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A dense and gloomy fog surrounds the  Japanese countryside adjacent to the  ocean as a scientist and his young  daughter set up sensors to detect the  monster Godzilla. In a nearby lighthouse,  a bored watchman is looking out the  window when he sees a fishing boat  mysteriously floating past.... crunched  in the huge jaws of the terrifying beast.  Scientist Shinoda, his young daughter Io,  and this annoying lady journalist drive down the overpass tunnel... and almost drive  right off the cliff. Not only was the ocean  smashing furiously against the rocks below....  ...but the radioactive beast was towering above! With Shinoda driving in reverse like a bat out  of hell and the annoying journalist screaming,  they narrowly escape certain death. Godzilla  destroys an electrical power plant as Shinoda  hypothesizes that Godzilla is showing its hatred  of manmade energy.  Meantime, an amazing discovery is made at the bottom of the ocean... a huge meteorite that  commences to float to the surface of the ocean  of its own accord. Godzilla wades ashore to face  off against the Japanese Defense Forces. A newly developed missile is deployed against Godzilla,  blowing huge gaping holes in its hide and causing the monster considerable discomfort. However, as  usual, it proves utterly useless as far as destroying  Godzilla goes. Inexplicably, the meteorite takes off and  hurtles at breakneck speed toward Godzilla.  Slowing down, the UFO faces off against  Godzilla. Delving deep, deep, deep into  Godzilla's chromosomal structure, the aliens  locate a strange component of Godzilla's  genetic makeup. Firing a powerful bolt of  energy, the ship manages to knock the Lizard  King on its duff. Angrily, Godzilla rises to its feet. Its spines begin  to crackle and glow orange with radioactivity.  The UFO fires another cannon blast. Godzilla  hits the UFO with its (newly redesigned and VERY  well done) nuclear atomic plasma (colored orange!)  The fight is temporarily ended when the monster  is knocked back into the water, with its atomic  weapon still exploding from its open jaws, and  the UFO heads away from the battle to plunk itself  into the ocean, apparently dead. Scientist Shinoda makes the awesome discovery  of what he terms Organizer G-1... a feature of  Godzilla's cellular structure that enables any  bodily injury inflicted on the monster to be  instantaneously healed. His former colleague  Katagiri (effectively portrayed by Hiroshi Abe)  does not share his interest in Godzilla's cellular  and biological secrets. All he wants to do is to  destroy Godzilla. The UFO re-activates and flies off toward downtown  Tokyo where it settles on top of the Civilians' Center, there to take control over the entire worldwide network of computers. It searches for all manner of information  on Earth life forms in general... Godzilla in particular. Shinoda hurries to rescue the annoying journalist,  who seems destined to fall victim to her own  stubbornness by staying in a building which is  about to be bombed to hell by the military. (Yes, everyone eventually gets out ok!) Then Godzilla  arrives on the scene. First engaging in battle with the UFO, it tries in vain to destroy the Mother Ship.  The ship tries to subdue the beast by lassoing it in miles and miles of ISDN cable. Godzilla uses its  nuclear pulse to free itself. The Ship tries all manner of onslaught to destroy  Godzilla, from its cannon to showering Godzilla  with massive shock waves, to burying it with rubble.  At this point, the mother ship collects data on the  part of Godzilla's biology that renders it invincible.  The alien craft attempts to assume Godzilla's form. It begins to form first a small genetic ball, then a  tentacular squid like shape, and finally a horrible monster. Godzilla is faced with a monster that has absolutely  zero chance of being defeated by external use of its  atomic ray. No matter how many times Godzilla zaps  it, Orga keeps regenerating. Then Orga latches onto  Godzilla's arm and sinks its teeth deep into its foes'  flesh, vampirically draining Godzilla of its life force.  Godzilla manages to repel its foe's assault. Then,  to the horror of the human onlookers, Orga opens its  mouth. The monster's maw opened invitingly, like an  unearthly waterflower; the graceful, celestial beauty  unnervingly belied the terrible and deadly invitation  to Godzilla. ***MAJOR SPOILER***MAJOR SPOILER*** MAJOR SPOILER***MAJOR SPOILER*** Godzilla bends over to investigate and Orga clamps  down on Godzilla like a dread mutant boa constrictor, attempting to swallow the beast whole. To the onlookers' astonishment, Orga began to sprout the same daggerlike fins! Suddenly, Godzilla's entire body began to glow.  With a loud thundering crack, Orga suddenly bursts asunder.  Godzilla roared in triumph as the pitifully dismembered stump disintegrated into nothingness. Godzilla then lumbers over to where the humans are.  Facing off against the man who had tried to kill him,  Godzilla slams his claws into where Katagiri stands,  killing him. Then, as if respecting the protective powers  of the divine God, Godzilla wandered off and left the  innocent ones untouched. Shinoda, his daughter, and  the others watch in unequaled awe as a viciously enraged  Godzilla strikes out at the city of Tokyo, dramatically  setting it ablaze in one of the most capivating endings  of any Godzilla film. WAS G2K TOHO'S ANSWER TO TRIZILLA?!?! Godzilla Millenium was the first G film to hit the big screen  since Dean Devlin's flop of two years prior. While Tri-star's  special effects were most superior to Toho's as far as  believability goes (C'mon, water doesn't just evaporate  when it splashes!) Toho simply does a better job when  it comes to the creatures re-design. Unfortunately, Toho  seems to have gone overboard when it comes to borrowing  concepts from the Tri-Star flop. For example, the boat in  Godzilla's jaws vs. the truck in Deanzilla's...the roiling hump of water pierced only by the fins scenes in both  films...the let's-try-and-see-if-we-can-get-away-from- the-monster-by-driving-through-an- overpass-tunnel-like-an-idiot scenes in both films...  the attempts in both films to blow the monster to kingdom come using missiles that lodge themselves in Godzilla's flesh... the scenes in both films where the heroes get a  good look at how Godzilla needs to brush and floss every day, and get a good dose of being screamed at... you get the picture! There were a few good, original concepts such as the  planes banking upward over Godzilla's head in a dramatic maneuver that only the most experienced pilots would try, and the attempt by Orga to swallow Godzilla. While the musical score is perfectly acceptable, I think whoever did it tried to emulate the score of Tri-star's Fraudzilla a little too closely. Sadly, there will never be a monster movie music composer quite as talented as Akira Ifukube. On the whole, I gave Godzilla 2000 one and a half thumbs up and 3 1/2 stars. I think it's a perfectly acceptable apology for what Tri-star did to poor Godzilla and its nice to see the Big (GREEN!!!) Guy back where he belongs. BACK!