Godzilla (1998)
One of the perils of living outside the US or Japan, apart from DVDs having a different region code, is that it’s almost impossible to get to see a movie without preconceptions built on reviews or word of mouth. And when I eventually get to see the movie, it’s hard not to view the movie in terms of those preconceptions, and to come up with the opposite view, just to be awkward.
In the case of Godzilla, advance word was not good, but the tie-in doughnuts were excellent, so I had to go along.
Obscure Movie Tie-In #1
After half an hour I was ready to mark it down as yet another movie where critics educated in more traditional art forms failed to understand the nature of popular movies. There’s a marvellous opening title sequence, frightening and funny at the same time, mixing footage of French nuclear tests with shots of lizards emerging to observe. This is swiftly followed by an avalanche of cliches, but anyone expecting Pinter was probably directed to the wrong cinema. What matters here is the execution, and Emmerich shows again that he’s far from the talentless hack that most critics would paint him as.
Examples are an attack on a fishing boat, and the discovery of huge footprints in Panama. It’s almost as if Emmerich is going for a series of comic book images, and it all works well, but there are signs of the movie’s 2 major flaws even in these early scenes: the characters need plot or dialogue, and preferably both.
The main victim of the woeful script is Matthew Broderick, who’s been annoying me ever since Wargames, and hasn’t changed either in appearance or ability to carry a movie. Other casualties include Jean Reno, who is part of a French commando team apparently based on the resistance fighters from Top Secret! The only actors who seem at home are Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer, and perhaps The Simpsons is a better grounding for this type of movie than any number of years in Serious Acting.
Obsessive trivia nuts may also notice Nancy Cartwright in a tiny role as Shearer’s secretary. Shearer’s rendition of a slimy news reporter, complete with the voice of Kent Brockman, is an in-joke that may travel better than the Roger Ebert character played by Michael Lerner, which will have most of the non-American audience scratching their heads.
Huge dog menaces Godzilla doughnuts
Anyway, back at the plot, Matthew Broderick is fighting to convince us that he’s an actor, and to convince the authorities that massive lizards could be easily caused by radiation (he cites a 17% growth in the size of earthworms as evidence, so perhaps it’s not surprising that no-one believes him). Godzilla arrives in New York, and it was at this point that I remembered how it used to be so much innocent fun pre-911 to see aggressive New Yorkers mercilessly stomped on.
So once we’ve got past the comedy relief and wacky-lovable-New-Yorkers stuff, we’re treated to twenty minutes of expensive CGI destruction. Hordes of over-confident soldiers are slaughtered by the lovable lizard, and it’s just as satisfying as the deaths of the similar characters in Starship Troopers, if not as bloody. None of it makes any sense (helicopters chase Godzilla down city streets at window level, making themselves easy targets, rather than going up a few hundred feet and dropping bombs, and there are numerous other Godzilla-size holes in the plot) but it is very loud, and there’s a lot of attention to detail in the special
effects for 1998.
If only some of the budget had been spent on a decent scriptwriter. Emmerich’s previous movie, Independence Day, was scuppered by Will Smith’s constant stream of wisecracks at the expense of atmosphere and credibility; Godzilla extends that attitude to almost the entire cast. If the jokes were good, it might work, but they’re not. Or at least the verbal ones aren’t good; the visual jokes aren’t at all bad, and I found myself wondering if Emmerich is let down by not making movies in his native language, in the same way as Dario Argento.
But the problems here aren’t just with the script, the story takes a definite turn for the worse after Godzilla’s initial stomp. Having gained sympathy for the lizard, and increased it by making it an expectant parent, the film makers then expect us to root for the human cast. And they’re all really annoying so it isn’t going to happen. The baby Godzillas turn out to be nothing more than an excuse to show off some neat effects – and to inject Emmerich’s old favourite, conspicuous product placement (stand up Konica, Blockbuster and the MLS). And Godzilla loses some of its faculties, enabling our ‘heroes’ to win out in the end and give New York an undeserved reprieve.
On leaving the cinema, I had to admit that all the criticisms levelled at Godzilla were perfectly valid, it’s dramatically and verbally incompetent. But the monster is great, and that’s the important thing in a monster movie. And the doughnuts were good.
Rating: 
[imdb]0120685[/imdb]
