Godzilla




Released: 1998

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Genre: Super Monster

Nuts and Bolts: Nuclear testing in the French Polynesian Islands leads to an iguana being genetically mutated into an over-sized titanic lizard. It swims its way to Manhattan, which it plans, on converting into a giant nest. Weaving a trail of destruction in its wake, it is up to the US Army and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to find out a way to stop Godzilla.

Summary: Pack a lunch kiddies. This one’s gonna be a long one.

We begin with some grainy footage of nuclear warhead testing in the French Polynesian Islands. The tests radically alter the environment and the nuclear fallout genetically metamorphosis the surrounding wildlife. Most notably, it mutates the cellular structure of an iguana increasing its size to immense proportions and altering its sexual nature. (The end result is not nearly as kinky as this sounds, but hey. Size DOES matter after all.)

Although it has yet to me named, I’m going to cut to the chase and start calling him Godzilla right now. Godzilla’s first meal comes in the form of a Japanese merchant cannery vessel. Actually the big dumb fucker doesn’t even realize that its there and most of the damage is caused by the sweeping actions of his tail.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles away we find Niko (Nick) Totapoulus (Matthew Broderick). Nick is a scientist for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on assignment in the Ukraine to study the Chernobyl Earthworm. Nick’s a happy-go-lucky sort of a guy and he merrily croons out Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain while using electrolysis on some nasty little earthworms. Kyle Terrington of the US State Department lands and tells Nick that he has been re-assigned.

While Nick is flying towards Panama, we find that the cannery vessel has run to ashore along Papeete Tahiti. French Secret Service agent Philippe Roache (Jean Reno) interviews the one surviving crewmember from the ship. The injured man is crazed and just keeps repeating the same word over and over again. “Gojira”. (Gojira is the Japanese way of seeing Godzilla.)

Nick finally lands on the Golfo De San Miguel in Panama where he meets his new boss, Elsie Chapman of the National Institute of Paleontology. He also meets her assistant Mendel Craven as well as US Army Colonel Hicks. They show him a huge reptilian footprint in the sands of the beach, larger than any footprint ever recorded.

Now we swing back towards the states. In Manhattan we meet Audrey Timmonds an understudy of WIDF new co-anchor Charles Caiman. Audrey wants to be a reporter, but her opportunities are stifled under the thumb of Caiman. Charles will only agree to help Audrey further her career if she agrees to lick his nut sack. She in turn, is put off by this and expresses her grief to colleagues Victor ‘The Animal’ Palotti and his wife Lucy.

Now we move on to the Great Pedro Bluff in Jamaica. Hicks, Elsie, Craven and Nick fly down there to find the gouged out remains of an ocean liner (Not the same ship from before). People crowd around the sight and are astounded by the obvious claw marks rent through the side of the thing. Elsie theorizes that Godzilla may be related to a Theropada Allosaurus (An extinct breed of dinosaur). Agent Roache has finally caught up with the team and introduces himself as an insurance investigator. News crews are set up and Audrey sees footage of Nick back in New York. Here we learn that Audrey and Nick used to be college sweeties eight years back.

Now the Big G isn’t one to tarry. As Nick and the crew fuck around in Jamaica, Godzilla is already 200 miles off the eastern seaboard of the United States. He downs three fishing trawlers full of drunken leathernecks.

The following day Godzilla makes his presence known to the people of New York. In the middle of Mayor Ebert’s campaign speech, seismic shockwaves erupt through the streets as Godzilla begins trouncing on cabbies and slow pedestrians. People are running around screaming in terror as the big-ass lizard topples buildings with wild sweeps of his tail. Victor ‘Animal’ Palotti is a photographer for WIDF and runs outside a diner to get a snapshot of Godzilla. The beastie plants his foot down over top of him, but Vic is lucky enough to have been standing between his toes.

Martial law is declared and the citizens of New York are forced to evacuate. An army mobile command center is set up across the river in New Jersey and Colonel Hicks returns to lead the operation. The Mayer is one of the first people evacuated from the island. As he lands in New Jersey, he is greeted by Philippe Roache who plants a microphone on the back of Ebert’s collar. Roache returns to his headquarters, which is inside of an appropriated UPS van. From there, his men and he listen in on the mayor’s conversations. During this time, Godzilla disappears.

