Comments: plaidder@mindspring.com
The best thing that can be said about this movie is that it really makes you root for the monster. I don't mean that facetiously; I had a great time rooting for the monster. He's big. He's spiky. He breathes fire (although not as often as would be convenient for him). And he's smarter than they think. He swims, he jumps, he punches huge giant holes in major NYC landmarks. How can you not like him?
The effects on the monster are good, especially the long swishy tail, which sort of seems to have a mind of its own; he'd stomp along, and you'd think he was gone, and then that tail would just casually take out a row of office windows. And they do a good job of working around the "how is a monster that size going to sneak up on anyone" problem. He also moves a lot faster than previous incarnations. The sounds, from vocalization to stomping, are very convincing, and except when he's swimming, the monster really looks like it's living. It does resemble nothing so much as a really beefed-up and buff T. Rex, so we lose originality points, but hey, a lizard's a lizard.
There were also some welcome surprises with the minor characters. My favorite was O'Neill, the Army grunt in charge of organizing the actual assault on the monster. Played by Doug Savage, known to most of us as Matt the gay guy on *Melrose Place,* O'Neill is the opposite of your average Hollywood Army commando--underconfident, nervous, and almost overwhelmed by the amount of crap he's asked to cope with, but at the same time smart, competent, and brave. Early on in the Army's operation O'Neill discovers that the lizard is roaming the subway tunnels. His commanding officer tells him to "Block off all the tunnels!" O'Neill says "Yes sir!" and runs off; two seconds he comes back on and says, "Uh...how exactly do we do that, sir?" The C.O. basically says, "You figure it out!" and off he goes to figure it out. It was the kind of characterization you don't expect from a movie like this, which wouldn't normally think to pay attention to a character in his position. The other interesting development, which worked sometimes and sometimes didn't, was the introduction of Philippe, French secret service agent extraordinaire, and his team of crack French secret agents. Initially this seemed primarily like an excuse to make stupid jokes about French guys being frustrated with the badness of American coffee and the inadequacy of donuts as a substitute for croissants, but it ended up being something that pushed their characters over the edge into absurdism, which is where they needed to be. One of the only genuine laughs Broderick's character got was when Hank Azaria, as a cameraman hell-bent on getting the inside scoop, witnesses some especially sophisticated action-hero coup Philippe is pulling off, says, "Where the hell'd you find this guy?" and Broderick says, "He's from France."
Which brings me to the movie's weak points. I don't know where Matthew Broderick has spent the years between *Ferris Bueller* and the present day, but it wasn't in acting school. I was shocked and appalled at how *bad* he was. I remember him as being a good enough actor, sort of a more angsty and sensitive Tom Cruise. Alas, it turns out that he is merely the brunette version of Mark Hamill. Not that his character had a whole lot of psychological depth, but he appeared to be incapable of delivering *any* dialogue at all in anything approaching believable intonation. Even saying something like, "I have to go tell the general about this" he could make your hair stand on end, so stilted, strained and just plain wrong was his delivery. Bad as he is, however, his love interest is worse. Not in terms of acting--Maria Pitillo (I think that was her name) does a better job of getting into her character, such as it is. However, Audrey gives new meaning to the word "insipid." Her defining characteristic is that she's "too nice" either for New York or the broadcasting industry. Too nice--sure. Also too stupid, too wimpy, too sheeplike, too simpering, too prone to weeping and girly screams...it got so whenever she appeared I would start chanting "Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!" in hopes it would bring a big ol' lizard foot down on top of her. Among the other character mistakes are a lady paleontologist whose sole purpose appears to be to verify for the audience that Nick Tatopolous (Broderick's character) is in fact cute, which she does by saying, "I think you're cute" (Verbatim quote. No lie). Hank Azaria's character is also a stereotype--your average loudmouthed blue-collar Brooklynite--but is a lot more fun to watch, and along with Phillippe is responsible for most of hte laughs in the second half of the film. (Azaria and Harry Shearer, who plays the slimy anchorman of the network Audrey works for, both do voices for various minor characters on *The Simpsons.*)
And then there's the plot. We'll pass over the idea that nuclear radiation could create a giant lizard, which one must accept before one shells out money for a movie like this. However. One of the main plot twists involves the fact that the monster is "pregnant" (i.e., about to lay eggs). One must ask, then, why they persist in calling the monster a "he." On what are they basing this thing's presumptive masculinity? We get a crotch shot of him as he moves over Hank Azaria's character--I didn't see anything testicular. But mainly one must ask a) why Broderick's character tests for pregnancy in the first place, since he seems surprised by the positive result and b) why a pregnancy test designed for humans would work on a giant radioactive lizard. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but humans are mammals; this thing is either reptilian or amphibian. One of hte main things that separates mammals from the rest of the crowd is the way we reproduce. Are you telling me that Godzilla has progesterone, prolactin and follicle-stimulating hormone coursing through his cold-blooded veins? No wonder the Army was skeptical about the whole nest theory, if Tatopolous's only proof was a red line on an early pregnancy test kit.
There are other Godzilla-sized plot holes, but that's the biggest. Still, it's an enjoyable ride if you enjoy rooting for a lizard. I was very touched by Godzilla's relationship to its young, and impressed and delighted by the scale of hte havoc it was wreaking on Manhattan. I also enjoyed the small touches someone put in this film, like the little blinking electronic fish that marked the "fish trap" on the Army's surveillance readouts, and the French guys watching the dump trucks dumping the fish into the trap ("Tres bizarre, non?") on TV as if it's a scene from *Un Chien D'Andalou.* But if you go, be prepared to do a lot of teeth-gritting at a lot of bad plottin' and worse acting.
STOMP!
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