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Godzilla
1/2
Cinema
Releases - July 17,
1998
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Directed by Roland Emmerich. Written by Dean Devlin and Roland
Emmerich; from a story by Devlin, Emmerich, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio;
based on characters owned and created by Toho Co. Starring
Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno,
Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Harry Shearer, Arabella
Field, Vicki Lewis, Doug Savant, Malcolm Danare.
Mr. Emmerich, you are an idiot. I am sorry that
you have reduced me to the level of labelling and name-calling, but it is
a sign of how irritating and devoid of any intelligence your work is. I have
seen three of your films. "Stargate"(1994) was a science fiction film with
enormous potential for cornball silliness without restraint, which would
have made it good fun, like David Lynch's "Dune". Unfortunately, it was written
at that level and directed, by your bad self, with one hundred per cent
seriousness. You did the same thing with "Independence Day"(1996), another
film made obnoxious and boring by such treatment, another film with enormous
potential to be brainless fun. Well, I guess you got the brainless part
right.
Now we have your "Godzilla". Here I shall mention
your partner in crime(almost literally), Dean Devlin, who co-writes and produces
your films. It's not fair to lay the responsibility for the content of a
film only on its director, so Mr. Devlin, you are also an idiot. You have
been madly hopping about through interviews, all excited about what a huge
project "Godzilla" is. No doubt it's thou who be responsible for "Godzilla"'s
marketing slogan, "Size Does Matter". Well, well done. You have managed to
yet again miss the point of your own material, and make a terrible
movie.
The original "Godzilla" films were cheap Japanese
trash, with no sound effects but dialogue(which was, for English-speaking
audiences, most awfully dubbed), tacky model-shot special effects and amazingly
cheesily-written characters. But they were done by pouring all this cornball
onto the screen until it was overflowing, and filmed with bright, sunny
cinematography that reflected the happy, innocent, even cute attitude and
atmosphere that was their essence. I believe that to detest how bad they
were rather than joyously laugh at them would have been akin to kicking a
little lost puppy because it urinates on a lamppost. They were funny, sweet
and irresistible. Emmerich and Devlin's "Godzilla", however, is depressing,
sour and off-putting. Five minutes into the film I started some notes, writing
"noisy, crass, obnoxious". I went on to describe the film with words such
as meaningless, uninteresting, infuriating, cheap, low, insulting, puerile,
stupid, ugly, irritating, overblown, moronic, murky and "bloody awful". I
intend to repeat these words throughout this review.
The film is, like a lot of bad movies, a sea of
meaningless dialogue and uninteresting events, wasting its good actors. They
include Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Kevin Dunn and Hank Azaria, the last
of whom must be crazy: Why go out and make this trash if you could stay at
home with Helen Hunt, man?
Anyway, Broderick plays Niko Tatopoulos, a nuclear
scientist whose name nobody in "Godzilla" seems to know how to pronounce,
and few who like the film would have to intelligence to spell, even if they
had it in front of them. He's working in Chernobyl, where suddenly a huge
mutated lizard's footprint turns up. Without trace, this huge creature somehow
turns up in New York, USA, where we see -- ah! -- his eye is as big as a
building and his body filling the East River. I think the stupidity in the
logic of this remarkable travel arrangement speaks for itself, but I will
explicitly comment on Godzilla's size. If it matters so much, you'd think
that the filmmakers would give it some continuity. After the big old entrance
in the river, Godzilla switches, whenever it's convenient for the location,
to being wide as a street, wide as a door, etc, etc.
Anyway, the big bad boy goes on the rampage in
the Big Apple until, wouldn't you know it, he's stopped by Broderick and
chums.
As I may have hinted at, this is all handled with
deadly seriousness, making it incredibly depressing. Mr. Emmerich must be
very out of touch with reality to treat his dialogue with such solemnity,
but he does, and here are some samples of the quality of those words. Quoted
directly:
* "Where's it been for the past 60 million
years??"
* "I believe this is a mutated aberration... from
the fallout! A new species!"
* "He's a dog-crap puke chunk!"
* "You know that really bad feeling I get when
I feel really bad 'cause somethin' bad's gonna happen?"
Further proof that Messrs. Devlin and Emmerich
are out of touch? Well, for a start, they think that a home pregnancy test
costs $146. And let's not forget the contempt they show for critics. There
is a parody of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in the film which takes cheap
shots at the way they talk to each other and Roger's weight, obviously in
response to S&E's less than enthusiastic reviews of their previous films.
This makes me angry. Filmmakers, when they do bad work, should pay attention
when many critics penalise them for it, and try harder. But these guys, in
their own little world, lash out at intelligent journalists, with jokes that
are petty and pathetic, cheap, low, puerile, insulting, and simply unfunny.
Pay attention, you fools. Siskel and Ebert were only doing their jobs. They
became film critics because they love to see good movies, and praise them,
and they have criticised you because you produce cinematic
rubbish.
On that note, let me venture into an area that
few do when discussing the films of... oh, I'm sick of typing out their names
so many times. I shall nickname Devlin and Emmerich "The Child Bunch". Anyway,
I shall venture into the area of criticising the technical aspects of The
Child Bunch's films. Well, at least the cinematography. What seems to be
a muddy layer hangs over the films of The Child Bunch -- a murky mist, an
unintentional darkness. For me, this signifies that The Child Bunch care
little about the quality of their work, and have been cursed with talentless
streaks in so many areas, that even the look of their films is depressing
-- unlike, for example, the terrible-but-gorgeous "Lost in Space". Maybe
even God was disturbed by all the loud marketing hype drummed up by "Godzilla",
and couldn't help but make the sky frown on the production, a cynical attempt
to con innocent filmgoing children out of their money.
Abysmal, awful, appalling, dire, dreadful and
shocking are the kind of words I would describe "Godzilla" with. It is a
film which contains idiotic citizens, the kind of people who don't notice
a massive lizard outside their window, crushing everything at a high, disturbing
volume. The Child Bunch obviously hope that there are masses of people with
this level of intelligence, who are right outside cinemas worldwide, just
waiting to hand over their money see "Godzilla". I hope for the sake of the
world that they are wrong.
What a depressing film it is. After a string of
depressing events, some people say "Call of Christmas!" If films like "Godzilla"
were any less rare, and if they were worth the effort, many would be tempted
to say "Call off the Oscars!"
COPYRIGHT© 1998 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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