Oxygen Destroyer could have killed far more people than Godzilla ever could if it fell into the wrong hands.

There would not only be a plot about a helpless military trying to combat Godzilla, but also one about the most classic human character in a Godzilla movie getting another chance at redemption. I think that would have made for a far more intriguing monster movie while still staying within the confines of the Millennium series. But instead, we get a bare bones monster movie with extremely unlikable characters and poor pacing. Think of "Godzilla X Megaguirus" as the "Godzilla Raids Again" of the Millennium series.

The film opens with a timeline recap, showing how Japan rebuilt after Godzilla attacked in 1954. The country shuts down all of its nuclear facilities, focusing instead on alternative fuel and energy sources, moves the capital of Japan from Tokyo to Osaka and eventually develops a new form of energy based on plasma. But every time the Japanese make further strives in that field, Godzilla shows up and destroys everything they've worked on.

So basically, Godzilla's role in this movie is to come yell at Japanese scientists every time they try to play God.

Eventually, the Japanese defense force gets tired of Godzilla always attacking their country and decides to find a way to get rid of him for good. Rather than developing a new Oxygen Destroyer, they come up with the next most sensible plan - creating a black hole gun!

Normally, I am all for ludicrious plans to deal with equally ludicrious threats, but this is one that I never got into because of how idiotic it is. Disregarding the science of creating an artificial black hole, that could be far more dangerous than Godzilla. Keep in mind that, as far as we currently know, nothing can survive or escape the grasp of a black hole. How do they know the black holes they create to contain Godzilla won't continue on for all eternity and consume our entire solar system? Or that someone won't hijack the black hole gun? Or what if it misses and ends up destroying an entire city (or even the world)? There are so many ways creating black holes on Earth can go horribly wrong that you have to step back a bit and ask yourself, "What the hell were they thinking?"

Of course, this is also Godzilla we're talking about, a monster that survived five years inside of an active volcano and fought off a monster made from machinery from the 23rd century like it was nothing. You also have to ask if this black hole gun will even work on him.

So while scientists are testing out their black hole gun, nicknamed Dimension Tide, they fire off a round and immediately notice dimensional rifts starting to form near the impact sight. They theorize that they've opened up a portal to another dimension. Because I am sure having a gateway to another plane of existence won't go wrong at all.

Immediately following this, a large dragonfly-like monster breaks the barrier between the dimensions and starts to lay her eggs all over the place. And yet the defense force continues to support Dimension Tide, saying it is the only way to defeat Godzilla, despite releasing another dangerous monster upon the world.

This other monster is known as Megaguirus, a giant dragonfly that can suck the energy out of just about anything and can fly really fast. And that's about it. We don't learn more about the dimension Megaguirus comes from, why she feels the need to cause destruction or what her ultimate goal was. She's just another monster created to fight Godzilla, leaving little impact on the story outside of some little kid trying to explain that she's based off the Meganulon and Meganula.

When I first watched "Godzilla X Megaguirus" I felt there was something off about it that I could never put my finger on. It just didn't feel like a good monster movie. While part of this is because of the slow as molasses pacing, taking over an hour before Godzilla even gets close to Japan and spending way too much time with the little kid, I think I finally figured it out on my most recent viewing of the movie, and it comes down to the characters.

Every single character in this film comes across as a smug asshole, where they feel compelled to handle everything on their own and tell anyone trying to help them to piss off. Our protagonist is Kiriko Tsujimori (Misato Tanaka), the leader of the "G-Grasper" unit of the defense force and always seems to have a chip on her shoulder. She constantly feels the need to show off in front of her subordinates, even tell her fellow pilots to sit out their final mission because "It's my show."

There's also Hajime Kudo (Shosuke Tanihara), a young tech-wizard who constantly infiltrates computers and technology that doesn't belong to him. Like Kiriko, he sends away all support and help when Dimension Tide starts to collapse so he can take all the glory when things start going his way. Even the little kid acts like he knows better than anyone else when he starts describing Megaguirus' evolution process, like everyone else is an idiot for not seeing it and he should be the supreme leader of Japan.

Honestly, of all the Godzilla films, "Godzilla X Megaguirus" probably has the most selfish, poorly written and unlikable cast of characters. There wasn't a single person in this cast that I enjoyed or didn't want to see trampled by Godzilla. Since they're a huge focus on the film, that made the majority of it a hard one to get through.

