Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

Do you remember the day you realised that sometimes the world can be a really, really crappy place full of really, really stupid people? I do, and in this review, I'm going to talk about it.

Sometimes it's tough being a fan of Godzilla movies, they are the butt of literally hundreds of jokes, some of which are deserved, but while the first movie was the only real classic, throughout the 20+ entries into the series there are some very entertaining movies that never really got the chance they deserved at worldwide popularity due to the stigma that surrounds Japanese monster movies. While Toho, the company behind Godzilla, near enough always played a part in the downfall of their own movies, often managing to do something to slightly ruin what was heading for being a good movie, the biggest problem came from convincing critics that the films could be taken seriously. Now I realise that a lot of people will probably laugh at that statement, the fact that such people can take the Lord of the Rings movies (and those absolutely hilarious Treebeards) serious looks like double standards to me. In many ways, the entire genre of the 'Kaiju Eiga', thats Monster Movie from Japan, can be compared to what the genre of comic book movies was once like. Thanks to Bryan Singer's X-Men and it's sequel, comic book movies are now a serious force at the box office, and there have been some real quality ones. Back in 1998, it looked like the Kaiju Eiga was going to get the same treatment, with Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the team behind blockbusters like Universal Soldier, Stargate and Independence Day at the helm of a Sony funded Tristar pictures remake of Godzilla.

Now, the signs should have been clear from kick-off. Anyone remember the De Laurentis King Kong?, but the fact was, all of the three movies I mentioned above were fun, action packed hits, surely by following the same basic formula that had worked to some degree for Toho in 26, at the time, movies , Godzilla would be along the same lines, finally restoring the pride of the King of the Monsters?

Devlin and Emmerich weren't the first to try and bring the King of the Monsters to Western audiences, throughout the 1990s, director Fred Dekker tried his best to get a Godzilla movie that while changing the lore of the creature's origin, making it a mystical beast whose flame breath was caused by glands that put out a gas flammable when combined with oxygen, Dekker's Godzilla was going to stay true to the basic core of Toho's series, and it was even going to climax with a showdown against a new monster named the Gryphon. What really made this idea cool, was that he planned to do it in 3D, ala movies like Jaws 3D and Friday the 13th part 3, only a better movie. Due to various reasons, this fell through, and he tried a similar approach to a new movie featuring Toho's other titan, Rodan, but once again nothing came of it.

Problems with Emmerich's Godzilla started before the movie had even began shooting, with him declaring that he didn't even like the old movies, and mocking them for their effects. Way to go alienating your established fanbase! a hilarious mistake that Peter Jackson and his (mis)cast are repeating for the upcoming remake of King Kong. What made his jibes about the suitmation effects even more comical was the fact that in his movie, at a few points Godzilla was indeed created by, you guessed it, a man in a suit.

Tristar also managed to outdo Toho in terms of shooting themselves in the foot, when they implemented a marketing idea that sounds really good on paper, but in actuality worked against the movie: they wouldn't release the design of Godzilla to anyone. Naturally pictures did get leaked (my first exposure was in a Scottish tabloid newspaper where the picture was of a Trendmasters toy), and the Godzilla fans, who were the ones looking for it, were disgusted by it. However, the people who probably didn't see it were children, and it was exposure to them that really stung the movie. If you are around ages with me, 20, you will always have grown up with blockbuster movies having big marketing campaigns and toy-lines that stressed the really cool aspects of the movie, basically to get you to want to see it. Look at the Kenner toys made for the Batman movies, they hit the shelves long before the movie comes out, and depict the Dark Knight in all of his glory, with all sorts of funky gadgets, sleek super-cars and cool villains. While most of the stuff found on the toys never actually even gets referenced in the movies, it doesn't really matter, the toy is sold and the kid will probably badger his parents into taking him to see it.