Colonel Hicks sends Sergeant O’Neil to Manhattan to locate Godzilla. None of the army grunts can find a trace of him. Nick suggests baiting him with large quantities of food. Hicks authorizes an emergency convoy of 12 dump trucks that come in to the restricted area leaving behind massive amounts of fish. After many intense moments, Godzilla erupts from the subway systems devouring the mountain of fish. O’Neil orders the troops to fire upon him but Godzilla rebukes the attack by belching up a large blistering fire ball. After doing so, G-man turns tail and flees from the barrage of cannon fire. Pussy.

Now the Air Force is brought into the mix. Echo Flight flies their F-18s into New York to blast the shit out of Godzilla. They try to use heat-seeking sidewinder missiles against the lizard but to no avail. Since Godzilla’s body temperature is lower than that of the surrounding area, the missiles can’t lock on target. As such, he easily avoids them and they rocket into the Chrysler building. The steeple of the Chrysler building is seared in half and crashes down to the ground.

At this point, we discover that Godzilla is something of a ventriloquist. Having run through the MetLife building, he baits the F-18s into following him. The fighters stay on Godzilla’s path, but the smarmy lizard distracts them by throwing his voice. While Echo 2 and 3 concentrate their fire in one direction, Godzilla leaps from behind crunching them down in one huge bite. Echo 4 tries to leave the scene, but G-money quickly catches up to him. After picking his teeth clean with the remains of Echo 4, Godzilla goes back into hiding.

By this time, Nick has his own theories about Godzilla’s body chemistry. Collecting a sample of the monster’s blood, he goes into a drug store where he buys forty-six dollars worth of at-home pregnancy tests. Audrey walks in and the two are reunited for the first time in eight years. Audrey has stolen her bosses press pass and lies to Nick about being a successful news reporter. Nick is still a tad smitten with the ole gal and has no reservations against telling her what he knows. Going back to his base camp, he reveals to her that although Godzilla is male, he is also pregnant. Apparently Godzilla reproduces asexually and is about to sprout a litter. Leaving Audrey behind, Nick runs off to inform Colonel Hicks. Audrey, being the no-good little whore that she is, rummages through Nick’s shit until she finds the top-secret ‘First Sighting’ video. She steals the tape and returns to the news crews. Although WIDF airs Audrey’s tape, it is Charles Caiman who claims the credit for it. He broadcasts the tape over local channels and erringly refers to the creature as Godzilla. (His real name is Gojira. MISTER Gojira if ya wanna argue semantics.)

The army believes that it was Nick that went to the press with the videotape and he is fired immediately. He comes upon Audrey and makes her feel like shit for being the untrustworthy thieving glory-hugging yeast-infected little bitch that she is. Out of a job, Nick takes a cab for the Newark airport. But this isn’t your AVERAGE bi-lingual foreign immigrant with a plastic Jesus on the dashboard cab driver, no, no, no. THIS cab is being driven by the ultra smooth, slicker than shit, cooler-than-a-yeti-in-the-wintertime, Mac-daddy Philippe Roache! Philippe reveals that he is an agent for the French Secret Service and explains that his government takes responsibility for the nuclear tests that created Godzilla. (Sure. Let’s blame it on the French. Why not?) He indoctrinates the now jobless Nick into his operation and the two make plans to sneak back into the restricted zone. What Nick doesn’t know however is that Vic the Animal has trailed him and pretty soon Audrey and he make their own plans to sneak back into the city.

