Godzilla comeback after big-screen hibernation

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): By stomping its gigantic feet all over New York, Godzilla, the king of monsters, has made a comeback to the big screen after being in hiding for over 10 years.

Why New York? There's no clue at all, but one thing is obvious in Godzilla: the green reptile wants to destroy the city.

Just see, its enormous tail smashes most buildings along the Wall Street, boutiques along Fifth Avenue, the Chrysler building, Central Park and Madison Square Gardens to pieces. It also beats the U.S. army, sinks a submarine and trashes helicopters.

Great special-effects have been used to bring the gigantic creature back, thanks to computer wizardry. And the storyline remains true to its mythology: the giant reptile is a mutant byproduct of nuclear radiation.

As soon as the opening credits are flashed, one sees iguanas looking on impassively when in the sky, a mushroom cloud rises over an atoll, causing a blinding light.

The nuclear radiation works like a megavitamin and soon Godzilla is tramping around, leaving gigantic footprints all over the globe. Tiring, the creature then decides to take a swim in the open seas, only to trash a Japanese cargo ship and then drag U.S. fishing boats to the bottom of the deep sea.

It's a good scene, but there is no suspense or thrills, not even surprise.

Further into the movie it turns out that Godzilla is neither a he or a she. As the only member of its species to survive a nuclear test, Godzilla must assume male and female reproductive functions to maintain the bloodline. Godzilla is a hermaphrodite.

But why does it have to travel all the way to New York to lay hundreds of eggs?

Director Roland Emmerich and producer by Dean Devlin, who teamed up for blockbusters Independence Day and Stargate, give no answer to that.

For the first half hour of the film, the characters are introduced, including biologist Niko "Worm Man" Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick), who studied mutant worms in Chernobyl, and his ex-college sweetheart Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo), who is now an ambitious TV news assistant looking for her big chance on the tube.

Broderick (Addicted to Love, The Cable Guy) is good, but it is Jean Reno (Mission Impossible), who steals the show as French secret agent Phillipe Roache.

Whatever humor the film attempts, it works best with Reno, who is not only in search of the creature and a decent cup of French roasted coffee in New York, but he also imitates Elvis and chews gum when impersonating an American soldier.

Compared to previous Godzilla movies, the first of which was produced in 1954 by Japanese producer Tomoyuki Tanaka nine years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Emmerich's Godzilla is relatively fantastic when compared to its old version, thanks to the US$120 million poured in to produce the movie.

But the director is not generous enough in letting viewers completely admire his new creation.

Unlike Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park and its sequel, which allowed moviegoers to have a real look at his creatures by shooting them in broad daylight, Emmerich only shot his at night.

And surely the movie would be more thrilling and suspenseful if Godzilla was not shot mostly from waist down, like when it steps on cars or smashes buildings with its tail.

And size does matter.

It's hard to digest how a creature, often taller than New York's skyscrapers, even as high as the Chrysler building, is later able to fit into a subway tunnel. Is it possible for Godzilla to adjust its size? Size does not matter, but if it keeps changing, that really matters.

It is true that no matter what size it is, Godzilla is still an animal that will not bother anyone unless it is disturbed, just as when Godzilla comes face-to-face with Nick for the first time. Well, not actually face-to face, perhaps more like breath- to-breath.

The highlight of the movie comes when all those eggs laid at Madison Square Gardens hatch and hundreds of green reptiles -- looking very much like Spielberg's raptors, all of them, are pregnant and starving, rearing to get out of the square. It's true that they only eat fish, but who can be sure?

Many moviegoers may eat it up anyway. No questions asked.

But since technology is more advanced these days, not to mention the many creature movies available, there is no harm in expecting more fun, more thrills, more suspense and a few more surprises.