# Godzilla (1998)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    GODZILLA (1998)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Roland Emmerich Writers: Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (story by Emmerich, Devlin, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio) Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Harry Shearer, Michael Lerner, Lorry Goldman, Vicki Lewis, Doug Savant, Arabella Field

All "Godzilla" needs to really be is 2 hours of big, loud, entertainment that somehow taps in to the part of our psyche that loves to be frigthened by cataclysmic scares, and soothed by massive destruction (preferably of Manhattan). I won't say this for many films, but when I heard they were making this flick, all I wanted was a couple semi-interesting characters there for some human and comic relief, and a whole lot of destruction. Godzilla, you have all of Manhattan island to play with: go wreck some shit up.

We get a little bit of this towards the end, when, in the last, oh, 30 minutes, the film takes off into a visceral, intense, and downright thrilling experience, thanks to a twist in the story where the four main protagonists find what has to be about a hundred Godzilla eggs in Madison Square Garden, all within seconds of hatching. From this point on, the film takes off into, yes, a rip-off of "Jurassic Park," but still an edge-of-your-seat rollar coaster ride of gradual tension, not meaning that the tension increases, but that the quality of the tension increases. By the time the four protaonists have hopped into a cab and are driving as fast as they can from a pursuing Godzilla, I was actually pretty into the film.

What "Godzilla" needs is more of this, and less of other things, like most of what occurs in the first hour and forty minutes or so of the film, which is redundant, moronic crap on a stick. Do we need a half-assed romantic subplot? Do we need all the cheap attacks on Godzilla if they're not riveting? Here's a film with about 160 million or so dollars, with a great locale, and they do almost nothing with it. "Godzilla" is a creature feature: it needs to act like one.

Director Roland Emmerich and Producer Dean Devlin, the guys behind the shitty "Stargate" and the fun-ONLY-if-you're-in-a-packed-theater-of-participating-members "Independence Day," have written and crafted the film, but the real brilliance behind the film is in the advertising. For a year, anyone who's seen a movie in a theater has been munundated with countless teaser trailers for this flick, which featured only scattered, brief shots of the beast, and ensured that when the film actually arrived, it would be big, no matter what the story is. You ask someone if they're going to see "Godzilla," and they say, "yeah," but if you ask them why, they can't answer that. Hell, I paid to see this and I don't know why I bothered.

This would be all cool if the film delivered. James Cameron teased audiences similarly in 1990 to 1991 for his sequel to "The Terminator," but at least he delivered a film which is one of the most amazing cinematic experiences of the decade...and he was able to squeeze in tons of breathtaking, intense action while still creating characters we care about, and even lots of depth on humanity. "Godzilla," for all its hype and grandness, is suprisingly bland and dull.

That goes for Godzilla himself, as well. Emmerich and Devlin sure have a knack for stealing ideas for their big delivieries, making them come off as nothing short of anticlimactic. In "Stargate," the military guys travel through a warp through billions of light years to arrive in...an Egyptian desert...populated by humans. In "Independence Day," the aliens travel light years to conquer Earth, and when we see them, they're...octopus men. When we see finally see Godzilla after all the quick tease shots of him, building up the first real look at him, he's...Tyranosaurus Rex. Sure, the old Godzilla was a man in a plastic costume, and this is a multi-million dollar special effect that looks real, but it has lost all its wit in the process. Gone is the face that shoots up, and the perfectly erect back, and the firebreathing done without so much as leaning over, and here is the T-Rex, straight from "Jurassic Park," complete with the same biting technique. Of course he's terrifying, but he's not Godzilla.

Even his offspring suffer the same fate: they're a bunch of raptors, and all their movements are stolen completely from "Jurassic Park." The big differences: there's more of them, and they have scales on their backs, just like their parent. Even the scene where we see all the eggs is stolen from the ending of "Aliens." Luckily enough, they're still frightening to look at, and their scenes are done well enough that we forget that their carbon copies, if only for a brief couple seconds here and there when the action and tension has subsisted for a bit.

