# Godzilla (1998)

### reviewed by
Jamahl Epsicokhan

This review contains some minor spoilers of the feature film "Godzilla," but I promise not to give away too many major revelations about the plot (not as if there really are any, but still...).

Nutshell: Summer has begun; mindless destruction and virtually no story, done with surprisingly less wit and inventiveness than usual.

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    Godzilla (USA, 1998)

    PG-13, 140 minutes

Cast includes: Matthew Broderick (Dr. Niko Tatopoulos), Jean Reno (Philippe Roche), Maria Pitillo (Audrey Timmonds), Hank Azaria (Victor "Animal" Palotti), Kevin Dunn (Colonel Hicks), Michael Lerner (Mayor Ebert)

    Distributed by TriStar Pictures (USA)
    Screenplay by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich
    Produced by Dean Devlin
    Directed by Roland Emmerich

    Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
    Rating out of 4: **
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Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the two industry-smart coordinators behind "Stargate" (1994) and "Independence Day" (1996), have taken their special-effects approach to filmmaking a step further with "Godzilla," a film that has plenty of computer-generated monster-induced destruction but next to zero in terms of a story.

Quite frankly, I wasn't really expecting much in terms of a story. >From the word go, "Godzilla" was very obviously intended as the first mindless summer blockbuster of 1998. It promised a simple, streamlined story, lots of mayhem and destruction (a la "Independence Day" two years ago), and all the elaborate special-effects sequences a filmmaker can conjure with a $120 million budget.

But somewhere along the line, Devlin and Emmerich forgot that we still need to feel *something* as the movie progresses. We need to care how the events of the story will unfold. At the very least, we need to feel viscerally involved as New York City becomes a stomping ground for a 300-foot lizard.

Unfortunately, aside from a few isolated moments, "Godzilla" fails to generate those feelings of awe. I didn't care about any of the characters, I didn't care about the possible downfall of New York City or "the entire world itself"--and I didn't really even care about the lizard.

What we have here--a summer tradition invented once it became clear to producers and directors that computer-generated effects could bring a new sense of realism to the realm of natural (or unnatural) disaster action--is yet another "special-effects movie." Without the special effects (and a need to have well-known structures like the Chrysler Building and Madison Square Garden leveled by film's end) there wouldn't be a point to have the movie at all.

As always, there are good ways to do special-effects movies and bad ways. "Jurassic Park" back in 1993, with its sense of wonder concerning uncontrollable possibilities, was one of the groundbreaking examples of the good way. And "Independence Day," while shallow and silly, was also entertaining and had plenty of attitude to get by. But as characterization and even the general sense of intensity get stripped away, it becomes harder to feel that we're watching a giant lizard stomping through a major city, and all too obvious that we're watching millions of dollars and thousands of labor hours for special effects being projected onto the screen.

The plot to "Godzilla" is a no-brainer. After a few token scenes used to set up the premise and loosely establish the major characters, the giant lizard (which, as most already know, is dubbed "Godzilla" and is a mutated product of nuclear radiation) crawls out of the Atlantic and begins stomping through the City That Never Sleeps. A biological expert on mutated organisms (Matthew Broderick), known to most as "the worm guy" (because he studies worms at Chernobyl, you see) is brought in by the U.S. military to submit his opinions about the instincts of the 300-foot lizard. He naturally offers helpful hints to the military people, such as telling them to remove manhole covers so it can smell the hundreds of tons of fish that have been placed on the street to bait it. "What are they doing?" asks the unit's commander when his men scatter to open manholes. Well, says I, they're *your* men. If you can't keep up with what they're doing, then we're all probably in a lot of trouble, aren't we?

There are scenes where helicopters chase Godzilla through the city, firing thousands of rounds at him to no significant effect. One might wonder why it takes the military characters so long to figure out that bullets won't do the trick, except that a higher strategy is in work here--a strategy set to ensure the movie will last close to 2 1/2 hours and produce a maximum amount of net destruction. At one point, the mayor (Michael Lerner) complains to the colonel (Kevin Dunn), saying, "You've destroyed more of the city than he has!" As someone who is aware that this is a demolition derby rather than a plausible reaction to a crisis, I suspect that's the whole point.

There are plenty of slow-witted characters at work here. It always kills me the way officials in charge of situations like this one are always the most likely to scoff at issues that any rational person would address with swift action and undivided attention--like, oh, the fact that Broderick suspects Godzilla is laying eggs that could produce more Godzillas within only a few hours. Naturally, these people don't look for this nest of eggs; instead, they kick Broderick off the team because of a press leak. Talk about priorities.

As with all major disaster movies, there is of course a romantic theme; in this case it's between Broderick's character and his old college sweetheart (Maria Pitillo), who is an aspiring journalist trying to break the "Godzilla story" (undoubtedly the biggest thing to hit TV airwaves since O.J. Simpson). I was surprised at even how ineffective and perfunctory this angle of the story was. I expected it to be cliched, and it was, but I didn't expect it to be quite so hollow. Pitillo's character comes off as a complete airhead, and the performance doesn't bring a thing to it. At times the character seemed worthy of self-parody, but Pitillo plays it hopelessly straight.

It's frustrating that this movie doesn't contain any interesting characters or personalities. Everyone is a cardboard device used solely to advance the plot. The most watchable character is probably the one played by Jean Reno, an enigmatic persona who turns out to be from an organization that's best summed into a sound bite as "the French CIA."

I was also pretty amazed at how lacking the film was in original action. The scenes that take place in Madison Square Garden prove themselves to be so blatantly ripped off from the velociraptor attacks in "Jurassic Park" and last year's "The Lost World" that I found myself realizing how much more class and originality Steven Spielberg brings to his set pieces.

And you'd think a movie from the makers of "Independence Day" would have more room for good jokes about a 300-foot lizard. Alas, the humor is surprisingly lacking here, and, when present, is surprisingly stale.

The early-teenage level of the movie's pitch is perhaps a forewarning that everything about the story is just a means to fill time between lizard attacks: Every emotion is cued by David Arnold's relentlessly obvious score, the dialog is as simple and succinct as it possibly can be, and the supporting characters offer their comments only to prompt the subsequent actions. It's plotting by comic book means.

On the other hand, even if the story completely fails to generate a believable sense of doom, the effects manage to come off as very realistic. Devlin and Emmerich and their crews are technical experts when it comes to filming large-scaled destruction in a way that looks utterly convincing, and the scenes of Godzilla stomping through the streets, knocking down buildings and bridges and crushing cars are extremely well done, and particularly effective in the taut final fifteen minutes of the film. If you're going to see "Godzilla," see it only because you want the visual experience of seeing New York City decimated. There's no other reason to see it--though, deep down, you probably knew that.

----- Copyright (c) 1998 by Jamahl Epsicokhan, all rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

Star Trek: Hypertext - http://www.epsico.com/st-hypertext/ Jamahl Epsicokhan - jammer@epsico.com

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