The army tries to bait Godzilla out of hiding once again, so they dump another mountain of fish into the middle of Central Park. Godzilla, in the meantime had been hiding out in the subway by the 23rd street station. He was right next to the wino with the one leg and the prostitute with the star-shaped handbag. We didn’t see him, because he was masterfully disguised in a brown fedora and a London Fog trench coat. Anyway, G-money catches a whiff of some Gordon’s fish sticks and busts up out of the ground. He doesn’t fall for the trick this time however, and instead takes off down the street. The army follows him but he dives into the Hudson River. But that rascally Colonel Hicks had prepared for such a tactic. Inside the Hudson are three nuclear powered submarines. The Utah, the Indiana, and the Anchorage. The anchorage launches some heat-seeking torpedoes at G-man, but Godzilla manages to troll the weapons back towards the sub. Blasting into the sides of the ship, the Anchorage is destroyed by its own weapons. But poor Godzilla really should zigged instead of zagging, because no sooner does he take care of the Anchorage, then the Indiana nails him in the ass with their payload. They score a direct hit and Godzilla is seemingly destroyed.

Now while all this nonsense is going on, Nick and the Frenchies have gone to Madison Square Garden. (Audrey and Victor are there too, but they paved their own way in.) They discover that this is where Godzilla had chosen to nest. Once inside, they find that the entire stadium is filled with giant Godzilla eggs. With a little assist from Stephen Spielberg, the eggs hatch and out pop a bunch of veloci-zillas! The token French cannon fodder soldiers get eaten up by the hungry Barneys leaving Philippe and Nick as the only ones left. They finally run into Audrey and Vic and the group have to blast their way into the computer control room. Audrey manages to get a television transmission to the news networks and Nick informs the army that they MUST bomb Madison Square Garden or else the city of New York may very well have a very nasty and unwarranted sequel on their hands. The group then manages to machine-gun their way through the front lobby and get outside before the F-18s come in. Madison Square Garden is blown to shit, and Godzooky corpses are flung everywhere. Now it’s about this time, that we discover that Godzilla was never really dead at all. Through a means too incomprehensible to imagine, he had somehow made his way from the Hudson River to the bottom of Madison Square Garden without anyone noticing. He busts up through the remains of the building only to discover that all his little boys have been turned into chicken McNuggets. Pissed off all to hell, he takes off after Nick and the others. They all pile into a stolen taxicab and try to evade Godzilla’s grasp. Godzilla eventually manages to catch the car inside of his mouth and tries to swallow the damn thing whole. Nick uses an exposed live wire to give G-man a little shock to the gums. He slackens his hold a bit and Philippe actually DRIVES the car OUT of Godzilla’s mouth (Yes, it really was just as stupid as it sounds).

Nick finally gets a real brainy idea. He has Philippe drive the impressively held together cab to the Brooklyn Bridge. Godzilla trots off after them but ultimately gets caught up in the bridge’s suspension lines. The more he struggles, the more he seems to get entangled. Why he doesn’t just snap the things is anybody’s guess. Anyway, barely able to maneuver, Godzilla becomes bait for the F-18s. They strafe the shit out of him and he finally falls over dead. Before his pilot light goes out, Nick and he exchange some weird sorta glance. (Not quite sure what that was about. Maybe it was a Vulcan mind-meld or something).

The monster is dead and everyone goes home happy. Nick even manages to hook back up with that loathsome cow Audrey. Meanwhile, we discover that one of the eggs from Madison Square Garden has SURVIVED! As the camera closes in, the egg hatches and a baby Godzilla head pops out screaming “Sequel! Sequel, damn it! I don’t care if this movie sucked big yellow hairy ball cheese! I wanna sequel!”

