Godzilla
Director:Roland Emmerich
Screenplay:DeanDevlin and Roland Emmerich
Starring:Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria, Maria Pitillo, Jean Reno,
Harry Shearer
John's Review
What happens when the French detonate multiple nuclear devices over the French Polynesians? Apparently lizards mutate into 40 story tall Velociraptor/Alien/Iguana things and for no apparent reason head straight for Madison Square Gardens. (Yeah...) One of the things that I always loved about the Toho Godzilla movies, was they were having fun! Even in the last Devlin/Emmerich production Independence Day, the actors were having fun. Apparently when Devlin and Emmerich were asked to do a totally serious/non-camp version of "The King of Monsters" they mistook seriousness with dullness.
After some strange boating accidents in the South Pacific and then misteriously the Atlantic, there are all of a sudden large booms in New York. Sometime in here, enter Nick Tatopolous (Broderick) a young enviormental something or other, it doesn't matter because no one cares. (By the way if this film were any good, we would actually find it interesting that Broderick's character is named after Devlin/Emmerich's creature creator Patrick Tatopolous.) Apparently Tatopolous is the only person who knows why Godzilla is heading for New York, because, "he can hide in there." Oh, Tokyo wouldn't have done? And just how did Godzilla know of New York's existence? Travel Agency? So then Godzill a lays some eggs and goes swimming in the East River just like the Aliens in the piss-poor Alien Resurection, must have been the same CGI template. Apparetly dies, comes back (no surprise there) and then dies for good.
Sounds exciting right? Wrong, couldn't be more boring. For example when an Apache helicopter pilot is being chased through the city by Godzilla, one asks, "Why doesn't he just pull up and fly above the city?" But this doesn't happen and Godzilla destroys the copter, but again we don't care. When Broderick and company discover Godzilla's nest with about a hundred 9 foot tall eggs in it, we think to ourselves, haven't I seen this somewhere else? Enter a scene straight out of Aliens. With nine foot tall Godzilla's taking the place of Geiger's Aliens.
I really wanted to like this movie, I even graded it relatively high at first, but then downgraded after some thought. (Much like my first grade for Independence Day) I like how Godzilla looked, but not as much as I had hoped. The action scenes (few and far inbetween) with the full grown Godzilla were somewhat fun if not hurried, the special effects looked rushed at parts. David Arnold's music was un-insperational and did absolutely nothing to enhance the mood of the film. I got what I wanted in destruction and mayhem, but inbetween I was bored out of my skull.
Grade: C- (downgraded from a C+)
