Finally, it is time for a real American Godzilla film. Godzilla, released in 1998, stars everyone's favorite rambunctious youth, Matthew Broderick, but 20 years older. There is an uncredited suit actor for the titular monster named Kurt Carley, though I'm not sure how much of the creature is CGI and how much is suit (I imagine everything we see on screen is CGI but that there was a suit actor to help on set) and Frank Welker and Gary A. Hecker provide monster vocal effects. The disaster movie master, Roland Emmerich, directs this one, so as far as spectacle goes there is hope! But I saw this movie when I was 12 years old so I would like to lower your expectations. Independence Day is rad: this ain't that.
If You Haven't Seen it Before
- A Japanese ship is attacked by an enormous creature that a survivor calls Gojira. Dr. Nick Tatopoulos, a biologist, is called in to investigate.
- Zilla, as we will call it for reasons that will be explained much later, is a mutated iguana that continues to attack things and wreak havoc. Zilla appears to the public for the first time and its existence is revealed before it disappears, unable to be found.
- Trying to lure Zilla in, the military and Tatopoulos set up a giant pile of delicious raw fish. It works, and Zilla is attacked by the military. This goes predictably poorly, and several buildings and lots of military equipment is destroyed in the process.
- Tatopoulos does some blood work and discovers that Zilla is pregnant, and seems to be in Manhattan in order to nest and give birth to its kin, which will create a rapidly growing population of giant lizards.
- Tatopoulos runs out to tell people, having left his ex-girlfriend behind in his research tent. She steals this material to further her hopeful career as a TV news anchor, revealing the truth to the public.
- Tatopoulos is fired from the project for the info getting out into the press, and ends up with French Secret Service agents who do believe the nest exists despite the military disavowing this fact to the public.
- Tatopoulos' ex-girlfriend wants to make her betrayal up to him, so she follows him and his new French friends in an attempt to prove he was right to the whole world.
- In the meantime, the military lures Zilla into Central Park with another fish trap, and once again lose a lot of people and equipment to the giant iguana. They eventually manage to score a direct hit with two missiles while it is underwater, believing to have killed it.
- Tatopoulos (and friends) go into Madison Square Garden and find the eggs they were expected, but over 200 of them rather than the 12 he estimated. As they prepare to destroy them with plastic explosives, they begin to hatch.
- The baby Zillas are alive now, and they begin to hunt the humans. One of Tatopoulos' allies tries to convince the military to search for the nest now that the big one is dead, because if he was right they have a serious problem on their hands.
- The people inside the nest go live on the local news, revealing the baby Zillas and that the only solution is to destroy MSG entirely before these mini Zillas escape and begin to rapidly reproduce. This gives everyone six minutes to escape as the bombs are about to fall.
- They manage to escape just in time and the baby Zillas die in fire. But there's still a literally bigger problem: Adult Zilla, returned to its nest and angered that its children are dead. It gives chase, intent on eating our group of humans. Manging to escape but now trapped in a tunnel, Zilla is moments away from managing to reach them.
- Told to lure Zilla out in the open, they manage to lure Zilla to the Brooklyn Bridge. It gets wrapped in the suspension cables after destroying the bridge, which allows the military to pelt it with missiles. Zilla dies after like a dozen missiles enter its body.
- Everyone goes home happy, but a sequel sting follows as a final Zilla egg hatches a living kin.
Kaiju Notes
- I actually don't hate the sleek look of Zilla. A thinner, more agile kaiju is a fine idea in principle, and the heart of the creature remains intact, visually.
- The baby Zillas aren't any different from the larger one. Technically they just give us a better look at the larger version. Unlike the original Baby Godzilla compared to the OG Godzilla, who looked quite different, Baby Zilla is just mini-Zilla.
- Zilla does not have Atomic Breath, but does have an ability called Power Breath. This is essentially a massive exhale, capable of knocking cars and even tanks into the air and blowing them away. On two occasions a flammable object is caught in this Power Breath and explodes, creating the illusion of fire breathing.