However, with this ban on the Godzilla design, it meant that the toys couldn't hit the shelves before the film's memorial day 1998 release, meaning that the only merchandise was the human figures and stuff that only featured the logo. Boring. Kids didn't know what Godzilla looked like, hell most of them probably had never even heard of him, why would they try and talk their parents into taking them to the cinema? why would they even opt to buy the boring toys of boring human people with no cool monsters when a few aisles down they could go get some cool X-Men or Spawn toys? this seems to be a curse of Devlin/Emmerich movies, the really cool Stargate and Independence Day toys were marred in terms of success by the fact I hardly ever saw them on sale anywhere.

So, back to that day I realised the world sucked. I was in Holiday in America actually, and I must have been one of the first people of the UK to see it, given that it hadn't yet been released over here when I was there. It was a state on the border of Canada, not sure exactly which, but the cinema was an awesome sight, it was older than me, and had been kept in wonderful condition. I was looking forward to Godzilla, it was meant to be the movie that could make me hold my head high as a fan of the genre. I didn't know it at the time, but the fact was that the genre had already had it's best entries in years in the form of 1995's Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and the following year's sequel Gamera 2: The Advent of Legion. They proved that when given a decent budget, and when handled by someone with a respect for the genre, a great genre movie could be made. I'm actually quite glad I hadn't seen them prior to going into Godzilla, because I would just have been more disappointed.

Possibly the worst thing about Godzilla is that it actually starts very well. After a nice credit sequence backed by footage of nuclear testing and some lizards crawling around an island, we are taken to a Japanese fishing boat which is attacked by some giant clawed creature and sunk, with only one survivor.

We then see this man being interrogated by a mysterious Frenchman named Phillipe(Jean Reno - Ronin), who asks him what did this, his response: "Gojira"

We then go to Russia, where we meet our hero Dr.Niko Tatopoulos(Matthew Broderick - Ferris Bueller's Day Off), who is a Scientist studying the effect of Chernobyl on the Earth worms, whom it has caused to grow by 17%. His work is interrupted when the US Government sends a chopper to pick him up, informing him he has been re-assigned to Tahiti, where he meets his new colleagues Colonel Hicks(Kevin Dunn - Ghostbusters 2) and Dr.Elsie Chapman(Vicki Lewis - Mousehunt). They show him his new specimen, a giant footprint, one of many that stretch accross Tahiti and off into the sea, our new team of heroes also get a chance to examine the torn up Japanese fishing ship, where they meet Phillipe, who introduces himself as working in 'insurance'.

We also have a new bunch of friends in New York, lead by Nik's former college girlfriend Audrey(Maria Pitillo - Spike of Bensonhurst) who is now an aspiring reporter being held back by her sleazy boss Caiman(Harry Shearer - This is Spinal Tap), and takes comfort in her friend Lucy(Arabella Field - Dante's Peak) and her cameraman husband 'Animal'(Hank Azaria - Mystery Men). She spies TV coverage of the Tahiti incident, and spots Nik and gets all giddy, before Lucy tells her she will never make it as a reporter because she is too nice, and needs to learn to have killer instinct.

Anyway, some more fishing boats get sunk, this time off the Eastern coast of the USA, and everyone gets in a panic when it becomes clear that the creature is heading for New York. He eventually gets there, and naturally the team from Tahiti follows suit, and Audrey tries to use her relationship with Nik to get the major scoop on it.

Somewhere along the line, Manhattan, quite laughably, gets evacuated smoothly after one of Godzilla's appearances.

After Godzilla runs around and the army blow some stuff up trying to kill him, he disappears underground. During which Audrey steals a video from Nik, tries to use her 'killer instinct' to get famous, but Caiman uses it for himself and all it succeeds in doing is getting Nik fired from the team, this being the movie's stock moral content.

Anyway, before they threw him out, Nik came to the conclusion that Godzilla is asexual, and has been laying eggs somewhere. Hicks believes him, but he is ordered by his superiors to focus on trying to kill the big one, instead of trying to find out if the City is going to be overrun by them. He is 'recruited' by Philippe, who is really in some form of crack French secret service or something, and it's his job to ensure Godzilla and his brood get offed, because he was created by French nuclear testing.

So, while Hicks and company set off to kill the big G, Nik, Philippe, a bunch of Frenchmen and Audrey, who follows Nik to try and make up for her earlier mistakes go to Madison Square Garden, where they discover Godzilla's brood who start hatching, making for a battle for survival that will see them travel accross Manhattan to try and save the day...