Oh, yes, and there's a plot, or at least an attempt at one that is in place of the first 100 minutes or so. Godzilla is the result of nuclear testing around French Polynesia, where we see a couple lizards looking one at the blasts (so where are the others? guess there's gonna be a couple sequels), and when he begins to destroy some ships and whatnot off the coast, they bring in nuclear scientist, Dr. Nick Tantopopolous (Matthew Broderick, who needed the attention, I guess), who was busy studying worm mutations up in Chernobyl (they call him "the worm guy"). He concludes that he's a victim of nuclear testing just as Godzilla swims on over to the Big Apple (why the Big Apple? because it...uh...it has lots of stuff he can destroy, I guess...or because Emmerich and Devlin don't know where else to stage destruction anymore).

Also in the story is Nick's ex-college sweetie, Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo, who brings out the worst of sitcom style acting), who works for a pompous news anchor (are there any other kind?), Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns and others on "The Simpsons"), and is trying to break into anchordom, regardless of the fact that she is terrible at it. And there's her friend's husband, Victor "Animal" Polotti (Hank Azaria, voice of Apu, Chief Wiggum, and several others on "The Simpsons"), a wild cameraman who is just trying to get the best footage of the beast...at any cost. Soon, they're working along with Nick, trying to help him stop the beast and his eggs.

Since the military and local government are exercising their stupidity in handling the situation, in comes some French Secret Servicemen, led by a man named Philippe (Jean Reno, known to American audiences as the helicopter pilot in "Mission: Impossible"), who are trying to destroy the eggs as well as the beast so that their government doesn't suffer because of their nuclear testing. They are actually kinda nicely presented, shown in brief shots doing things we don't understand until later on in the film, although the film really shows how culturally ignorant it is in terms of their presentation and running gags: all the french guy, with the exception of Reno, are named Jean-something, and all they talk about is the lack of croissants and how bad the "French Roast" coffee is. Yes, all french people are like that, I forgot.

After awhile, the film slips into a cycle: the military tries to stop Godzilla in the dumbest ways possible (my favorite was the submarines in the East River), Godzilla runs and ends up destroying them, and the military freaks out while Nick tries to tell them what's going on and is subsequently ignored. Only when it changes its pace a bit in the last half hour does it really take off, and one almost forgets how deadly dull the first hour and forty minutes were.

It also doesn't help that this film has an IQ of about 4 1/2. The script is one of the worst of all big budget flicks, filled with terrible dialogue, and some really awful plotting. The mystery of what those French guys is intriguing for a bit, but soon becomes annoying, and when revealed what their mission really is, it becomes anti-climactic. The film takes itself so deadly seriously (a big mistake - it's a Godzilla flick!) that when any jokes pop up, they're distracting (the worst, most unfunny running gag is the fact that the Mayor looks like Roger Ebert, and is named Mayor Ebert, and his chief aide is named Gene, and looks like Gene Siskel - obviously a totally unsubtle attempt at revenge by the creators of the film, who's past films were panned by them). Also not working at all is its attempt at being "King Kong" and humanizing Godzilla from time to time, then copping itself out and making his killers into heroes. And then there's the romantic subplot of "Will Nick and Audrey *ohmygodohmygodohmygod* get back together?!?!" I say if you're not going to make a romantic subplot, the thing that every film seems to need by the Law of Big Budget Movies, I dunno, interesting, then you might as well trash it. Then we wouldn't be burdened by the acting by Maria Pitillo (ugh).

Also sadly, no actors really take off. Matthew Broderick tries to say Emmerich and Devlin's awful dialogue with a straight face, but can't help it that his character is less than paper thin. Even comic geniuses like Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer aren't given good roles...in fact, Hank's character's chief personality trait is his Brooklyn accent. The only who actually does do a great job is Jean Reno, who, sure, plays his role compeltely straight, but actually makes everything he does believable, and also a blast. Jean actually gives a better performance than the lizard himself. Still, all the characters are pretty dull, and the result is an empty experience, filled with little of anything. The only reason we care about the people inside the cab in the end is because 3/4 of them are Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria, and Jean Reno. At least in "Independence Day" they bothered to bring us interesting characters; here, they just want to show off Godzilla, in all his anticlimactic glory.

The last half hour makes up partially for a lot of the crap that goes on for most of the film, even if that partiality is minute. The final action sequence IS a great action sequence: riveting, intense, wild, proposterous, exhilerating. If the film had more of these, it would be great. I won't say this for many films, but "Godzilla" needs more carnage and intenisty, and less of anything else it has.

    MY RATING (out of 4): **

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