There are many Godzilla movies I have watched over a dozen times because they're so much fun and bring me so much joy. Since the release of "Godzilla X Megaguirus" in 2000, I think I've seen this one two times. It is poorly paced, boring, and has some of the worst characters in the entire franchise. The scenes with Godzilla are few and far between and his fight with Megaguirus is okay but made worse by pacing problems. The only redeeming quality is the music by Michiru Oshima, as it provides some amount of atmosphere and tension. Other than that, don't bother with "Godzilla X Megaguirus."

Number 28 - "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth" (1992)

 

 

Now we move on to one of the more controversial eras of Godzilla, the Heisei era.

This would be every movie in the franchise that was made between 1984 and 1995, which spans seven movies, most of which are a mixed bag at best. This was also a series that tried to have an ongoing continuity where each film leads into the next one, though very often the continuity nods were small and often insignificant.

The problem I have with the Heisei series, along with most other Godzilla fans, is that most of these movies have no staying power. You want to watch most of them once and then you are done with them, while we'll be seeing many films later on in this list that have plenty of rewatchability. The Heisei series focuses far too much on sparkly effects and selling toys and not enough on having quality storytelling or likeable characters.

Case in point, "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth" is everything despicable about the Heisei series all rolled into one. As a kid, I sorta liked this film, but mostly found myself skipping the human scenes and going straight to the monster fights, a common occurrence to the bad Godzilla movies when I was young. But even back then, I knew this one wasn't that great. Now that I've had more time to think about it, this one just constantly had me shaking my head at the terrible writing and the characters who are even worse.

The film opens up with our "hero" Takuya Fujita (Tesuya Bessho) literally reenacting the first scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He's infiltrated some ancient temple in search of its hidden treasure, only to run in to a bunch of booby traps, before stumbling upon the treasure, which sets off everything and the temple starts falling apart. He of course makes it out by the skin of his teeth, only to be immediately apprehended by Japanese officers.

Right off the bat, this movie tells you that it lacks shame. It'll blatantly rip off more successful films in an attempt to make everything seem epic and grand, when in fact its nothing but a poor imitation. Trust me, this will not be the last time this movie does something like that.

After Takuya is taken to prison for...achelology I think, his ex-wife Masako (Satomi Kobayashi) gives him an ultimatum - spend the next fifteen years in prison or go on this dangerous mission with her to a remote island. He chooses the later and he accompanies his wife and the right-hand man to the owner of a company known as Marutomo to their destination of Infant Island.

Upon arriving, they notice how the island looks terrible, with large landslides, empty planes and more Indiana Jones-style traps, this time from "Temple of Doom" when they get stuck on a rope bridge that breaks in half. But these three constantly keep making comments about how terrible man is for causing such destruction. This makes me tilt my head, since the opening of the film establishes that a large typhoon, caused by a huge meteorite that crashed in the south Pacific, was what led to Infant Island looking this way. This wasn't a man-made tragedy, a goddamn meteor caused this.

But of course, with this being the famous Infant Island, the three eventually run into a giant monster egg and two tiny twin fairies known as the Cosmos, the speakers of Mothra.

I am going to take this opportunity to say that something about these twin fairies has always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe its because they always seem so happy and will always speak the same words at the same time, often very cryptic words like "Mankind will be punished" or "There's no need to worry. Mothra will save us." I always imagine these two laughing on the inside, like they're aware of all our impending doom and just want to watch us suffer. They're like if the twin girls in "The Shining" got control of a giant monster.

 

Anyway, the Cosmos give the three of them Mothra's backstory - she's been a protector of the Earth for thousands, if not millions, of years and will take care of anything that threatens all life on the planet. But as our protagonists point out, "anything that threatens the planet" could eventually extend to eliminating humanity if they continue to pollute and destroy the planet. Suddenly, our heroes feel guilty for causing such destruction.

Again, I tilt my head at the claims these guys are making. The film never directly shows us how mankind is ruining the planet, nor do these characters tell us exactly what we are doing that's hurting the planet. While it is implied that the film is referring to pollution and deforestation, if you're going to put a "Save the Earth" message in your movie and make claims that we should treat our planet better, then at the very least you should tell us what we're doing wrong, but this movie dances around that question.