Acting/Dialogue: The acting is fairly decent, but there’s nothing to really rave about here. Everyone does a fine job in portraying the roles that they got stuck with. The characters themselves however, leave much to be desired. These clowns buffoon their way through every scene taking careful measure to bleat out every age-old humdrum over-used stereotype possible. Colonel Hicks is your typical army grunt that barks at everybody and refuses to listen to any idea but his own. (Surprisingly, he does change his tune a bit roughly 3 hours into the movie.) Then there’s Sergeant O’Neil, who plays the obligatory Costello to Hicks’ Abbott. This idiot can’t complete a sentence without stammering and has no fucking idea what he is doing. How did this numb-nut become a Sergeant? I’ll tell you one thing; I sure as hell wouldn’t feel very fucking secure knowing that this jackass was responsible for my safety. Bit of trivia here for ya too: The names Hicks and O’Neil were taken from other famous military Sci-Fi commanders. In Aliens, Michael Biehn plays Corporal Dwayne Hicks. In Emmerich’s own film Stargate, Kurt Russell plays Colonel Jack O’Neil. Oh well, back to the criticisms. Jean Reno plays Philippe Roache, an agent of the French Secret Service. Although Jean plays the hell out of the role, his dialogue mostly consists of the typical America bashing. Bitching about our cheap donuts, bitching about our brown-urine coffee, so forth and so on. This sort of shit was funny in the first thirty or so movies that its been done in. Hank Azaria basically plays a live action version of Moe from the Simpsons. He is quite annoying in this flick but not nearly as annoying as his wife Lucy (Played by Arabella Field). Lucy is the epitome of poor-white trash and she shrieks and squeals through every nauseating scene that she is in. Now we come to our two main stars, Maria Pitillo (Audrey) and Matthew Broderick (Nick). Maria plays her part decently, but she is just simply NOT a likeable character. She’s an opportunistic bitch-whore who will screw over anyone in favor of furthering her career. If I were Nick, I would of kicked this slut to the curb and gone on to find a real woman. Nick is the only guy in this that doesn’t irk the living shit out of me. Broderick is freshly amusing in the role of geeky little Nick Tapocropopolous. (I actually like the fact that no one can say his name correctly.) Of everyone in the cast, he has the least excruciating dialogue.

Gore: Although this film is a tad more graphic than most G flicks, there really isn’t any gore in here. Godzilla gets kind of bloodied towards the end though.

Guilty Pleasures: No nudity in this one, unless you count Godzilla and the little Zilla-lings. I really got a kick out of the old fisherman sitting on the dock trying to reel Godzilla in with his fishing pole. The water begins to churn and we see a massive wave tearing through the dock planks as the old fucker runs for his life. I didn’t mention it in the summary, but this is probably one of the best scenes in the movie.

The Good: This is probably one of the more difficult films that I have ever had to review. In one fell swoop, producers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin have succeeded in crafting what could very well be the BEST as well as the WORST Godzilla movie to ever hit the movie screen. The problem with watching a movie like Godzilla is that it literally becomes IMPOSSIBLE to watch the film and judge it on its own merits. Invariably, we find ourselves comparing it to the older classic models.

Die-hard Kaiju (monster) fans will likely sooner spit on the American version of Gojira than condescend to watch it. In fact, even a great many casual viewers think that it is a big waste of time. But there can be no denying the fact that this film is superior in many ways to the traditional Godzilla flick. Now, I realize that I will likely be hung by my ankles for even daring to breathe such a blasphemy, but let’s be realistic here guys. Most of your standard Toho Productions Godzilla flicks are big festering steaming piles of monkey shit. We like them because they bring us back to our childhood and remind us of the days when we used to get wide-eyed in front of the television set as a big rubber dinosaur trounced on some poor helpless plastic model buildings. Because of the heritage behind it, we feel the need to defend the Toho flicks come hell or high water. Can anyone out there honestly say that the dialogue in Zilla 98 is any worse than Godzilla versus Mothra? Or Destroy All Monsters? 

The acting, while by no means great, is triumphantly better than that which you will find in any other monster G film. For starters, we don’t have to endure a bunch of poorly edited over-dubs. Now while Asian fans can kick back and watch their Kaiju flicks without fear, we poor Americans (speaking solely for myself of course) are forced to endure some truly horrific voice-overs. At least with the Sony/Tri-Star version we can at last watch performers who actually SPEAK their lines. This is not a slight on the original films mind you, but rather on the Americanized versions of the old classics. Now while the characterizations of Zilla 98 may be trite and cliché, (I’ll go into that more later), they do at least succeed in bringing a bit of personality to this picture. Matthew Broderick gives us a glimpse of what it would be like if Ferris Bueller grew up. He plays the quirky and yet intellectually stimulating nerd of reason Niko Tatopoulus. Broderick is perfectly cast in the role of a person who needs to ‘gaze impressively at something’. His dumbfounded expressions and upturned eyebrows give him just enough of a Ritchie Cunningham quality that it offsets the apocalyptic drama of Godzilla’s rampage. 

