It falls to Nick Tatopolous (Matthew Broderick), a biologist, to figure out what is going on.
Will he save the city? Will he save the audience?
After the Harryhausen reviews, I was keen to check out more monster movies. Since Godzilla v Kong is coming out soon, and this movie was on Netflix, I used up two hours of my life on this.
I remember the run-up to the release of this movie. According to Tom Shone's book Blockbuster, it was a bigger deal than the movie, which makes sense. I did not watch Godzilla '98 in theatres - I caught it when it came out on video and I do not remember it keeping my attention.
If someone asked me what the 90s felt like to me, the tone of this movie fits perfectly - that post-Cold War, Clintonian third way post-politics feels like a dream now, but you can get a strong whiff of what it felt like from the big blockbusters of the time - movies like Emmerich's epitomise the ridiculous sense of optimism and the fixation with apocalyptic imagery that defined the big box office hits of the late 90s. Part of it is genre (particularly the escalation of the post-Die Hard action movie) and the other is technical advances in visual effects.
The disaster movies of the seventies reflected that era's growing sense of disenchantment after the end of the sixties, and the sense of national decline from events such as the oil crisis, the economic downturn and growing awareness of environmental devastation. The disaster movies of the nineties (Volcano, Twister, Deep Impact, Armageddon) feel more like a portent of incoming disaster - the disaster movies of the nineties feel more obsessed with upending this image of 'peace and prosperity' that defines the decade. There is a bit of armchair analysis to this but watching movies like Godzilla '98 really highlights how omnipresent these fantasies were.
What is striking about Godzilla '98 is the tone. Post-9/11, it is impossible to think a movie could get away with the comic frivolity of Emmerich's film. When the lizard is offscreen, characters are far too cavalier and comedic - it is a familiar trope of Emmerich-Devlin joints, and it really detracts from any sense of dread.
A city is dealing with a massive disaster, yet everyone is acting like they are in a sitcom - the most obvious example is Harry Shearer, who is playing an odious newscaster who has the same voice as Kent Brockman from The Simpsons; his Simpsons co-star Hank Azaria is playing an Italian American stereotype who feels like he walked out of a MadTV sketch.
The movie is also filled with in-jokes - the biggest one is that the Mayor is called Ebert and his assistant is named Gene. It is a lame dig at critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, who famously gave Independence Day a bad review on their TV show At The Movies.
The action scenes might as well be out of a comedy - Godzilla is the biggest thing in all creation, yet every time the military fire a missile at him, he ducks and dives through city streets with little issue. Considering how cynical the presentation this could be a critique of American militarism, but I doubt it - this is a movie where we reintroduced to the main character driving past a sign post labeled 'Chernobyl' followed by a chyron IN THE NEXT SHOT stating that the action is taking place in Chernobyl.
The movie is a horribly stereotypical example of lowest common denominator story-telling - the Japanese sailers are introduced eating noodles and watching sumo wrestling; Jean Reno complains about New York coffee and lack of croissants; Godzilla conveniently appears and disappears at will. Characters are stupid and smart on a scene-by-scene basis, and everyone has to talk like they're delivering one-liners for the trailer.
"We're gonna need bigger guns."
"Running would be a good idea."
This is spoken while the passenger is in a car being digested by Godzilla: "Wrong way man! Wrong way!"
In a lamer in-joke, the Mayor's assistant Gene gives Mayor Ebert the thumbs down. Ugh.
The funniest thing about Godzilla '98 is how it feels like the inverse of the 2014 version of Godzilla - whereas that movie is relentlessly dour, this movie treats everything as a joke - there is even a soldier who speaks with a stutter because the filmmakers think it is funny (said stutter goes away when he starts ordering people to shoot at Godzilla).
What compounds the tonal problems is how uncommitted the lead performers are. In the lead role, Matthew Broderick seems disassociated from the other actors; his line-readings never change, even as the monster rages throughout the city. He is matched by Maria Pitillo as his love interest, Audrey - in the Madison Square Garden sequence, their collective lack of fear completely derails what little tension the scene could have. The one performer with any sense of gravitas of Jean Reno, and that might just be unintentional because Jean Reno is inherently charismatic. This movie highlights how important Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith are to the success of Independence Day - this movie has no performers to give it some heft.
The disinterested performances feel like a commentary on the visual effects: While there are some impressive sets and practical effects, most of the visual spectacle in this movie is rendered via CGI - this is fine for the long shots, particularly during the many rainy night scenes, but most of the compositing is rough and the close-ups of Godzilla's eyes and face show their age. Godzilla '98 is a good example of over-using CGI - even the Japanese shipwreck is CG and looks like a cut scene out of a video game.
Roland Emmerich has never been a great filmmaker, but up to Independence Day, he showed some sense of dramatic sense when it came to building atmosphere and knew how to shoot his big effects practically. Once he began using computer-generated effects, what little skill he displayed went out the window.
This becomes really obvious in the set piece in Madison Square Garden - our heroes discover the Godzilla has created a massive nest for its offspring. When the baby Godzillas start hatching, I completely checked out. The scene is such a blatant rip off of Jurassic Park, but feels more like Jurassic World. The lizards are mostly CG and Emmerich shoots them in wides with too much light, which only reinforces how intangible they are - the scene would have been improved if Emmerich had been more specific in ripping off Jurassic Park, and used more practical creatures, with more use of chiaroscuro and use of offscreen space.
The movie is over two hours long and by the time the nest is destroyed, it feels like the movie should be over - not because it is a satisfying resolution but because whatever dramatic gas the movie had has dispelled a LONG time ago. Instead of ending, we get the slasher cliche of the villain coming back from the dead - Godzilla rises from beneath the ruins for a final showdown.
After 90 minutes of wise-cracks, the death of the baby Godzillas is the one time the movie tries to aim for pathos. After Godzilla emerges from beneath the ruin of the Garden, it mourns the death of its offspring, and nudges at the corpses of its young with its nose. It is a complete unearned moment, and would have worked if Godzilla's design was capable of showing emotion but no. It is even worse at the climax when Godzilla lies dying and our heroes watch mournfully as its beady digital eyes close. You really miss the guy in the rubber suit in these moments.
It is weird that the film chooses to dwell on these sequences because we do not get any attempt of humanity from the people of New York - for an ostensible disaster movie, Godzilla '98 does not even boast the montages of people reacting to the lizard's destruction. There are a few moments early on but then the city is just an empty playground. Even Independence Day did a better job at this.
Comparing Godzilla '98 with Independence Day is a good case study for how the rise of CG in the late 90s affected filmmakers' styles. Independence Day is a bad movie, but there is a craftsmanship to some of the set piece moments that still pack punch - like Air Force One's escape from the alien's initial blast. There are no comparable moments like that in Godzilla '98.
What is so damning about this movie is summed up by a scene that never appeared in the movie. A year before the movie came out, Sony released a specially-shot teaser trailer to come in front of Men in Black. It is a pretty simple sequence - a group of kids check out a dinosaur exhibit during a thunder storm. As the tour progresses, the sound of booming footsteps grow louder and louder until a massive foot crashes through the ceiling and crushes a T-Rex skeleton (a clear dig aimed at that summer's The Lost World: Jurassic Park). We get the familiar roar and the tagline 'Guess who's coming to town'. This scene - which is not in the movie - manages to be more suspenseful and iconic than any scene in the movie it is teasing.
How embarrassing.
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