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D+ |
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N/A |
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N/A |
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N/A |
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N/A |
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Size DOESN'T matter
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Jun 28, 2008
14
of
24 people found this review helpful
The quest for a "Godzilla" movie that we can all respect in the morning will just have to go on. In this 1998 incarnation, the nuclear morality metaphor attacks New York City -- and kicks some Knickerbocker butt. But, who cares, already? This city has been overrun by tidal waves from an asteroid collision (ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT, 1998); pounded by the artillery of a colossal, alien mother ship (INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1996); been an interplanetary battlefield between giant spider-like creatures and the MEN IN BLACK (1997) defending the planet, and it has met countless other disastrous, big-screen demises. And, in movies superior to this flick.
This film's theatrical slogan said it all: "Size Does Matter." Yeah, but in film making, so does a script. Size is about all that GODZILLA has. The writing in Godzilla is abysmally bad, even considering the genre (A sample: "You may be the wrong man for the job, but I think you are cute"). Films like the ALIEN and TERMINATOR pictures have shown us that a sci-fi/action movie does not have to entirely forsake character and plot in order to deliver their special effects razzle-dazzle. But, GODZILLA starves its script of these needed nutrients, even as it devotes extended segments of its two-and-a-half hour length to stalling between the sparsely-placed monster sightings (all of which seem to add up to a minor fragment of the movie).
The digital effects sequences are weak. A lot of the digital animation chase scenes featuring GODZILLA and military fighter choppers along the labyrinth-like urban canyons of Manhattan are no better than some of the video-games you can get on CD-ROM, nowadays. One last, fatal complaint: No memorable shots, whatsoever. In a movie that desperately depends on visuals, there is not even one clear shot of its star attraction. GODZILLA is always seen in segments -- a tail, here; an eye, there. Audiences will feel teased and unsatisfied. The most-often-recurring shot of Godzilla in this movie: his feet.
GODZILLA is good evidence of how digital effects can suck the soul of out cinema. We have two concurrent strains: one was shot with live humans, and one was typed into computer keyboards at places such as Question Mark FX, Centropolis Effects, Mechanical Effects Warehouse, and Patrick Tatopoulos Design. It looks as if the fact that the lead character (Matthew Broderick) was also named Tatopoulos is the extent to which one element (e.g., the special effects) was related to the other (the live action). Too many of the special effects shots (especially those chopper chases) do not contain any live action components; and too many of the live action shots do not contain any special effects. The result is as cheesy as the Raymond Burr inserts in the American release of the original, Japanese film (GOJIRA, 1954).
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