Something big, very big, is out there. An oil-tanker disappears in the South Pacific. A fish processing factory ship is attacked. It is found washed up in Panama with huge chunks of metal ripped from it and massive dinasaur-like footprints in the surrounding countryside. The U.S. military assemble a scientific team, which includes Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) who had been studying the effect of radiation on worms at Chernyobl. A group of alleged insurance investigators are also on the scene. Meanwhile, in New York, wannabe-reporter Audrey Timmonds (Mario Pitillo) ponders the unfairness of life in general, and the sleaziness of her boss and if she will get her big break in particular.
Godzilla finally appears in New York and wreaks havoc. Dr. Niko discovers that the beast is about to lay eggs, and wants to lead a search for the nest. The rest of the team are not convinced. By a twist of fate, Audrey is Niko's old college sweetheart who ditched him to become a big-time reporter. She meets him again, and steals a videotape which contains hitherto secret information about Godzilla. She hopes that her exclusive will launch her career. Instead, her slimy boss takes the credit and she is worse off than before. Niko is thrown off the team, and meets up with the 'insurance agents' which are, in reality, French secret service agents, led by Philippe Roaché (Jean Réno). Philippe has assembled a team to destroy Godzilla and the nest (to cover up the fact that Godzilla was spawned by French nuclear tests in the Pacific). Eager to make up for betraying Niko, Audrey teams up with Niko and Philippe to track down the nest, while the army set ever more elaborate traps for the big guy....
This movie is relentlessly stupid. Each set-piece practically dares the audience to get up and leave. One particularly idiotic scene has Godzilla chasing a bunch of attack helicopters through the skyscrapers of New York. It doesn't occur to any of the pilots that by merely ascending (a fairly basic feature on most helicopters), they could escape.
If Devlin and Emmerich had wanted to pay tribute to those monster movies of the Fifties, with their B-movie acting and special-effects, we could maybe expect a sense of familiarity, but this movie comes damn close to outright plagiarism. Scenes are lifted shamelessly from other sci-fi movies, the most notable being the two Jurassic Park movies, the Alien trilogy, King Kong (the remake) and Jaws - indeed the last 30 minutes of the movie consist almost entirely of copied scenes. Since each of those movies were themselves tributes to the scary-monster movies of earlier decades (albeit made by far more talented storytellers), we really are being sold second-hand merchandise.
There's not much to entertain us among the human characters either - character development is non-existent. Broderick as Doc Niko is all wide-eyed blandness - his on-off girlfriend (Pitillo) is equally annoying. O.K. , so every other character was always going to be dwarfed by the Big G in this movie, but it's a pity, given the utterly conventional and predictable nature of the main story, that Emmerich and Devlin did not take some small risks with the sub-plots. I'd have settled for Dr. Niko telling his wayward girlfriend to take a hike, but things might have really improved if Niko, the girfriend, the mayor (actually all the American characters) had been squished once Godzilla reached the Big Apple and Roaché (Réno) had taken centre stage. Réno's performance is the only good thing about the movie, and he invests his role ,and the movie, with far more than either deserve.
The end of the movie leaves the way open for a sequel -now that was the only scary moment in the whole movie.
Directed by Roland Emmerich. Produced by Dean Devlin.
| ****** Excellent - An outstanding movie
***** V. Good - Very enjoyable or engrossing **** Good - Entertaining *** Mediocre - Nothing special ** Poor - A waste of time * Terrible - Complete rubbish |
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