Godzilla
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action
Box Office: $136,314,294
1998

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: A result of nuclear testing in the pacific, a giant lizard (dubbed Godzilla) emerges and travels to New York City, where he sets up an underground home. Now, a team of military and scientific (Matthew Broderick included) experts must hatch a plot to stop him before he destroys the whole city.

Review:

Tim: This is an achievement in filmmaking simply because Godzilla movies no longer have to be just poorly dubbed in English where the worlds and peoples' mouth movements don't match up. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich made this film- the duo behind my favorite movie of all time, Independence Day. I was pretty excited going into this film, but also realized it would probably be a letdown.

Despite the many problems with this film, Devlin and Emmerich do manage to get in enough destruction, including the explosion of many NYC buildings, including the Chrysler Building and Madison Square Garden. This echoes the amazing destruction seen in Independence Day, yet cannot truly be compared. The prior film is much, much better. Another comparison between the two films is the cast. Independence Day had Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, etc. Godzilla has Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno. They are both decent, but not much more than that. Perhaps the best performance is given by Hank Azaria. He has a small role, but its really good. He's an excellent actor.

Godzilla himself is pretty amazing. This film really takes the old awful Godzilla movies with a guy in a rubber suit and transforms it into a special effects bonanza with a good bit of intelligence and humor. Godzilla is much more lifelike in this film. The fight against Godzilla is cool enough, but the film really takes a dive when the humans have to fight Godzilla's offspring. This entire portion of the movie is a rip-off of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. And, rip-offs are never as good as the original.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the movie for me was seeing Matthew Broderick run like a sissy being chased by the baby godzillas. He makes a good scientist, a good slacker (Bueller...Bueller?) but not a good action hero.

On a side note, I thought it was absolutely hilarious that the French, the supposed heroes of the film all give up almost without a fight (except Jean Reno). How typical of the French.

Anyway, this is a pretty decent movie. The end of the movie is ridiculous, but somewhat exciting. That pretty much sums up the movie as a whole. You can watch this if you want, but you will miss nothing if you skip it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Independence Day, Stargate, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Professional, Reign of Fire, Godzilla 2000