Now lets move on to Godzilla himself. Most of what I have to say regarding the big beastie is best left for other categories, but as far as cinematic special effects goes, this one wins hands down. A Godzilla movie, no matter the origin, is at its heart an eye-candy flick. That being said, it is the responsibility of the producers to give us the most visually stunning creature that they can possibly muster. The CGI effects in Zilla 98 are top-notch, and anyone who is a fan of either Independence Day (Another Emmerich/Devlin film) or Jurassic Park will likely enjoy this flick. Godzilla moves very fluidly and gracefully as he makes hairpin turns around the Manhattan city blocks. It is very plain to see that this is not some joker in a big rubber costume. What makes this monster convincing is that anatomically, they took him back towards his reptilian roots. His musculature is well defined and his movements are very natural looking. The mini-Gs in this flick harbor the same traits and actually look as if Godzilla COULD have birthed them. These guys are NOT Minya clones or green versions of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. However, I do feel that they bore too much of a striking resemblance to the velociraptors from that other dinosaur flick.

Now having only been to New York City twice in my life, I really don’t know a great deal about the geography. But I think that this film succeeds in capturing the SPIRIT of Manhattan if nothing else. There are a lot of great shots of the New York City skyline and it’s easy to enjoy watching Godzilla tear up the Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Garden and other notable landmarks. Some of the best scenes involve the F-18s as they bob and weave between the various buildings on their hunt for Godzilla. Watching these guys in action is almost as entertaining as watching Godzilla put the smack down on somebody.

I like the means they used to come up with the name for the title character. WIDF anchorman Charles Caiman broadcasts the ‘first sighting’ footage in which the wounded sailor clamors, “Gojira”. Caiman, being the putz that he is, mispronounces the word and it becomes Godzilla.

This truly is a film for the brainless. There’s nothing cerebrally motivating here, and the moral lesson warning against the dangers of nuclear testing is more or less drowned out by Jean Reno’s Elvis Presley imitations. But if you get a kick out of seeing over-the-top explosions, gripping cinematography and high-tech carnage, then this film delivers. The only thing missing is Ben Affleck. There’s a lot of good old-fashioned action-packed excitement and I think it ranks fairly high on the re-watchability scale.

When watching a film like this, I prefer not to think of it as watching a Godzilla movie. When you put it in your VCR or DVD, mentally do away with the title shot and imagine that it says Jurassic Park v.2.5. If you do that, I think you will find it to be an easier pill to swallow.

The Bad: The first and most important thing that needs to be said here is: THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER’S GODZILLA! Unless you have been living in a bomb shelter with Brendan Frasier for the last five years, you should all know by now that this version of Godzilla bears absolutely NO resemblance to our beloved titan from Toho Productions. For starters he’s a tad smaller. This guy isn’t even half as tall as some of the buildings that your average Godzilla would routinely step on. He takes his anatomical cues from a Tyrannosaur and spends most of the time hunched over. His head is really big and elongated coupled by a huge-ass chin. To be honest, I think one is causal to the other. His chin probably accounts for at least two thirds of his overall body mass and is likely the reason that he is stooped over most of the time. Invariably, it is these biological changes that prove to be the downfall of this flick. I get the impression that Emmerich and Devlin went out of their way to make their monster look as un-Godzilla like as possible. In a commercial attempt to latch onto the Jurassic Park fame, they succeeded in completely alienating Godzilla fans across the globe.

There is one major aspect to the Godzilla dichotomy that is largely ignored in this flick. In practically every other Zilla flick ever made we are shown a monster that has the ability to produce large searing blasts of atomic radiation. As he sheers the tops off of buildings with his death ray, we can see the spiny plates on his back glowing with energy. This is a by-product of all the atomic radiation he absorbed over the years. In Zilla 98 however, we have an iguana that can burp out fireballs. He only does this twice in the film and they are not overly impressive. He can also blow people about with super-breath much like a certain Kryptonian I know. The super-breath trick succeeds in blowing half the people down the street while convincing the other half that Godzilla should invest some money in the Listerine Company.

