Godzilla Roars Into Theaters
Can the King Reign Supreme?

As a young boy I considered myself a connoisseur of Japanese monster movies. One of the local television stations used them as a staple on its Saturday Afternoon Movie. I saw them all: Ghidorah, Mothra, Rodan, Gamera and -- of course -- the king of the monsters, Godzilla. So when I heard about a new Godzilla movie, I was skeptical. But skepticism turned into interest when I found out that Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (the creators of Independence Day) were attached to the project.

But in the aftermath of the special effect bonanza, the multi-million dollar question is, which is better? If you're like me, you have a place in your heart for the "man in a rubber suit" classic. Godzilla was never about great effects, or even a great story. It was about the image of Godzilla we know and love. Can this be better?

Devlin and Emmerich set out to make the quintessential monster movie with much the same spirit behind their "alien invasion to end all invasions" in Independence Day. With a screenplay written by both, and with Emmerich directing, the only thing which could keep Godzilla from becoming a box office behemoth would be a poor marketing campaign. Yeah, right...

Let's set the hype aside for a moment and get to the meat of the movie. The visuals at the start set the tone for a serious, if nostalgic, science fiction movie. Old stock footage of atomic bomb tests in the Pacific are overlapped with scenes of lizards, from iguanas to gila monsters. The mood is somber and there is no question regarding the impending implications of such atomic testing.

Soon reports begin to come in from all over. First a Japanese fishing boat in the South Pacific is hit by something, then a village in Panama. The only thing left in its wake is destruction and radiation. Soon the US Armed Forces (why they are involved is uncertain, but there you are) calls in a specialist in the field of nuclear mutations on biology. Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) is pulled from his field tests in Chernobyl to study some footprints in Panama, and the footprints are very large.

Before you know it, the big lizard makes it to the Big Apple. All hell breaks loose and the island of Manhattan is evacuated. The nasty monster has gone to ground somewhere in the giant corridors of Manhattan's skyscrapers, and the army once again enlists Nick's aide in finding the creature. When the monster reappears, a battle ensues that makes the Persian Gulf War look like a small police action.

Throw into the mix a budding reporter named Audrey (Maria Pitillo), who was (coincidentally) the one true-love of Nick's life. She uses forged press credentials to gain access to the New Jersey command headquarters, and persuades Nick to tell her everything he knows. When he runs out of his tent to check some lab results, she steals a tape of the sole surviving Japanese fisherman who claims to have seen "Gojira," a Japanese sea-monster. The tape makes it to the air, but the reporter who steals her story mispronounces it "Godzilla" and it becomes the creature's name. Of course, Audrey eventually redeems herself with the help of her friend and cameraman, Animal (Hank Azaria).

There is also a mysterious French man named Philippe Roache (Jean Reno) who has appeared on the scene of each of the incidents. He and his crew claim to be insurance adjusters, but the speed with which they are tracking the incidents suggest they have a larger stake in the situation than they admit.

It's not like you can make a bad remake of a movie when the original had a man in a rubber suit stomping on model scenery. There's nowhere to go but up. Still, modern special effects demand that any movie, even a remake of a silly sci-fi classic, needs to be state-of-the-art. The discriminating tastes of moviegoers today will not sit still for sloppy storytelling and bad special effects.

Not a problem. Godzilla uses the latest computer graphics to render the king of the monsters and his rampage through New York. While some of the aerial fight scenes appear less spectacular, the fluidity of Godzilla's motion is more than enough to make up for it. My one complaint lay in the fact that this incarnation of the beast does not have atomic fire. While he appears to breath fire once or twice, it is unclear if he is doing it or if he has bitten into something and exploded it. My thought on the subject is that without atomic ray blasts, this Godzilla is just another really big dinosaur.

And this is where the true Godzilla fans must make a decision. While the new Godzilla is neither better nor worse, it is different. The story, while absolutely laughable in its absurdity, is no worse than the original Japanese films we have come to know and love. When you get right down to it, it's like New Coke all over again. Did we hate New Coke because it tasted bad, or only because it wasn't the Classic Coca-Cola we had grown to love?

As the most hyped movie of the summer (with a marketing blitz which began LAST summer), this movie must battle the greatest monster of all: its own anticipation. Such overkill causes moviegoers to want more, expect more, and demand more in any movie they see. As a result, word of mouth is often a cautious recommendation.

So it is with Godzilla.

MY RATING: 5 out of 10.

RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 140 min.