The Story:
A giant Lizard-like creature born from nuclear fallout in some French-owned island, for some reason, arrives in New York City to lay some eggs. The Americans have to stop it, with the unknown help of some French special agents. The monster doesnt realize hes destroying the city, and ends up pissed off at everyone until its killed by airplanes. Not too much like King Kong, huh. Bad story. Bad Movie.
The Good:
Actually it wasn't that bad of a monster movie, it just wasnt a Godzilla movie. It had some really good special effects, like the destruction of Madison Square Garden, the Apaches, the F-18s, and Goro, the Fire-Beast (Ill just call it that instead of Godzilla.). I also really liked the Soundtrack. Its nothing like Ifukubes Godzilla Music, but Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page (Come With Me) did make a pretty good song.
The Bad:
I have serious problem with all the military technology they used in the movie. For instance, the Apaches. The true AH-64A Apaches carries a single 30mm Gatling-style cannon under the nose. The Apaches in this movie carried two machine guns under the wings. The Apache is not capable of doing this. Also the Hellfire missiles used on the Apaches are laser guided, and therefore follow a straight path to the target with a pop-up maneuver just before the target. There should have been no reason to arc the way it did and destroy the Chrysler Building. Then all those Apaches were flying through the City, chasing Goro, slinging bullets everywhere, it was amazing that they never hit each other. And is a group of helicopters flying in a group down the streets really good tactics?
I also had a problem with the F-18 scenes. In real life, the AGM-84 Harpoon missile is only used against sea targets, like ships. But the amazing part is that the missile, which is actually guided by radar, was guided by Lasers, Infrared and Radar. Then when Goro was killed each F-18 fired four Harpoons, when a real F-18 can only carry two.
The Ohio and Los Angles Class Submarines have a top speed of about 30 knots, Torpedoes can go about 60 knots. Figure that a Amphibious monster that can swim proficiently, is probably a lot faster than that, there was no way the submarines or the Torpedoes should be able to compete with Goro.
Finally, the U.S. Government would never allow the kind of fire power that was used in a populated metropolitan area.
The Ugly:
Goro The Fire-Beast. This is not the one I grew up with. The Monster was simply too human, its physical features made it look too apeish, a lot like King Kong (There's that reference again.) . But lets start from the beginning. From the way it was shown, Goro was mutated from an Komodo Dragon, Never mind the fact the France doesnt own the Komodo Islands. But it took only a few decades to mutate into that form. And how did Goro, a Komodo Dragon, learn to walk on two feet. And why, of all the places that came between the Islands and New York, did Goro decide on New York. Moving on, Goro was chasing down helicopters that could fly at over 140 MPH, but Goro couldnt catch a NY Cab through city streets. And how come he could fit into subway tunnels, but couldnt fit into a freeway tunnel, which are normally a lot wider. The Godzilla I knew would not have run from anything. The real Godzilla isnt an animal, its a Godzilla. Goro was nothing more than an instinctive animal.
The REAL Ugly:
The Acting. nuff said.
Thanks for the review Steven! Remember gang, if you want to submit a review, just send it to gleep9@hotmail.com and I'll put it up.
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