This movie also reminded us why we hated the recent 1998 Godzilla update starring Matthew Broderick. The American remake tried to explain everything. Godzilla was an evolved iguana and looked like one. It had no personality. Then there were the scientific explanations that tried to rationalize an already silly premise. Missiles didn't work because they couldn't find a good heat source to hit. The monster was trying to reproduce and could because it was a hermaphrodite. And so on. Sure, the actors in the American version spoke in English that matched their lips and had lines that sounded plausible but who cares. It was a bad remake that was terribly stupid, had mediocre special effects (including the laughable changes in Godzilla's size), and lacked all the charm and, dare we say, class of the original. Godzilla, in his own monstrous fashion, is a Japanese hero. Sure, he's a walking natural disaster that causes billions of dollars of damage to Japan. But without Godzilla, the Earth would have been destroyed or conquered by The Smog Monster, the 3-headed Ghidira, Mechagodzilla, numerous space aliens, or Bambi. It's a darn good thing for humanity that we accidentally created a giant, radioactive, fire-breathing monster with a fetish for large power sources.
In the official Toho version, we have Japanese actors doing their best to look serious and concerned against the backdrop of a burning city while fellow actors in rubber suits duke it out. We have ineffective human technology being applied with diligence. The Godzilla suit has been updated and looks cooler than ever. Where appropriate, the scenes were enhanced with computer graphics but the old models of tanks, helicopters, and planes that were exploded or swatted out of existence are still there. This movie also had a lot of fun bits. There's the Mobile Godzilla Detection unit - implying that there are lots of people who do nothing but drive around tracking Godzilla. There's the CCI - whose job seems to be to respond to monster-related activities and to be very ineffective but professional. The pseudoscience is rather silly. Remember the original Godzilla movie gave us the Oxygen Destroyer. Here, the plot centers around Regenerator - G1, which is basically a green goo that allows Godzilla to regenerate. We have the good Good guy, the evil Good guy, the Good monster, the Evil monster, and no love interest, because the Japanese know that the point of the movie is the fight between the monsters, not the relationship between the people. In addition to all this, the movie delivers the greatest ending line in the history of film, delivered as Godzilla merrily stomps out more of the city on the way back to the ocean. Let me tell you, Casablanca has nothing on this.
If you are a fan of Godzilla or have never seen a Godzilla movie in your life, you must go see this one. And hurry, before it leaves the theaters. We give it a 2 out of 10 on the Good Movie scale and a 9 out of 10 on the Bad Movie Scale.
Our Drive-In Totals:
2 *big* dead bodies
0 breasts
10 unbreakable cables
1 unbelievable elevator cable escape
1 ironic awakening
1 monster giving head
2 Devlin & Emmerich homages
4 great one-liners
1 Moral Superiority of Scientists soliloquy
Ridiculous scientific discovery naming
Gratuitous Japanese cursing
Tokyo Stomping
The shortest, most decisive hand-to-hand (er, claw) fight ever seen
on screen (this happens at the end of the movie)
Kung Fu (Dragon Style I believe)
Missile Fu
Flash Fu
Tank Fu
Bomb Fu
Breath Fu
Beam Weapon Fu
Foot Fu
Claw Fu
Teeth Fu
Tail Fu
Lip-synch Fu (you'll die laughing)
Good Movie Scale: 2 out of 10
Bad Movie Scale: 9 out of 10