It would be like if I saw you were doing math homework and all I said was, "Goddamn, just answer these questions correctly already!" without saying anything else and walked away.

So remember when I said this movie was full of rip-offs of better movies? Well, after our protagonists consult with the Cosmos, they convince these little hell-spawns to take Mothra's egg with them back to Japan, where it will be the main attraction at a new theme park. So not only do the Cosmos see no problem giving up their God to be treated about as well as the world's largest ball of twine, but now we get a plot ripped straight from "Mothra vs. Godzilla."

Of all the routes to go with involving a giant egg, including scientific research, philosophical curiosity or even religious implications, why did they have to go with the same type of story as a near perfect monster movie? There's no way they could tell it better than "Mothra vs. Godzilla" did, not when you open your movie ripping off Indiana Jones. Again, no shame.

But of course, as they transport Mothra's egg back Japan, they run into a massive fire-breathing problem - Godzilla. It seems that same meteorite landed very close to where Godzilla was hibernating (that's a happy convinience!), and now he's pissed off and wants to wreck their ship. At this point, the right-hand man reveals his true intentions and says that he plans to sell both Mothra's egg and the Cosmos to his company, which Takuya fights him for until Mothra erupts from her egg to fight Godzilla.

Before I go any further, I should briefly mention the third monster in this movie, Battra. The Cosmos describe Battra as an evil Mothra, who sees mankind as the true threat to the planet and will stop at nothing until we're all eliminated. To me, Battra is a huge waste of potential - an evil-version of Mothra is a great idea in concept, but the film doesn't do anything with it. If we got to see all of Mothra's unqiue concepts turned on their heads, like a truly evil version of Mothra's fairies or a island that worships Battra like a God and hear their philisophy that would have been amazing. But instead, Battra is just another monster for both Mothra and Godzilla to fight and that's about it.

It also doesn't help that Toho gave Battra the same roar as another one of their monsters, Rodan. Lame.

After Godzilla and Mothra fight for a while, Battra suddenly shows up and interfers in the fight, going after Godzilla specifically. The two start battling underwater while Mothra uses this opportunity to escape. Eventually, an underwater volcano just so happens to erupt right underneath Godzilla and Battra (that's a happy convinience!) and the two are swallowed up by the volcano, with everyone assuming the two are dead, even though this particular Godzilla survived five years inside of a volcano already.

Spoiler alert: Godzilla and Battra survived the underwater volcano! Though this does eventually lead to the coolest scene in the movie: Godzilla making Mt. Fuji erupt so he could climb out of it, with the implication being that he swam through molten lava from the south Pacific all the way to Japan. Badass.

Oh wait, I actually said something good about this movie! Let's balance that out with another movie this one rips off, the original "Mothra." The right-hand goon ends up stealing the Cosmos away from Takuya and Masako when they're not looking and he takes them back to his boss. Almost immediately, the Cosmos start singing to Mothra, the sign that she is on her way get the two of them back.

It's not enough that this film wants to rip off not just one successful Mothra movie, but two. This was the major story focus in the 1961 film - a bunch of greedy selfish assholes steal from Infant Island and Mothra rampages her way through Tokyo to get the fairies back. It gives off the feeling that this movie lacks soul of its own, just bits and pieces borrowed from other films and pieced back together to make it look whole. But if you look in the right places, you see the cracks and how the pieces don't fit together.

So Mothra waltzes through Tokyo, the military cannot do anything, the selfish assholes realize they messed up and ruined their company by bringing the fairies here, and then Mothra starts her metamorphosis into her adult winged-form. At this point, Godzilla, and Battra show up again, Battra changes into his winged form (with a little less pomp-and-circumstance, unlike Mothra who emerges from a cocoon to a crowd of thousands of stunned on-lookers and the Cosmos singing to her: Battra just flips a switch and boom, he has wings). This all leads to our big showdown in the heart of Yokohama between our three monsters.

The fight scenes here are okay. They're pretty standard compared to the other Heisei films, with a particular focus on beam and energy weapons that cause lots of sparks and grunts and very little physical contact. Films like this and the next one, "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II" are what gave the Heisei series the nickname of "The Beam Wars" or "The Beam Era," where every monster had an energy-based attack, even ones who didn't use them before like Mothra. So because every monster is always throwing beams around that leave no visible damage marks on the opponent, it's often hard to feel invested in these fights when it feels like nothing is being accomplished.

