Godzilla (1998): A Review (Review #2003)

GODZILLA

It can be said that Godzilla is a disaster movie in more ways than one. Perhaps something got lost in the translation. I put it down to something simpler: everyone involved in Godzilla made all the wrong choices.    

What would nuclear bomb tests in French Polynesia matter to researcher Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick)? He is too busy investigating worms in Chernobyl to pay attention to such things. That is until the U.S. government pulls him out to look into the potential of a strange creature literally leaving its footprints all over the world. He seems perpetually perplexed about this oddball investigation. He is more perplexed by the strange presence of men claiming to be French insurance agents, headed by the mysterious Phillipe Roache (Jean Reno). 

The creature is now racing to The City That Never Sleeps (which if memory serves right, is the actual name that appears on-screen). Colonel Hicks (Kevin Dunn) orders a mass evacuation of the city, over the loud objections of Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner) and Mayor Ebert's aide, Gene (Lorry Goldman). Mayor Ebert is in the midst of a reelection campaign and fears that this will wreck his chances. Nick offers a plan to capture the creature, but it fails. 

He also, albeit unintentionally, brings more panic when his Nick's ex-girlfriend Audrey Timmons (Maria Pitillo) finds a secret tape revealing that the creature has a name and has been seen before. Eager to advance, she tries to be the one to break the news. However, she is thwarted by her boss, arrogant and egocentric television reporter Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer). Thus, we learn about "Godzilla".

The army and scientists continue to battle against this giant lizard in the perpetual rainstorm. As a side note, it should have been known as The City That Has Endless Rain given how it always seemed to be raining. Not even Seattle gets this much rain. No one will listen to Tatopoulos' warning that Godzilla is pregnant and laying eggs all over the place. While the army, under the bumbling command of Sergeant O'Neal (Doug Savant) attempts to battle Godzilla, the French do listen to Nick. 

Audrey and her cameraman, Victor "Animal" Palotti (Hank Azaria) also go down into the bowels of the big city to find these eggs. Will the army as well as Mayor Ebert and Gene finally see that Nick Tatopoulos is right? Will Godzilla be defeated? Will all the eggs be found, or will one egg escape to hatch for a sequel?

Alas, we will never know, for Godzilla was such a disaster that we never got the trilogy this Godzilla was setting up. This is the first time that I have seen this American adaptation of the long-running Toho series. I think that it is a terrible, terrible film. There are so many reasons for Godzilla being a terrible, terrible film.

I think I will start with the screenplay written by producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich. Judging from the final product, I do not think that Devlin and Emmerich ever decided if Godzilla was a comedy or a drama. There was this running gag of people constantly mispronouncing or struggling to pronounce "Tatopoulos". Those repeated flubbings, along with Broderick's childlike corrections, consistently fell flat.

The situation, I figure, should be serious. However, it was not taken seriously. Worse, Godzilla could not have fun with the premise either. Savant's scaredy-cat O'Neal seems at odds with the no-nonsense Colonel Hicks. You question Hicks' sanity by appointing O'Neal to be in charge on the ground. Worse, Godzilla ends with O'Neal at what looks like a party with "Animal's" wife Lucy (Arabella Field). Was that another running gag, how Animal was afraid of his wife?

I think this would be a good place to briefly touch on Mayor Ebert and his aide, Gene. This is clearly a swipe at film reviewers (Roger) Ebert and Gene (Siskel). Here is where Godzilla's inability to decide if it is a comedy or drama comes into play. Devlin and Emmerich were getting their frustrations out against Siskel and Ebert by making the characters of Ebert and Gene these incompetent boobs. Fine, I suppose that some fun can be had at the expense of two influential people who have not liked their work. That being said, the casting of Lerner and Goldman is deliberately meant to remind audiences of who they really are supposed to be.

Lerner and Goldman were made to look so much like Ebert and Siskel that no one could have missed what they thought was a clever joke. If you didn't get the joke by the end, their screentime ends with Gene walking out on Ebert, giving him two thumbs down when he tells the Mayor what he thinks of his campaign. I do/did not often agree with Gene Siskel, but here he is right: it was petty. I also agree with Siskel and Ebert that they set up this duo to stand in for Devlin and Emmerich's bête noirs, yet they could not bother to have Godzilla stomp on them. I do not know if audiences really expected Godzilla to stomp on them. I do think that they could have gone all the way with that.

I also think that if they had made Mayor Ebert very thin and attractive, and given perhaps City Councilman or Deputy Mayor Gene a full head of hair, that might have been clever. Instead, they went the easy way but ended up giving everyone nothing.

Another reason why Godzilla failed is in its visual effects. I was reminded of something said, ironically enough by Siskel and Ebert. They held that many visual effects take place in the rain because it makes it easier to obscure the monsters, or something to that effect. Godzilla has a near-permanent rainfall. Granted, I think that there was mention of a hurricane or superstorm beating down on the City That Never Sleeps. However, it does become almost laughable to always have rain. When we do see Godzilla, which I figure is the reason people went to see it, Godzilla is a disappointment. One scene in particular had it look like Godzilla was dry-humping a building. 

It is a bad thing also when the audience is led to think that Godzilla has been killed, but there is still an hour and a half to go in this two hour snoozefest. 

Finally, Godzilla fails because of its performances. Matthew Broderick looks like a child in the film. He also pretty much behaves like one, with a near-permanent look of confusion at whatever happens to be going on. Hank Azaria embarrasses himself with his broad Nuw Yawk accent. That he is actually from New York makes it more embarrassing. His Simpsons costar Harry Shearer was also bad as the obnoxious reporter who was not above sexual harassment of Audrey. I suppose that I should recognize that Shearer was playing obnoxious correctly. As such, he wasn't meant to be likeable. He just never made the case that Charles Caiman would be the premiere news anchor in New York.

Jean Reno was there just for the cash. I figure he was there also to appeal to foreign markets. He was directed to play Godzilla as a comedy. How else to explain his adopting of an Elvis accent to fool U.S. troops that he was a downhome country boy. 

One feels for Maria Patillo, as Godzilla was meant to be her big breakout role. Instead, it became her career death knell, making only two more films and several guest appearances on television since. To be fair, she had a long-running stint on television's Providence, and it is unfair to blame Patillo exclusively for Godzilla ending up a flop. She was given a pretty thankless role as this mix of ninny and shrewd reporter. It was not a good performance, but it was not a good character. I think that Doug Savant gave a worse performance. Savant, coming off a run on Melrose Place, had a similar issue that many in the cast had. He played it as if Godzilla was a comedy. If there were any justice, Savant would have received a Razzie for his performance, not Patillo.

Again, this is not to say that anyone gave a good performance in Godzilla. It is merely to say that some were singled out that perhaps should not have been.

Godzilla is a disaster. It is worse than that. It is boring, visually unappealing and downright moronic. The big lizard deserves so much better. So does the audience. 

DECISION: F