# Godzilla (1998)

### reviewed by
Ben Hoffman

                                Member of OFCS
                         Online Film Critics Society

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                                   GODZILLA

As the ad's double entendre proclaims, "Size Does Matter" Godzilla Is BIG.

In a little in-joke, scientist Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) is named after Patrick Tatopoulos, the designer of the creature Godzilla. The original creature is based on the Godzilla character owned by and created by Toho Co. Ltd. in 1954. Another, not quite as "in", is having New York's Mayor named Ebert (because Roger Ebert looks a bit like like Michael Lerner who has that role). When the Godzilla is finally taken care of, the mayor looks for ways his administration can take credit.

In some spectacular special effects, made possible in part by new computer graphics software and technology, the film is as real as one could imagine. For those displaced New Yorkers like me, it really looked as if the Chrysler Building and Brooklyn Bridge were being toppled by the huge creature with every giant step it took, as well as demolishing Madison Avenue. Very realistic.

The film starts with a ship at sea. As a blinding flash of lightning and accompanying thunder crash across the screen, the ship heaves and tosses about on huge waves. News soon reaches the world that several ships have overturned for no apparent reason and are lost in the ocean. In other parts of the world, investigators are baffled by giant footprints marching across the lands of Panamanian forests, Tahitian villages and Jamaican beaches. Dr. Tatopoulos is called in to help solve the mystery when it is discovered that a giant animal is wreaking destruction in Manhattan.

As in the original GODZILLA, the story is that it is nuclear radiation that has caused the monster to grow to its present height. While Director Emmerich enjoyed the original he was not about to make an American remake. The story then concentrates on scariness. What do you do about a huge creature that is like the proverbial bull in a China shop, knocking over buildings and causing untold havoc?

Fortunately, the story, by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, and the screenplay by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, made sure the characters in the story were real people. The parts of scientist Tatopoulos, called back from Chernobyl where he was investigating unusually fat worms caused by the irradiation at that disaster site, and of the French insurance investigator, Philippe Roache (Jean Reno) were written with them in mind. The Roache character is unhappy that the French Government has tested so many nuclear bombs in the Pacific. Other unthinking countries have done their nuclear testing in the Pacific and elsewhere with no regard to the inhabitants of those areas nor to the consequences. Mutations are happening all over the globe and the fictional Godzilla is but one example.

All in all an entertaining film with some great special effects and a more or less warmed over but adequate story. Others in the film are Hank Azaria as an intrepid photographer, Maria Pitillo as the love (small) interest, Harry Shearer as a newscaster who thinks he would like her as a Washington-type "intern."

                         Directed by Roland Emmerich.

    3 Bytes

    4 Bytes = Superb
    3 Bytes = Too good to miss
    2 Bytes = Average
    1 Byte  = Save your money

                   Copyright 1998               Ben Hoffman

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