My first critique of this film is simple: this script is terrible. Beyond being little more than spectacle, which can often be quite fun, it is remarkably boring for at least the first 60 minutes and every conflict in the film is resolved with one conversation. When Tatopoulos meets his ex-girlfriend for the first time in several years and doesn't want to talk to her, she simply says "aw give me a chance," and he changes his mind. When the French special forces don't want to take Tatopoulos to find the Zilla nest because of the danger, he says "aw give me a chance," and they change their mind. When Tatopoulos is betrayed by his ex and confronts her, she says she had to do it if she wants to further her career and he says "aw man why'd you do that" and she's suddenly riddled with guilt.
I'm not saying that conversations shouldn't happen in films or be critical turning points. In fact, many plots would be resolved if people would simply talk and explain things to each other. But when every issue is resolved in about 12 words, it becomes obvious that these characters are just puzzle pieces being moved into place, not people. People don't often change their minds on fundamental issues with a simple "but c'mon," but they do in the Zilla-Verse. I can't tell if it's just laziness or because none of these characters have flaws, but in either case it makes the entire script incredibly weak. Combine all of that with how utterly dull the movie is unless Zilla is on the screen (not baby Zillas, only real Zilla) and you've got a real problem on your hands.
The titular creature, godZilla, is an interesting case. I think the design of a sleeker, dexterous create makes a lot of sense for a kaiju and I'm pleased that someone has finally truly embraced it. On the other hand, the reason Zilla is called Zilla is because, in the words of Toho producers who use Zilla in an upcoming movie "they took the god out of Godzilla." So, clearly, the redesign did not go over terribly well. And it's true, Zilla kinda sucks, but not because of the way it looks but rather how it's treated. The best example of why it doesn't work is the baby-Zillas. The primary concern of this film is not that there's a single Zilla, but that there will be more. Once the nest is taken down, everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief and now can focus on Zilla. But if this were the Japanese Godzilla, you don't have to worry about smaller Godzillas because Godzilla himself is such a threat that you have to focus on that first and foremost. Zilla is lured into a trap, wrapped in bridge cables, and killed with a few fighter jets. It really does lack the God of Godzilla, as this could never make sense for the original. Besides the fact that he'd completely destroy a bridge rather than be trapped by it, missiles can hurt him but are very unlikely to kill him by piercing his skin. While some weapon have successfully been used against Godzilla, they have to be designed and aimed very carefully to manage any significant damage. But Zilla just gets wrapped up and fucked up in the same few minutes, making it clear that Zilla's actually not terribly tough: its only real advantage was agility. And that is, ultimately, pretty disappointing.
Power Breath is a great example of what's truly "wrong" with this movie. It doesn't commit to the concept it's adapting. Godzilla is a powerful beast which normal/conventional weapons have no hope of stopping: tanks and planes can deter and damage him, sure, but it's going to take something unique to actually kill (or even critically wound) him. He also has Atomic Breath, making him a serious threat at range. But Zilla has Power Breath, which only works relatively close to it and can be killed with a couple of spare missiles as long as it can be targeted. It's a total lack of commitment to the concept of Godzilla: a threat but more of an annoyance than a creature which could destroy an entire city. The biggest challenge the military faces in this movie is trying to hit Zilla (particularly in not destroying the city surrounding it at the same time), not doing damage. I think the concept is this: how could the American military not destroy something? Ridiculous. So clearly we can kill it. How could a creature have a special breath weapon? Ridiculous. So clearly it does not have that anymore. This is not to say that Atomic Breath is not ridiculous: it is, but that's why it's awesome. Why adapt something if you have contempt for it?
If you cannot tell by all of the previous words, godZilla, as we're calling it from here on out, is a disappointment. Whether you're being bored by the humans or watching Zilla get killed really easily, there's very little of the heart of Godzilla in this film. Some of the action scenes are entertaining, so I don't want to claim it's a total waste of time, but they're few and far between and give us very little to enjoy throughout. Skip it.
Next: Yonggary (Reptilian)!
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