I realise I probably could have went more in-depth with the plot, but to be perfectly honest, the movie doesn't deserve it. It's a tiring, cliched, stupid and, most criminal of all, boring mess that really doesn't deserve any more time than minimum given to it.

Now, the core elements of the plot are the same as the real Godzilla. Nuclear testing mutates something into a giant monster with a spiky back that attacks a major city. But that's really about all this has in common with Toho's Godzilla efforts. For a start, naturally blame has been shifted from America to France. While you could say this is due to the fact America hasn't done anything with it's nukes for a while, I just find it slightly amusing that the only Godzilla movie(up to this point) that felt the need to change his origin like that happened to be the one made in America. Actually while I'm talking about Godzilla's origin, I may as well tell you all about the monster himself as he appears here.

The new Godzilla sucks, it's that simple. This Godzilla is hunched over, and basically looks like a really ugly version of Jurassic Park's Tyrannosaurus Rex. He has been robbed of his radioactive fire breath and had it replaced with simply breathing heavily, which is kind of like taking away Superman's flight and just giving him the ability to jump quite high, and worst of all, his 'personality' has been changed.
With the exception of a certain royal ape, the one thing has lead to the Japanese giant monster movie being more successful than it's American counterpart is that they often give their monsters character. Look at Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera Trilogy for the defining vision of this. Godzilla, in his true form, is King of the Monsters, he has only once been defeated by humans, and that was using a device that's maker killed himself so it would never be used again. Missiles don't hurt him. He eats nuclear energy. He is hard as nails. This thing runs away all the time, it's most threatening action is to lay eggs and it bleeds from bullets. And they wonder why people hated this change? It also displays a whiff of arrogance geared to pander to Americans, who, as Gamera director Shusuke Kaneko pointed out, the film makers obviously decided couldn't bear to think their military couldn't handle any possible threat, even a fictional one. The fact he got outsmarted by Ferris Bueller also insulted me.
Apparently these changes were made in the name of 'realism', something which apparently goes to hell when you conveniently need to put your monster somewhere where it cannot be attacked, so decide to put the creature, which, as the posters exclaimed, is as tall as some of New York's skyscrapers, in the sewer. Although maybe he fit in his new size-altering abilities that nobody in the movie seems to notice. 'Realism' at it's best.

But changes to Godzilla aren't the only problem, the film is stupid on almost every count. From the hilariously cliched characters and situations(the scenes of the characters fleeing the baby Godzillas is Aliens, with none of the quality) to this just plain dumb, like the fact Godzilla seems to swin all around America in about a day, for absolutely no explained reason, well no plausible one. How the hell was it meant to know that Manhattan would make the best hiding place? did it read it in a brochure somewhere? The fact that New York actually grows cold, and surely a mutated iguana would carry the characteristics of one, meaning that it would need heat, also makes fun of the fact the creature chose New York to attack, and adds laughability to the 'realism' claims. The fact that Bueller doesn't suffer any side effects from being covered in the saliva of a radioactive mutant is also quite laughable.

Also insulting was the failed humour. From the 'knowing' characters, all of which designed to poke fun at something, most insultingly the French in the form of Philippe's complaints about the lack of croissants and good coffee, once again to pander to the belief that all French people are arrogant and believe themselves to be best at everything(something made ironic by the fact this was American film makers trying to take Godzilla and 'do it right'), I don't know how many people have actually ever been to France, but while the country does contain it's fair share of wankers, I hate to break it to you, but so does Scotland, England and America. While I'm all for a little humour with stereotypes in moderation(and when it's actually amusing), the whole "let's laugh at the French" thing is easily the most over-used and boring attempt at humour in this field next to the Germans being dour and not nice(which is actually completely off-the-mark).

While I couldn't say this at the time, hindsight also gives you another nice slice of hypocrisy from the duo behind this. Remeber the anti-Japanese monster movie sentiment expressed earlier? funny how some aspects of this movie resemble ones from Kaneko's then 2 Gamera movies, most notably the asexual threat and the army destroying more than the agile monster elements lifted straight from the Gyaos in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.


