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So reads an ad for Godzilla currently adorning our public transport. You can't help but smile. It captures the precise mood -- cinema as media event. Exactly the type of exploitative irony you'd expect to roll by in the film itself, audaciously celebrating the smirky cachet that this latest bit of motion picture hucksterism epitomises.
For this Godzilla is a frivolous reflection of its times, a buff, full-figured monster for the '90s. But don't count on him to truly scare you unless you're under 10. While stylishly hi-tech, expectedly cutting edge and requisitely awesome, this politically correct Godzilla can't commit to total terrorisation. Victims are bloodless and nameless. Attempting to be all things to all people, the chic behemoth is only missing a GAP tag on its tail.
The gauzy opening sequences pay minor homage to the creature's 1956 roots. Strange doings around French Polynesia remind that one too many nuclear tests was conducted there. Humanity has tampered, and will be punished for its folly. Switch to a Japanese fishing trawler. Music director David Arnold unleashes his first volley of horror movie music -- too loud, too momentous, but comfortingly hokey.
There will be no shocking surprises.
This is unlike my first experience with Godzilla, long before Toho sold the rights to Sony, when I hid under my seat. Sure, he's big. But I'm big now, too. I actually want to see the monstrosity.
Next scene: a lone survivor of the ship lies in a hospital bed, staring in space, blank horror in his eyes. "Gojira", the shell-shocked victim utters, "Gojira." Huh? What's he talking about, Gojira? And what if they did understand that he was saying Godzilla? No one in this film knows who or what Godzilla is -- yet. (We want the monster!)
Then comes the traditional gathering of experts and warrior types as director Roland Emmerich, working from a script he co-wrote with Dean Devlin, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, begins to set the stage for his enfant terrible. These introductions are poured pell-mell to the dramatically synthetic backdrop of hurrying helicopters and scurrying government types. Everyone's excited about something, though the audience still isn't in on the deal. (We want the monster!)
Switch to Chernobyl, the Ukraine. Nerd biologist Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) merrily chants Singing In The Rain while studying indigenous worms that have grown larger as a result of the nuclear accident. Of course, the guv'mint types are going to need him for their little project. So they confiscate the good doctor and bring him to the Big Apple, where Godzilla will eventually make his grand entrance. There Broderick's lacklustre lead human joins fellow monster maven Dr. Elsie Chapman (Vicki Lewis), a palaeontologist who only accepts the biologist because he's cute, and gung ho Colonel Hicks (elicited with just the right tongue-in-cheek sobriety by Kevin Dunn) representing the military point of view. But no full shot of Godzilla yet. (We want the monster!)
At command central the team is immediately beleaguered by hypercritical Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner), a painfully portrayed buffoon whose sycophantic aide just so happens to be a balding guy named Gene (Get it? As in film critics Siskel and Ebert? But why?). With the stereotypes in place, the rain of terror can begin, you would think. But not before introducing yet a few more perfunctory players. After all, what self-respecting horror movie is without a whole set of superficial characters working out an innocuous soap opera that seems entirely disassociated from the dastardly doings? Not this one. (We want the monster!)
Playing the gal that left Dr. Nick behind is Maria Pitillo as ambitious Audrey, wannabe TV reporter who's being harassed by her smarmy boss (Harry Shearer). Hmm, if only she knew someone on the inside track of this Godzilla thing. Trying to find the acting groove in a horror picture overstuffed with hype and special effects is an art unto itself -- akin to hitting a moving target. Unsure where to aim her emphasis, Miss Pitillo's performance is ineffectual, even by schlock movie standards.
Then there's Victor "The Animal" Palotti, the dauntless news cameraman played by Hank Azaria, who, for some reason or another, must have chosen Leo Gorcey's Muggs McGinnis (The Bowery Boy) as the inspiration for his curious salute to the blue collar hero. Thankfully rounding out the cast, and stealing the movie from Broderick when he's not looking, which is often, is Jean Reno (The Professional) as the mysterious Frenchman, Phillipe Roache; he says he's an insurance man. Wink, wink.
Alas, with the players finally in place, the fashionably late Godzilla enters stage right. Up until this point the viewer has only been teased with a thundering stomp of a foot or an inadvertently damaging swish of a tail. And now, here he is, looking every bit like a blown-up, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade version of the tyrannosaurus rex from Jurassic Park. But, not bad, actually. Not bad at all.
Whether the title behemoth got this big through nuclear radiation or by stumbling over an open bottle of Viagra, there's no denying the sheer grandiosity of its presence. And once the rampage begins in full earnest, much of it is exciting. Especially when the Godzilla hunters learn their pal has deposited eggs (yup, coming out of the closet and outdoing Ellen, the hermaphroditic protagonist is both he and she) somewhere in Manhattan; they have to find and destroy the baby Godzillas before they hatch. Don't miss the taxi chase scene -- delightful shades of Jonah and the whale. It's this sort of brazen whimsy that saves the film from predominantly mediocre acting and a plot that seems to lose its place every few scenes. Well, at least the voices are in synch this go-round.
This time I don't hide under my seat, so it can't be that fearsome. The six-year-old girl in front of me buries her face in Daddy's chest during Godzilla's scarier parts. What a baby.
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