Finally, I didn't care for a single character in this film. Every single one of them felt like they were too far up their own asses to care about anyone other than themselves. Takyua constantly endangers his wife and daughter, as well as all of Japan, on multiple occassions, while Masako hardly ever shows any emotions towards her husband aside from contempt and regret, taking every opportunity to ridicule him. The right-hand goon gets a lot of screentime and he is all over the map, sometimes feeling bad about what he does and then moments later being fine with selling a God to his boss.

And then you have the glue that holds the Heisei series together, Ms. Miki Saegusa. She appears in six of the seven Heisei films and has little to no personality outside of having psychic powers, and mostly just uses those powers to know that Godzilla has already landed in Japan. As you can probably guess, I don't like Miki. She is annoying, pointless, and continues to show the wasted potential in the Heisei series by introducing individuals who have psychic powers and yet never doing anything with it. This is her most minimal role, where she can somehow track the Cosmos when they're lost, but we'll be seeing a lot more of Miki Saegusa soon.

Overall, if you want to watch "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth," save yourself the trouble of watching this terrible movie and just watch the two great ones that this mostly rip-offs, "Mothra" and "Mothra vs. Godzilla." Otherwise, this is the bottom of the barrell and my pick for the worst Heisei film.

Number 29 - "Godzilla Raids Again" (1955)

Now that we've got the disrespectful and terrible Godzilla movies out of the way, we can move to just the terrible ones!

These next three or four entries are all ones that are simply awfully put together movies that are mostly harmless, but I would still rather watch two hours of C-SPAN than turn on these Godzilla movies again. Of these entires, the worst of them is my pick for the most boring entry in the series - "Godzilla Raids Again."

This one was made less than a year after the release of the first Godzilla film in 1954 and is the only other movie to be shot in black and white. The film also sees the introduction of Godzilla's long time ally, Anguirus (or Anglias, or Angurus, or Anguillas...he has more names and pronunciations than any other Toho monster), the spiky-backed Ankylosaurus that seems to be the only sticking point from this film.

Set roughly a year after the events of the first film, when the first Godzilla was killed by a chemical weapon known as the Oxygen Destroyer, the world is shocked to learn that there is not only a second Godzilla but another monster entirely, noting that these two kaiju love to fight each other. The forces of Japan scramble to come up with a solution to fight off the two monsters, or at the very least keep them away from Japan.

But that's not the important part of the film, because far more than half of "Godzilla Raids Again" is spent with Shoichi Tsukioka (Hiroshi Koizumi) and Koji Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaki), two airplane fishing scouts, and their every-day drama. They both live in a small fishing town in a tightly-knit community, Shoichi has a girlfriend whose a radio operator and Koji is terrible with the ladies. They're the ones who find Godzilla and Anguirus on a remote island when Koji's airplane is forced to make a water-landing.

Are you starting to see why "Godzilla Raids Again" isn't the most well-received among Godzilla fans?

Godzilla feels like an after-thought in this movie, with the main focus being some pilots. It would be one thing if we cared about these guys and their struggles, but the film never gives us any reason to like or give a damn about them. Shoichi is too busy talking to his girlfriend that half the time he doesn't do his job, and Koji is dim-witted and too focused on finding love. These elements would be fine if this was just a Japanese melodrama about finding love in a small fishing town, but this is the direct sequel to one of the darkest and most disturbing giant monster movies of all time. Everything involving these guys doesn't feel like it belongs here.

While "Godzilla Raids Again" has one of the shortest runtimes of any Godzilla movie, just 82 minutes, the pacing is excruciatingly slow. While we get a glimpse of Godzilla and Anguirus fighting at the beginning, it lasts all of ten seconds, and then we don't see the two again for what feels like an eternity. We're given a recap of the events of the first film through recycled footage, though with no audio or music, so it's about as exciting as your uncle showing you slides from his vacation to Mt. Rushmore. Then the military spends about ten minutes trying to come up with a plan and every single general takes his sweet-ass time to give his two cents.

