Godzilla

Godzilla. Roland Emmerich. 1998.

Oops. I thought this was a new Godzilla movie, but instead it’s a 4K version of the Emmerich extravaganza from 1998.

Well let’s see.

Emmerich made this on the heels of the mega-super-duper-success Independence Day, and… it’s another catastrophe movie where New York gets flattened. It’s weird how Emmerich has removed all the Japanese bits from the Godzilla phenomenon. I mean, that’s what people liked about the thing, but here it’s all Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria and er it doesn’t really work.

But I guess Broderick is a pretty good choice if you want to substitute one American actor for a gaggle of Japanese children.

And instead of Godjira being a warning to us, it’s an invasion (laying 200 eggs) that’s going to take over the world. It’s more like a Jurassic Park On Broadway than a Godzilla movie.

It’s very 90s. I mean, teens.

There’s so many scenes of guys in small rooms talking while looking at screens. I mean, the CGI is good. For its time, it’s excellent; I’m almost starting to wondering whether they’ve redone bits for this 4K version, but probably not. They’ve wisely rendered everything at night or under water, so you can’t see what it looks like, rally.

It’s just hard to care what happens here. I mean, we’re all rooting for Godjira, right?

It ends with a THERE”S DOING TO BE A SEQUEL ending, but there wasn’t. Because this is a pretty joyless version of the Godzilla concept.