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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Godzilla Review (1998, Action/Adventure/Monster, Columbia TriStar)


Sorry, this is not the original Godzilla. Nor is it the decent-but-flawed 2014 reboot.

This is the rain-soaked, Manhattan-bound (you have to ask yourself during the movie, "WHY MANHATTAN!?"), inconsistent Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin effort to Americanize the franchise. It didn't succeed, and I'm happy that it didn't and I was even when I watched it at 10 years old.

One thing a lot of people don't mention about the movie is just how depressing its visual palette is. Not only does it rain for its entirety, or so it seems to anyway, but it's either always night time or the skies are almost always gray. It's a far cry from any other Godzilla movie ever made, where we were supposed to have fun watching the ridiculous and oversized proceedings take action. Instead, some of us, such as myself, pined for that one frame of even a ray of sunshine cutting through the dreary gray clouds during the few sequences taking place during daylight.

When you look at the human element, you can't really grasp onto anyone. No, not even Jean Reno manages a lick of excitement from viewers. The lead protagonist in all of this mess is Matthew Broderick, who plays himself. No, not really; he's supposed to be playing the role of an earthworm scientist of sorts who is in way over his head, and has a conveniently-placed ex-girlfriend who works for one of the local news stations in New York. The problem with both characters, especially Broderick's, is that they are simply there. In a movie so otherwise ludicrous in concept (giant monster stomping through a massive supercity) you'd think they'd try to inject some kind of levity into the situation, like some witty one-liner or ridiculous feat of strength from the human leads, but not even that happens. Ditto for the rest of the crowd barely-earning their paycheques in these proceedings. They're just...there. They fill a void, not a character.

Then the monster element comes in and it leaves us, and left me a little--confused. Are we supposed to root for its eventual defeat? Or are we supposed to root for its triumph over adversity? And how the hell does it fit in a subway tunnel at all when it is large enough at times to bring down buildings with a mere swipe of its tail? And the big twist that it is female elicits even more questions than anything else. Such questions would be, "how did it manage to do that at all?" and, "I thought Godzilla was a male?" And on the topic of the offspring themselves, who conveniently play a brief role in the movie (and pay a bit too much homage to the vastly superior Jurassic Park released five years prior), why, when their, uh, mommy drops hundreds of tonnes of fish for them to devour do they instead opt to eat the larger and lesser (in number) humans scurrying about? If the scent of dead fish eclipses anything else in the immediate vicinity, you'd think they'd opt just for the fish, right? Well, not in Emmerich-world.

They have to give chase to our, er, 'heroes'. Predictably, nothing of consequence happens here except for a few accusations of plagiarism from fans & viewers alike of the aforementioned dinosaur movie. Anyway, our heroes manage to destroy the offspring, and that of course pisses off our star character and drives it to seek their oblivion. If you ignore the fact that this thing was previously depicted outrunning military helicopters, while surrounded by skyscrapers no less, then you'd think that a mere yellow taxi having to brave the chaotic streets of New York (with or without a rampaging giant monster) would be easy pickings for this beast. Well, somehow it isn't. Eventually, it gets caught in the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge and then pulverized by heavy fire by the military. Which, I have to say, is a godsend given that they caused arguably more destruction than Godzilla did in this movie and in any proper world would have all been disbarred from their jobs during or after the events of this movie. But I digress.

Godzilla collapses and then dies. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel sad, angry, or joyful that this beast succumbed to a mere dozen explosions that would see the original Godzilla shrugging off (then you look at the Legendary-era incarnation and how it barely even notices dozens of missiles peppering its hide). I wasn't sure if he, or she, or whatever the hell it is was the misunderstood anti-hero or the angsty anti-villain in this picture. And I wasn't sure why I was supposed to care about the shot of Broderick coming face-to-face with the dying monster. All I knew at that moment was that this mess was about to come to a close. And you know what I was sure of then? That I could leave this bumbling movie behind and experience far more joyful things in life.

Oh and did you know that the movie takes place almost entirely in dreary, rain-soaked imagery because the special effects were not quite up to speed even for the production team? Yeah, and did you notice how sometimes Godzilla changes size, radically I must add, to fit the needs of the scene wherever necessary? Yeah, it doesn't even manage to be an exceptional special effects vehicle for entertainment. What a goof.

D
  

The Good: 

+ It's Godzilla
+ The military manage to be more destructive than the monster itself, which is unintentionally hilarious.
+ You can understand people speaking in this movie (assuming English is your first language at least)
+ It inspired Gareth Edwards and Legendary Pictures to try their hands at another reboot years later, and it was far better (still flawed, though)

The Bad:


- Every scene is rain-soaked, and if it isn't, it's because it takes place indoors. 
- It's either always night, or damn close to it.
- The special effects aren't that impressive. And it's why the studio used rain to cover them up.
- You don't care about anybody
- Godzilla changes size conveniently in order to fit the scene. One scene sees him (her?) toppling skyscrapers and high-rises and others (usually off-screen, again how convenient)  it is able to fit inside of the subway tunnel system. They're large for tunnel systems but I don't think a massive monster like Godzilla could fit in them.
- Awful plot
- Rips off Jurassic Park, namely the suspenseful raptor-chase sequences. And they couldn't appreciate the huge mound of fish dropped at their literal feet by their, uh, mommy?
- Is Godzilla good, bad, or in-between? We never know!
- Godzilla gets killed by a handful of missiles. WEAK!