And you would think that once Godzilla and Anguirus show up that would be the focus of the movie. But nope, there is a long scene dealing with prisoners trying to escape while being transported, only to set most of Osaka on fire, and Shoichi's girlfriend constantly looking at the destruction from about five miles away at a safe location. To be fair, this leads to the only cool shots of the movie, as we slowly but surely see Osaka get engulfed in flames.

My point is that it takes this movie more than half of its runtime before we finally get to see Godzilla and Anguirus throw down. More than 45 minutes of slow, dull, uninteresting conversations that feel like they don't amount to anything.

Even when we do get to the monster fights, the camera work gets strange. When focusing on solo shots of the two kaiju, their movements seem slow and lumbering, as they should be. But when the two are forced to fight, the camera movement speeds up to 11 and every little movement feels unnatural, like Godzilla and Anguirus are on drugs.

But strangely enough, after the two fight for a little while, Godzilla actually kills Anguirus and just leaves Osaka. Yet the film isn't over. In fact, there's still about 25 minutes left. And we end up spending most of with the pilots again and their drama. The big climatic battle between your two monsters wasn't the end of the movie? We had to get 20 more minutes with these forgettable characters before one last showdown with Godzilla?

The film could have ended after everything in Osaka and our torture could have ceased! But hey, we had know if Koji ended up getting a girlfriend, right?

This leads to one last scene with Godzilla where the local fishing pilots literally start bombing the snowy mountains around him to encase the monster in ice. Let that sink in for a moment - you plan to surround a giant fire-breathing irradiated lizard with snow and ice. Yeah, I'm sure that will hold him for all of five minutes. Also this one mountain seems to have an endless supply of snow, since I swear these guys bomb the mountain about fifty times, each one as uninteresting as the last one.

There's one last thing I'd like to point about "Godzilla Raids Again" and that is the English dub. I won't normally talk about the differences between the Japanese version and English version in these reviews, but this one deserves special mention. Mostly because, in the English dub, all mention of Godzilla is removed from the movie. Instead, the movie is called "Gigantis, the Fire Monster" and Godzilla has now become the titular Gigantis. They also replace most of Godzilla's roars with Anguirus' roars, but don't do anything with Anguirus' roars, making it twice as confusing when you cannot tell which monster is roaring.

The explanation the scientists give for this is to say that Gigantis and Anguirus are of the same species. I don't know if any of these scientists looked at a picture of these two monsters that look nothing alike or if they're blind, but in any case I'm calling bullcrap.

In fact, I call bullcrap on the entire English dub; it takes an already slow, boring movie and makes it even harder to get through, with two monsters that have the same roar and below-average dubbing for the 1950s.

Overall, "Godzilla Raids Again" is not only the most boring Godzilla film, but also the most forgettable. You could marathon the entire series but skip this one and ultimately nothing of value would be lost. There are no note-worthy scenes here, the characters are unlikable, and the pacing is atrocious. As a direct follow-up to the first Godzilla film, this film misses all the marks.

 

Number 30 - "Godzilla" (1998)

Part of me feels like I shouldn't be reviewing this movie. This one is so far away from how other Godzilla films feel and act that it should not count. The 1998 "Godzilla" is like an alien trying and failing to blend in with a group of humans. But, it has Godzilla in its name and a monster that uses bits of Godzilla's roar, so I guess I'll give my thoughts on the film.

I remember going to see "Godzilla" in theaters when I was eight years old on Memorial Day. I had been excited to see this movie for months, thinking how amazing it would be see my favorite monster on the big screen. Then I went to the theater and was almost immediately disappointed.

Keep in mind that I was in second grade at the time, so it was very easy to keep me entertained. Just put on something pleasant or slightly intriguing and I won't move for hours. But even as a little eight year old, I was so bored and uninterested in "Godzilla" that it still blows me away to this day. How could this film mess up one of the most simple concepts - have Godzilla rampage through New York City and have lots of eye-candy visuals. That shouldn't be hard for the director of "Independence Day," Roland Emmerich, which had some of the most memorable movie images of the 1990s when the Empire State Building and the White House were destroyed. But like "Godzilla: Final Wars," the filmmakers found a way to screw it up royally.

The film follows Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), a scientist who is researching the growth rate of earthworms around Chernobyl (fascinating work, I'm sure). He gets called in by the military to study contaminated areas in Panama and Jamaica that had recently been attacked by a giant monster. Unbeknownst to Niko and the military that same monster suddenly shows up in New York City and makes a slight mess.