Godzilla also seems to be kind of wimpy in this. We are shown that cannon fire and submarine torpedoes CAN do damage to him albeit minimally. By the end of the flick, Godzilla has been put through such a ringer that all it takes is a couple of well placed missiles to finish him off. Now what he lacks in strength and stamina, he makes up for in skill. Godzilla appears to have the uncanny ability to blend in to shadows and operate unseen. He’s a goddamn bloody fucking NINJA! All he needs is a bandana and an Italian last name and he could hook up with the mutant turtles. Now one would think that after Colonel Hicks made reports of the ‘First Sighting’ event, that he would warn his superiors back in the US, right? It would only further make sense, that the Defense Department would be actively scanning the eastern seaboards for any signs of a big-chinned fucking amphibious tyrannosaur right? And yet, Godzilla manages to slip under everyone’s radar and get deep within the city before anyone even notices.  Not only that, but on TWO separate occasions, he succeeds in burrowing underground without ANYONE having the slightest clue as to where in the fuck he is! Christ, its no wonder we’ve never been able to find Bigfoot! Our military can’t even find a big-ass smelly lizard! Later on, the navy blasts the shit out of him in Hudson River. But do they keep an eye on the body? Hell no. It disappears right out from under them and the navy commanders don’t even have the wherewithal to radio their superiors to say “Hey! Wasn’t there a big dead fucking lizard here a few minutes ago?”  Not only does Godzilla successfully escape the clutches of a bunch of inept seamen, he also manages (by way of his catlike ninja agility) to use the river to somehow burrow under ground so he can later come up through the remains of Madison Square Garden!

Producers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin prove to the audience once and for all (and hopefully to each other) that neither one of them has an original idea in their heads. This movie is basically a patchwork of every old theme, camera angle, and bit of dialogue that has ever been used before. Hell, they even plagiarize their OWN material. Just like Independence Day, the antagonist rips through certain notable New York Landmarks. He literally runs straight through the MetLife building, which despite the laws of physics, continues to stand. (Snoopy must be pissed!) He is indirectly responsible for sending the instantly recognizable steeple to the Chrysler Building smashing to the ground. And lastly, he does a pretty good number on the Brooklyn Bridge. I’m really surprised that he didn’t scale the Empire State Building with a buxom blond clenched between his scaly fingers. In retrospect, I suppose it was a good idea that E & D didn’t have him attack the World Trade Center. 

Overall, Godzilla harnesses an extremely weak script with lines that are so predictable that you find yourself saying them out loud before the actual characters do. If you’re not the type to see a lot of summer blockbuster films, then I suppose everything will still seem quirky and enticing. But if you have seen a healthy quantity of movies during your life, you will become quickly agitated by the overuse of banal clichés.

(And yes, I am DELIBERATELY repeating the phrase ‘banal cliché’ over and over again. Get it?)

Great Lines:

“I think we’re going to need bigger guns.”  --This line isn’t all that great. I only put it in here as an example of the unoriginal insipid dialogue used in this film. This line is spoken by Sergeant O’Neil in regards to Godzilla and is an OBVIOUS reference to Roy Scheider’s classic line from Jaws, “I think we’re going to need a bigger boat.”

“…Mister Tapopopolous.”

“It’s Tatopoulus.”

“Whatever.”  --Colonel Hicks’ first impression of Nick.

“We didn’t accomplish anything!”

“Well, that’s not true. We fed him.”  --Hicks and Nick arguing about the army’s vain attempt to stop Godzilla.

“Aww Jeez.”  --Victor says this just before Godzilla nearly squashes him with his foot. It’s only worth mentioning, because actor Hank Azaria uses the same voice inflection that he uses as the character of Moe Szyslak on the Simpsons.

“Where’s the sample?”

“You’re standing in it.”

“Where? I don’t see it? Where’s the sample?” --Nick standing in a huge Godzilla footprint.

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads.
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