Boy, this is a killer review to write. I figured if the American version of Godzilla was good, I could write up how pleasantly surprised I was. If it stunk, I could have fun trashing it. But I didn't expect the movie to be just so... there. While I didn't enjoy the movie, I at least expected to feel cheated or annoyed or a myriad of other emotions other than bordem. I sat there and was bored. That's it.
The movie starts out promisingly enough. A Japanese fishing boat gets attacked by huge, fakey Godzilla body parts. Even better, one of the crew members is the actor I only know as "that guy." Long hair and an even longer moustache, this distinctive looking actor shows up in every other action movie I've ever seen [he electrocuted Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon and munched on candy bars before getting shot by Bruce Willis in Die Hard] but I have no idea what his name is. Nevertheless, whenever I see him on-screen I exclaim "Hey, look, it's that guy!" How was I supposed to know watching him go down with the ship was going to be the highlight of the film?
Then the movie starts tossing out the characters and the pretense of a plot. As radiation-biologist Nick Tatopoulos [Matthew Broderick] gets called back from his work in Chernobyl, I started to wonder just how much of a concern radiation was going to be in the movie. In spite of the fact he was in the middle of a three year study on the biological changes found in one of the most radiation-contaminated places on earth, he doesn't feel the need to wear any sort of protective covering. The radiation in this movie is very particular in what it affects. Plus, anything that is contaminated will simply get huge. Better living through nuclear poisoning.
The rest of the cast is rounded out with wasted parts by Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria, a French commando [there's something uncool about the concept of a French commando] played by Jean Reno and Maria Pitillo as Tatopoulos' ex-girlfriend who complains that she isn't being respected for her mind as she walks around snapping her gum while wearing a body-hugging shirt.
I was ready to forgive weaknesses in the plot -I mean, we're talking about a Godzilla movie here- as long as the bits with the monster were cool. It was looking good when the big iguana first came onshore. Crowds of people running around in a blind panic from a monster that was too large to fit onto the screen; looking good so far. But just as it was starting to get interesting, Godzilla disappears, taking with him any sort of tension, or chance at an intellegent script. It seems this Godzilla has the ability to burrow around without anyone being able to hear it scrabbeling around. Plus, it apparently quit being radioactive, or else the military could of used geiger counters to track it.
Since no one is able to locate a 90 ft. tall lizard that's no longer radioactive and quiet as a doormouse, the order goes out to evacuate New York. I guess they ran out of money for extras, since this largely takes place off-screen. The military then spends some time using bait to lure Godzilla out of it's hidey hole as it were some sort of nuclear propelled rodent. About this time Tatopoulos discovers that Godzilla is a pregnent hermaphordite who has come to nest in NY; the favorite nesting ground of nuclear iguanas who have never seen NY yet somehow know that they should make a bee-line for it. Later in the movie Tatopoulos comments that a pack of newly hatched baby Godzillas are "born pregnant" and proceeds to describe their growth cycle and projected population. This Tatopoulos fellow can learn quite a bit from a blood sample- I guess that's why he's a doctor.
Yes, there's a big batch of baby Gzilla's running around. This second generation gaggle of Godzillas hatch and chase around the main characters in an extended and tension lacking action scene. They look and act as fearsome as a pack of hand puppets. After the babies are blasted to hash [even though no one checks to make sure all 200 or so of them are all dead] the big mother/father/whatever returns via a lame use of deus ex machina until it finally gets gunned down as well. The End. Leave an opening for a sequel, run the credits, and call it a day. Don't let the "EXIT" door hit you on the way out.
I'm sorry I don't sound very enthusiastic, but that's the feeling the movie left me with. Even the gratuitous product placement didn't get more than a chuckle out of me. From Baskin-Robbins to Blockbuster, they all get more lovingly photographed than any of the actors. One shot late in the film is entirely composed around an ad for Swatch watches. At least Roland Emmerich knows a few things about blocking a shot, even if it's for all the wrong reasons.
Since Godzilla was promised as THE summer blockbuster, everything was carefully pieced together, using previous movies as stepping stones, to make the perfect summer product. The way Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin handle the film reminds me of the group of blind men who try to explain to each other what an elephant is just by knowing only one part of it. Individual pieces were put together and it never adds up. Other movies are mined for ideas in hopes of recreating the same thrill the audiences felt the first time. Enjoyed the raptors from Jurassic Park? This movie has dozens of raptor-lookalike baby Godzillas! Were you swept up with emotion when King Kong's heart slowed and finally stopped in the Dino DeLaurentis remake? [True, you'd be the only person swept up with emotion at that scene...] Enjoy that melodrama again as Godzilla breathes his last in a scene that gives no hint as to what the audience should be feeling.
In a recent interview, Emmerich and Devlin noted that they wanted to "avoid campiness" when making this movie. Noble intentions. Too bad they were so concerned about what the movie wasn't, they forgot to make sure the movie was actually about something.
[SIDE FACT: Emmerich and Devin cut their teeth on the film Universal Soldier, in which the hero wins the day by loading up on steroids. Now in Godzilla the goonier side-effects of radiation are explored. What's next, an action-packed sequel to Leaving Las Vegas?]
I made it through this entire review without making a joke about Godzilla having sex with itself. If you want to congratulate me on my self-restraint, e-mail me at gleep9@hotmail.com. Head on back to the piecmeal Godzilla page, or migrate back to the main to nest.
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