And when I say "slight mess" I'm not being sarcastic - to start things off, the monster only slightly damages the harbor around NYC. Throws a fishing boat here, knocks part of a roof off a building there, nothing that cannot be fixed in a day or so. I'm not even sure Godzilla killed anyone in first attack on the city.

So the military is called into deal with the monster, and they do a real bang-up job at first. To start things off, they lose track of the beast almost immediately. In a city filled to the brim with vast skyscrapers and state-of-the-art technology, you lose track of a giant dinosaur. This thing isn't like a spy that can easily blend into the background of a city with eight-million people, it is a monster the size of a small building. The film wants you to believe this is because the monster is an expert in stealth, but I don't buy that for a second. It's because this military sucks at their job.

Don't believe me? Then I give you exhibit two of the moronic military and wasted potential - After they have successfully drawn the monster out of hiding, they panic and open fire all their weapons on the creature...except every single missile and bomb misses and destroys the surrounding buildings. A whole squardon of helicopters chases down the monster through the city, while the monster just casually avoids the buildings causing no real damage, and the military continually fires everything they have got only to miss and destroy major landmarks in the New York area, like the Chrysler Building.

In other words, it's not the monster that destroys New York, but the incompetent military that never bothers to stop and aim at their target.

But anyway, let's address the elephant in the room - I have yet to refer to the monster in this movie as Godzilla. That's because, for all intents and purposes, it's not Godzilla. You don't need to be a detective to look at this monster and the classic design of Godzilla to see these two look absolutely nothing alike. This monster looks and behaves like a slightly bigger T-Rex with a few spikes on its shoulders. It is fast, hunched over like most dinosaurs and loves to eat fish. You know, those classic Godzilla traits!

I'd be willing to forgive all that if we got the two things Godzilla is mostly known for - his indestructibility and ability to breathe fire. And we don't get either of those. The best we get is that he can breathe a flammable gas that can cause a bit of fire when exposed to a flame, but that's not even close to being the same thing. Then, as the film ends, the mosnter gets caught in Brooklyn Bridge, giving the military a clean shot at him, and he gets killed by just four or five standard missiles.

This Godzilla is pathetic, with a lame design and no cool abilities that make him standout. The only reason he's remembered today is because of the name, the only thing he has in common with his Japanese counterpart. Which is why most Godzilla fans have taken a liking to the name GINO, an accronym for "Godzilla In Name Only." What's even more hilarious is that Toho bought the rights to this monster in the early 2000s and renamed it to Zilla, because this character is unworthy of having "God" in its name.

This also leads to the only slightly good scene in "Godzilla: Final Wars" where Godzilla and Zilla fight, with Zilla being utterly oblierated, but the fight is over in five seconds so we don't get any time to savor the defeat. It's also set to a Sum 41 metal song that feels very inappropriate for that fight.

If you asked me a few years ago why I hated this movie so much, I would have told you it was only because of how disrespectful it was to the character of Godzilla. Other than how it treated a classic character, it was an okay B-movie. That if the monster wasn't called Godzilla and they changed the title, this film would have been fine.

Nowadays, while I'm still upset at how awful Godzilla is handled, I have come to realize this is a terrible movie all-around. Aside from the military that sucks at every aspect of their jobs, the characters are all selfish arrogant pricks who all think the world revolves around them. They don't care if the city or the world is in danger, they just want to use this opportunity for their personal needs, like Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo) who sells out her boyfriend and ruins his career to get a news story that doesn't even go her way. Or Philippe Roche (Jean Reno), a French agent who thrusts "duty" upon himself by trying to bring down the monster without anyone's help by sneaking into the city and blowing up a nest full of velociraptor eggs.

It also doesn't help that none of these characters seem to learn anything or change. Audrey feels sorry for actions getting her boyfriend fired, but by the end of the film she still comes across as the same smug douchebag who will do whatever it takes to get a story. Character development is non-existent in this movie.

There is also a strange sense of hate in this movie, like no one in this film trusts or likes other characters. Characters like Dr. Tatopoulos, Audrey, and her "quirky" cameraman Animal (Hank Azaria) lack chemistry because they only ever show contempt for each other. Even a giant monster destroying their city doesn't bring out positive emotions for other people.

