Godzilla (1998)


Synopsis: after being exposed to radiation due to nuclear tests in the pacific, an iguana mutates into a gargantuan proportions. It travels to New York City, causing chaos and destruction, but following its goal: nest its young. 

Relase date: May 20, 1998.

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Maria Pitillo, Doug Savant, Harry Shearer. 

Crew: Roland Emmerich (director, co-writer, executive producer), Dean Devlin (co-writer, producer), David Arnold (music), based on the character "Godzilla", property of Toho Co. 

Plans to produce an american version of Godzilla, were on the works in the late 80´s. After some bidding disputes, the project initially had green light to be produced with Jan de Bont as director, Stan Winston (designer of Terminator and the dinosaurs in JP) was commissioned to design Godzilla and its foe in the movie. Legendary screenwriters, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, wrote the script. But the project never came into fruition, due to budgeting issues, canceling its 1994 release date. After the release of Independence Day, in 1996, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin agreed to make the film under some conditions: it would be made under "their way", they wrote a new script from scratch, and change the traditional design of the titular character, now under the supervision of french production designer, Patrick Tatopoulos.  Godzilla´s new design caused an awkward silence in a meeting with the executives of Toho —but they finally agreed and approved it. 

Godzilla takes us to an attempt to show a new version of the radiactive lizard. Emmerich´s direction, could be considered as "obligatory" in this kind of movies: trying to keep the threat hidden, until the right moment to appear in all its glory. The scenes where the creature walks through NCY streets, are well done; but something important: this creature, isn´t Godzilla, it´s Zilla (renamed by Toho in 2004). Its design it´s attractive, peculiar, but it doesn´t resemble to the traditional, it even lacks from its trademark attack: the "atomic breath". Another weak point, it´s the titular creature´s goal: just nest its young and survive. The baby Zillas act like a copy of the raptors form JP. The way the militaries fight "Godzilla" could be dopey at some moments; nonetheless, it shows some merits to the creature in terms of cunning and fighting skills. The human characters, most of them lack of development, but the way the four main protagonists join forces in the third act, is well done. The general concept of the film sounds ambitious, but it fails on its performance. However, if we put aside the "Godzilla" theme, the movie works well, it´s entertaining and would work well as an independent movie in the Kaiju genre. 

OUTCOME:

Despite the titular character doesn´t resemble to the original Godzilla, it´s design is elegant, attractive and has its own merits in terms of intelligence and aggressiveness. The story, despite being ambitious, it fails on its performance. Nonetheless, meets expectations in terms of entertaining. From the human characters, the most "notable", are the ones played by Reno, Azaria and Broderick. If you want to see a giant monster movie in general , this is the right movie. If you can stand that this is another Godzilla "version", you will enjoy it as well. A shame that this movie never got its sequel, at least in celluloid, because an animated series were spawned from this. 


SCORE:

🌟🌟🌟