It’s back! One of the most mesmerizing monsters ever to walk the earth is back for FINAL WARS in a major way. The film is full of goons, androids, and cool chases and of course monster-fu! FINAL WAR finally delivers from the opening credit sequence that is a beautiful montage of the history of the series and is dedicated to Godzilla.

The film is directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, the guy brought us VERSUS and AZUMI.  He seems to love what he does. And he’d like to show off what he can do. The film contains a bit too much of human, goon stunt sequence rather than monster-fu. These sequences are amazingly done, but they become somewhat annoying because they seem to be dominating much of screen time that should be devoted to the monsters! But that just a minor problem with the film because for Godzilla fans, there is so much to love in the film.

FINAL WARSA features Godzilla, his friends (Radon, Mothra, etc) and one bad English actor! Radon’s attack on a pimp in New York, Angilas bouncing through the city of Hong Kong, the mammoth shrimp Ebirah fights with mutant soldiers, Zilla destroying Sydney (I guess there are better fish there than in New York). And did I mention the bad English actor? Godzilla and his friends may not dominate the screen time, but when they do show up, all hell breaks loose. The special effects are in the traditional Toho style of miniatures and rubber suits to stay true to the spirit of classic Godzilla films. Monster-fu gets all over the place. And Minira is riding in a truck with farmer and his son. The film gets destructive, and somewhat ridiculous but it is the nature of Godzilla films. And did I mention bad the English actor?

That said, GODZILLA FINAL WARS isn’t the best of the series but certainly met my expectations. Whether it is worthy to be the last episode of the long loved series is questionable.