Godzilla Reviews

The most eagerly anticipated green-eyed monster of 1998 reared his ugly head not with the familiar radioactive roar, but a deafening yawn. The INDEPENDENCE DAY director-producer-writer team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin have blown up the simple premise behind Japan's beloved Godzilla series -- giant lizard steps on city -- into an unimaginative, dinosaur-sized bore that's about as entertaining as two and a half hours of JURASSIC PARK outtakes. It seems the French have been messing around with nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, and the fallout has produced a new breed of outsized super-reptile who's looking for a cozy city to call home. After chomping his way through a Japanese fishing boat (a survivor gasping "Gojira!" from his hospital bed is the film's only concession to tradition) and tiptoeing across Panama, Godzilla arrives in downtown Manhattan, lays waste to the Financial District, then quickly takes refuge in the New York City subway system. It's a while before he pokes his head out again, leaving the screen to the much less interesting human characters: Dr. Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), a biologist who specializes in mutant animal species; Nick's ex-girlfriend Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo), who sees Godzilla as her ticket to TV news stardom; and the mysterious Philippe Roache (Jean Reno), a French secret service agent acting on behalf of his country's guilty conscience. The only real thrill the film has to offer is the spectacle of Godzilla crashing through the canyons of Manhattan while the Army destroys the city trying to stop him, but it quickly passes. There are a few variations on the original Godzilla -- the fact that he can reproduce asexually solves the whole Mrs. Godzilla quandary while promising an endless string of sequels -- but the jealously guarded secret of Godzilla's new look is a huge disappointment: He's really just a pumped-up, computer-generated iguana, crossbred with JURASSIC PARK's T-Rex. Whatever the benefits of CGI, it has yet to convincingly create the illusion of physical presence so essential to monster movies: It never feels as if Godzilla and the equally scary legion of inconvenienced New Yorkers really occupy the same space. And if CGI means that everything has to take place under the masking cover of rain and darkness in order to look "real," then bring on the guy in the rubber suit.