Size is all that matters

GODZILLA (1998)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Original review from July 1998)

Writer-director Roland Emmerich has produced some of the biggest box-office champs in history, particularly the grossly silly though often fun "Independence Day." Back in 1998, he produced and directed the most overhyped movie event of all time, "Godzilla." "Godzilla" was so overhyped in its marketing campaign (which started a year earlier) that there was no point in seeing the movie at all - you already had. In the previews, there were glimpses of Godzilla's enormous foot destroying half of New York City's streets and close-ups of its reptilian eye, and that's about all you see in the movie, folks. After Godzilla invades New York, he inexplicably and implausibly hides in the sewer and plays hide-and-seek with army helicopters. The footage is shot at night, and it is so poorly photographed that you can barely see the huge lizard at all, only a big, blurry shadow. And then there are Godzilla's numerous babies on the loose in typical velociraptor/"Jurassic Park" fashion.

For such a lavishly expensive production with state-of-the-art special effects, you would think we would at least see this creature. Godzilla stampeding through the city of New York is a great, wondrous and scary idea but the movie never follows suit. His foot is seen crushing cars, potholes, etc. How about Godzilla knocking over the Statue of Liberty or climbing the Twin Towers or lashing his tail against Times Square billboards? Nope, the filmmakers never use their imagination in conveying the destructive nature of the beast. He mostly runs through the city and often yells, and that is about it. How does this creature hide though? How does it change size and shape throughout? And how dare they allow us to develop sympathy for the monster only to then ask us to hate it at the end when all you hear is its heart beating (a lift from 1976's "King Kong")?

Another fact lost by the filmmakers is the genesis of this creature. Godzilla was a Japanese creation, a symbol of America coming on their fort and starting a war, namely World War II and the counterattack on Pearl Harbor. This new Godzilla is simply a special-effects blur with no personality and no purpose. This is Godzilla for the 90's with anemic co-stars such as Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria and the shrill-voiced Maria Pitillo to boot? I'll stick with the original 1955 black-and-white version with Raymond Burr, thank you. At least the fire-breathing monster of that film was destructive.