Acting in the movie really isn't very good either. Broderick has this really irritating sort of "yeah, I know this sucks" thing going on, and his slightly humorous portrayal of the character just falls flat on it's face. To be honest, this probably isn't all his fault, as all of the characters seem to have been written with an attempt at humour in mind, it's just he actually tries to follow through with it more than the others.
Pitillo is possibly the most worthless addition to the movie, and while many pick at her acting, the fact that her character is completely and utterly inconsequencial to the plot apart from getting Nik sacked means that even the world's best actress couldn't have done anything with the role.
The one standout is Jean Reno, who seems to single-handedly have all the movie's decent lines(he must have ad-libbed the lot), but the fact is that he is basically playing the 'cool Frenchman' he plays in every second movie, so getting this out of him really wouldn't take much prompting.

If there is one aspect in which the movie is an unprecedented success, it would be the special effects, which it has to be said are awesome. Godzilla, horrible in design as he is, looks realistic, is animated well and is thouroughly convincing. Shame they never bothered to give him a character to match.

Music in the movie is a David Arnold score that is decent at best, although it never grates on the ears. However, compare it to Akira Ifukube's score for the original Godzilla movie and you will see why it's disappointing. Godzilla has no theme, the music doesn't build up tension...it's just there.

I realise that many people will take this review with a grain of salt, being that I am a self confessed lover of the old movies, and a lot of people will probably say I'm being pedantic with my complaints, but the fact is, if you are going to slag off a genre of movies, it's probably best not to rip-off and fall into the same pot-holes as a lot of it's entries, and do so with none of the character and charm of the original. Emmerich and Devlin clearly thought that by simply having a big budget and great effects that they could easily make the best Godzilla movie ever, because the series was so dumb anything would please the fans. As things turn out, the only good this movie did was that it lead to releases of more of the old movies, and it actually got people to watch the old movies, although you would be surprised with how many 'long time fans' emerged after this was released.

At the end of the day, there really isn't anything worth recommending Godzilla on. It's like a compilation of bad covers of good songs, it basically just lifts things from other movies and tries to glue them together in a ham-fisted manner with good special effects and expects people to love it. It's not getting anything from me, given the special effects team and anywhere near the budget this turkey was given, I am actually confident I could have crafted a much better movie. A year later, it could be said that the Japanese hit back, proving that when given a good budget and cast, a good director could actually make a film better, not only than this, but than a lot of Hollywood blockbusters, within the genre with the third Gamera picture.

It was said at the time of release that there would be a trilogy of Godzilla movies made in America, given the backlash that this recieved, it really isn't all that surprising that we are now the better part of a decade since this movie's release and neither one has even began production. There was a short lived, and actually quite entertaining animated series that spun-off from this movie, and the monster from this appeared in the latest Toho Godzilla film, Godzilla Final Wars, but it appears that this movie, and it's Godzilla is dead, and probably should have been stopped around the same stage as the 3D Godzilla was, basically to save the embarassment of everyone involved. Even I had to feel slightly sorry for them when the 'Star Guest' at one of the premiers for the movie, Kenpachiro Satsuma, who played Godzilla from Godzilla 1985 to Godzilla Vs. Destroyah, walked out halfway through the screening process. That's got to be a red neck.

The bottom line is, Godzilla just isn't fun. There really isn't anything about it that hasn't been done so much better in another movie, and I really don't see why anyone would want to waste their time watching this. Either watch the first Godzilla movie or just don't watch the series at all.

Year: 1998
Titles: Godzilla

Other Godzilla Related reviews
Movies
Gojira
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
King Kong Vs. Godzilla
Godzilla Vs Mothra(1964)
Godzilla's Revenge
Daikaiju Baran
Mothra
Rodan

Games
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee for XBox
Godzilla: Save The Earth for XBox
Godzilla: Domination for Gameboy Advance
King of the Monsters for Sega Genesis
Monster Attack for PlayStation 2

Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8