French nuclear tests irradiate an iguana into a giant monster that heads off to New York City. The American military must chase the monster across the city to stop it before it reproduces.
I remember the teaser trailer for “Godzilla” in 1998; a group of high schoolers is visiting the Natural History Museum in New York City, where their teacher is giving them a history lesson about the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. They are told that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was one of the largest and most ferocious dinosaurs of its time. As they view a life-like T-Rex display, the ground begins to rumble when suddenly Godzilla’s foot stomps through the glass ceiling and squashes the T-Rex into the ground, followed by the tagline, “Guess Who’s Coming To Town?” To this day, it remains one of the best teaser trailers ever made, as it gives nothing away about the movie but, at the same time, lets you know what you’re in for. It’s just a pity the film didn’t deliver on the excitement and anticipation the trailer promised.
Dr. Niko “Nick” Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), an NRC scientist, is asked by the military to assist them when they discover a creature of enormous size attacked a large Japanese cannery vessel. As Nick inspects the damage, he learns that another large shipping vessel was attacked in Panama. Shortly after, the creature is spotted in New York City. Nick, having taken some blood samples the creature left behind, informs the military that the creature is actually a giant iguana that was exposed to the fallout of a military nuclear test in French Polynesia years earlier and not a prehistoric dinosaur that some people were speculating. As the creature runs rampant throughout the city, Nick and the military must formulate a plan to neutralize it before there is nothing left of New York.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gareth Edwards’ 2014 “Godzilla,” its 2019 sequel “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” and its 2021 follow-up, “Godzilla vs. Kong.” If director Roland Emmerich had produced his 1998 film along these lines, I feel it could have been a huge box-office smash, but one element of his movie that always bothered me was the fact that the creature was basically in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t deliberately terrorizing New York City; it just happened to grow to its gargantuan size because of the military’s nuclear tests. I felt sorry for the creature, but the gung-ho military just want to tear it to shreds, so halfway through the film, I found myself rooting for the creature, hoping he would stomp on the military for turning him into what he had become. Not exactly the reaction I’m sure Emmerich was hoping for.
Matthew Broderick is not an action star, plain and simple. He is better suited to dramas and comedies or partaking in an action movie with a large ensemble cast where he is not the main protagonist. Here, he is painfully miscast, and his co-star Maria Pitillo, who plays his love interest, Audrey Timmonds, is just as unconvincing as him. They have absolutely zero chemistry, and while the rest of the cast, including Jean Reno, Hank Azaria, Michael Lerner, and Harry Shearer, do well in their respective roles, Broderick and Pitillo are just mind-numbingly boring. They add nothing to the story, and if Emmerich had replaced them with matchstick characters, they would have been more interesting. The CGI and visuals were unsurpassed for its time, but they are starting to show their age. While Emmerich would rebound with the highly enjoyable “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012,” “Godzilla” pretty much sunk back into the ocean where it belonged, only to be overshadowed by its big-screen counterpart in 2014, with director Gareth Evans showing us how to make a proper Godzilla movie.
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