But the oddest feeling of resentment comes from two side characters, the mayor of New York simply named Ebert, and his aide named Gene. This movie doesn't even try to hide it - these two are supposed to be parodies of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, the famous film critics. These two act like bumbling morons, with the Ebert character being obsessed with candy and Gene basically being a "Yes man" to everything Ebert says.

Of all the things to parody in your giant monster movie, why Siskel and Ebert? My best guess is that the two of them gave director Roland Emmerich bad reviews on his previous films, including "Stargate" and "Independence Day." Here's an idea Mr. Emmerich, instead of handling negative criticism like a five-year old, you take what they say to heart and learn to make better movies. Because if that's your response to someone saying your movie sucks, then it comes across like Siskel and Ebert know more about good filmmaking than you do.

But the wierdest part of all this? Nothing that bad happens to the Siskel and Ebert parodies in the movie. You'd think if Emmerich hates the two enough to put them in his monster movie that he'd have his giant creature either eat or stomp them, but they're fine at the end. Why go to all this trouble if they don't have a gruesome ending?

Overall, "Godzilla" is just a bad time. If it's not resorting to terrible disaster movie cliches, it is doing a disservice to the character of Godzilla. The action scenes are irritating due to the inept military and devoid of tension because of how unlikable these characters are. Like with "Godzilla: Final Wars" save yourself the time and headache and stay away from this movie.

 

Number 31 - "Godzilla: Final Wars" (2004)

There aren't many movies that make me angry. Some leave a bad taste in my mouth when they squander great things, while others make me annoyed through bad storytelling or terrible acting. But once in a blue moon, a film will come along that makes me want to pull my hair out and reduce me to the point where watching Barney the Dinosaur sounds better than watching this crap.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" brings this kind of anger out in me. It is not only my pick for the worst Godzilla film, but one of the worst movies I have ever seen. This is not just because of generally bad filmmaking, third-grade level writing, and acting so bad that even Ed Wood would want to try filming the scene again, but a misunderstanding and disrespect towards the source material that it takes all the fun out of the movie.

It's bad enough that "Final Wars" is poorly put together, but then it had to go and defecate over everything that was awesome about Godzilla.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" was released in 2004, the year of Godzilla's fiftieth anniversary, a milestone landmark for any franchise to reach, especially one that was normally seeing the release of a new film every year. At this point, "Final Wars" was the 28th entry in the series (not counting the 1998 American film, but we will get to that) and Toho wanted to celebrate this occasion with a movie that honored the tradition of Godzilla. Toho spent a ridiculous amount of money making this movie, roughly two billion yen or 19.5 million American dollars. At the time, this was the third most expensive movie Toho had ever made. That's not even taking into account the advertising "Final Wars" had, which was advertised all over the world due to Godzilla's fiftieth.

Toho tried to pull all the stops out for this one - Bringing back as many classic Godzilla monsters as they could, attempting to make the movie feel like a classic old Godzilla movie, and for the first time, having not only monster fights, but also human fights!

And they messed all of that up!

Oh sure, it has the largest roster of Toho kaijus, ranging from the obvious like Mothra and Rodan to the more obscure like Hedorah and Ebirah, but most of these monsters are on screen for less than a minute, serve no purpose to the plot, don't act anything like they did in previous movies, and most of them are killed off unceremoniously. The majority of these monsters are just here to fill up screen time and to get the audience's nostalgia hype up.

Does the film feel like a classic Godzilla movie at any point? Absolutely not. It might take plot elements from other Godzilla movies, in particular "Invasion of Astro-Monster" (or "Godzilla vs. Monster Zero") by revolving around aliens trying to conquer earth by controlling monsters, but the Godzilla franchise wasn't the first to cover that type of plot and it will not be the last. Instead, the movie focuses on its bland cast of idiots who would rather punch their way through their problems. "Final Wars" ends up borrowing plot elements from about a dozen different movies, in particular "The Matrix" because of our characters choices in fashion and its over-reliance of kung-fu fight scenes, the "X-Men" franchise because of its mutant characters who can fight a giant sea monster with wire-fu, which isn't nearly as cool as it sounds, and the "Star Wars" franchise because of one scene near the end that feels like a carbon copy of the Death Star trench run. "Final Wars" is a strange hodgepodge of cinematic references, doing none of them well at all, and the one it does the worst is the Godzilla series.

