Godzilla (1998) 3 stars out of 4
He's leaner, more agile and meaner, no longer the plodding, campy guy-in-the-rubber suit stomping cities constructed of paper maiche and balsa.
And he reproduces.
After all the hype about "size does matter," the Independence Day moviemaking team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin have created a wild, but uneven, amusement park of a monster movie.
Godzilla takes the "star" of 22 Japanese films, most of which were targeted for children, and turns him loose in the city that never sleeps - and probably never will again.
Godzilla, like Emmerich and Devlin's Independence Day, is the perfect summer movie; heavy on special effects and action, light on the dramatics and sprinkled with dashes of humor.
In appearance and actions, this giant lizard is unlike the one moviegoers have come to recognize. The only similarity between the original Godzilla and his American counterpart is that both were spawned by nuclear testing.
But while the original - called Gojira and released barely nine years after the atomic blasts that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki - carried a somber warning about the dangers of nuclear testing, this latest incarnation barely glosses over that aspect.
At nearly two hours and 20 minutes, Godzilla speeds along, except for a long stretch about three-fourths of the way through when the big guy is off the screen.
Director Emmerich keeps building the suspense for the first full-length appearance of Godzilla.
As the film opens, a Japanese freighter is destroyed in the South Pacific, but all the audience sees are flashes of claws and a tail, but it hears the monster's roar.
The scene next shifts to Panama where enormous footprints are found. Later in the waters off New England, three fishing trawlers are dragged under the North Atlantic.
Emmerich is teasing, building for the inevitable monster-in-New York mayhem.
And it is not long in coming. Once Godzilla comes ashore at the Fulton Fish Market, the movie's pace accelerates. Buildings are destroyed, vehicles are flattened as Godzilla runs amok through the Big Apple.
Battling this big beast is Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), a Nuclear Regulatory Commission biologist pulled from his three-year project in the Ukraine of studying the growth of earthworms caused by leaking radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
Broderick is no heavyweight hero. He brings a nerdish, brainy, boyish, but competent air to his character. He is more in awe of Godzilla, wishing to study and understand rather than destroy him.
The design of the monster, created by Patrick Totopoulos (he did such a wonderful job that the filmmakers named the lead character in his honor), is superb.
Unlike the Japanese, who merely placed a man in a rubber suit and had him plod through miniature sets, Totopoulos' Godzilla is a multifaceted creation. He runs, leaps, walks upright and on all fours. He snaps, lunges, dives and swims.
In looks, he's a bit of H.R. Giger's Alien, and the raptors and T-Rex from Jurassic Park.
With the help of computer generated effects, it actually looks like this mountainous monster is leveling the greatest city on earth.
Pointing out the film's flaws are superfluous as it will not keep anyone from seeing the movie.
First the female characters, especially Maria Pitillo as Audrey, Nick's ex-girlfriend, are superficial and lame. She's a wanna-be reporter who uses the crisis the further her career, but the monster displays more personality than her character.
Secondly, the movie's script is a bit too cute for it's own good. The mayor of New York, played loudly by Michael Lerner, is a short, round, gray-haired individual named Ebert, whose campaign slogan is the thumbs-up sign. His top aide, with whom he always seems to be arguing, is a tall, thin balding man named Gene.
Near the finale, Godzilla begins to sputter and shifts tone, becoming an extended ripoff of the raptor chase sequence from Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. Only this deadly hide-and-seek match is set in Madison Square Garden.
Besides Broderick, fine performances are turned in by Jean Reno as a mysterious French agent who also wants to see Godzilla stopped, and Hank Azaria as Animal, the fearless news videographer who if need be will get in the lizard's face for a shot.
Godzilla is a full-throttle, special effects extravaganza. It has disposed of the serious baggage of the original, while keeping just a touch of campiness of the many sequels.
Nor has it not gone to the extreme, as did the later Japanese movies, of transforming Godzilla into a good guy battling other monsters to save the planet.
This Godzilla is a competent mix of thrills, chills, explosions and humor. The finale, of course, is open-ended. A sequel or two or three is inevitable.
So grab your bucket of popcorn and check your thinking cap at the door. Godzilla is pure summer candy.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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