And those human fight scenes? They take up the majority of the movie. In a film that was supposed to celebrate fifty years of Godzilla and represent everything great about the franchise, instead of showing some dream monster match-ups like, for example, King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla fighting Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Anguirus, we instead get lots of martial arts scenes that were cut from "The Matrix Reloaded" for being too silly.

But the absolute worst thing that "Final Wars" does is something simple - In the film's two hour runtime, Godzilla is on-screen for all of twelve minutes.

This was supposed to be Godzilla's big shining moment. Fifty years of making movies, creating an entire genre of filmmaking and some of the most iconic monsters of all time, and a franchise that had has more entries than Star Wars, Star Trek and the Lord of the Rings combined. And the filmmakers cannot even be bothered make him the central focus of the movie or give him a fight that lasts more than two minutes.

That is not just bad filmmaking, it is downright disrespectful and insulting to Godzilla and his fans. We didn't watch any of the previous Godzilla movies for the chance that the humans would fight. We came for Godzilla. We came because of his strength and his awe. Something so simple as hearing his roar or watching his spines glow bright blue brings a smile to so many people's faces, and it comes across like these filmmakers don't give a damn about any of that. They would rather imitate other popular franchises poorly, instead of paying tribute to a legacy that is older than most of the people working on this movie.

It makes "Godzilla: Final Wars" feel empty and hollow; insincere in its "love" for Godzilla and his monster companions and never giving the audience enough time to truly appreciate the short monster scenes.

Godzilla doesn't even appear until the halfway point in the movie, and then he proceeds to get into many monster fights that last less than 30 seconds. In these fights, Godzilla basically walks right through his opponents, including Gigan, Zilla (the 1998 American Godzilla - yes, he is in this movie), the giant spider Kumonga, the giant mantis Kamakuras, Hedorah, and Ebirah. These monsters do little more than slow Godzilla down as he makes his way from Antarctica to Tokyo. So not only are the fights too short to enjoy, but Godzilla expends zero effort to defeat them that it takes all the drama and tension out of the scene. One blast of his atomic ray is enough to defeat most of these monsters.

I have seen fight scenes in "My Little Pony" that are more exciting to watch than these ones. At least I will not miss those fights if I have to blink.

To add to this growing mountain of crap, "Godzilla: Final Wars" gets even worse because its boring. For a film that is basically action scenes galore, and often has the entire fate of the world at stake, the pacing is so slow in the early parts that it makes everything dull. "Final Wars" spends its first hour trying to build the mystery behind the alien invaders, the Xiliens, when anyone with two functioning brain cells can figure out that they are evil and want to destroy us.

Then there are the main cast of characters, including the bland Neo-ripoff Ozaki (Masahiro Matsuoka), his mutant rival who is about as mindless as a newborn puppy Kazama (Kane Kosugi), the supermodel turned biologist that can hack any computer (because biology means computer hacking in this world) Miyuki (Rei Kikukawa), and the American captain who only speaks in one-liners (Don Frye).

By the way, Don Frye made a name for himself in Japan through their equivalent of the UFC, called Pride. In other words, he's a boxer/wrestler/fighter turned into an actor for this one movie. Congratulations Toho, you've hired the MMA version of Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan to be one of the lead actors in your giant monster movie attempting to celebrate fifty years of Godzilla. Thanks for continuing the sad tradition of turning wrestlers into movie actors and proving that it often fails miserably.

In any case, the film gives us no reason to care about our protagonists. No humanity to latch on to, since they all act like spoiled brats who will throw a temper tantrum if they don't get what they want. Now imagine that those idiot are in charge of saving the world from aliens and monsters and you might start to see why these characters suck.

As we get further up this countdown and move away from the bottom, I'll be pointing out any redeeming factors these Godzilla films have to offer and show that there is something of value. "Godzilla: Final Wars" has nothing of value. It is devoid of joy and awe, never once making an attempt to develop its own identity. It does a terrible job of trying to pay tribute to Godzilla with how little it cares about the character or his history, with little more than some references with no substance behind them. This is the "Epic Movie" of the Godzilla franchise - it is best left forgotten and never talked about again.