A retrospective by Forrest Humphrey
In the mid 90's, Toho was wrapping up their second run of Godzilla films, called the “Heisei” series. Am American producer, named Henry Saperstein, had been distributing Godzilla films to the US and acquired permission to pitch a Godzilla film to Hollywood, and after years of changing hands and development hell, we got this film in 1998. Made by the duo of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin for Tristar and starring Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno, Godzilla (1998) came out to negative reviews and a modest profit, but has since spent its time in relative infamy, scorned by the fanbase as a terrible adaptation of a beloved Japanese icon.
Im going to break from my usual pattern of going into more detail for the creation of Godzilla films, as I actually find the aftermath of Tristar's Godzilla to be more entertaining. But for those who want a nice, digestible look at how every freaking decision made for the film was the wrong one, I highly recommend a video called “Godzilla 1998-What Happened” by Youtuber Matt McMuscles. He's an even bigger fan than I am and does a wonderful job of digging into the film's production. But, for my part I will simply say that hiring people who didn't respect or even care about the franchise was not a good idea, to put it politely. The cast is also, well, miscast almost all around, with Jean Reno who is the only saving grace here. Now, I'm not saying Matthew Broderick is a bad actor, not at all, but I can't fathom why anyone thought he was the kind of leading man you want in your summer blockbuster action movie. Nor can I fathom why a huge chunk of the supporting cast is Simpsons alumni.
The plot couldn't be simpler. French nuclear testing mutates an iguana into a giant monster, which turns up in New York City and causes havoc. The military, assisted by Broderick as an expert on nuclear mutations and later the French Secret Service, spend the film trying to find and kill the monster. Later its discovered Godzilla has a nest, they blow the nest up and finally kill Godzilla. Boom, plot summarized. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. It didn't need to be much more to stand up as a summer movie one would later turn on Saturday night for some light fun. What is a problem is the film is aggressively to long, spent with a cast of utterly boring or outright unlikable people again, except for Jean Reno. Small aside though, I actually do think the score, composed by David Arnold, is quite nice. The main theme is foreboding and really gets you psyched up.
Now of course, we have to talk about the monster himself. Godzilla here was radically redesigned from a slow moving, nigh unkillable behemoth to a smaller, sleeker, faster creature. Aside from being big, reptilian, having spines on his back and a roar one can tell is meant to resemble the classic, you could almost get away with saying this is an entirely different monster and for many years, that was THE problem with the film as far as the fans were concerned. Nevermind the boring characters or simple plot or lack of any theme deeper than “nukes bad”, this monster was not Godzilla. He spent the entire movie fleeing the military, lacked the signature atomic breath and in the end, three jets and a dozen missiles killed him. Even people like me, who actually think the monster design is kinda cool and don't utterly hate the film, tend to agree this is a decent monster movie, but a terrible Godzilla movie.
Now though, we can talk about the slow redemption this monster has had in the last couple decades. For one thing, while the film did not make enough money to warrant a sequel, it did get an animated series right after simply titled “Godzilla: The Series.” In the final scene of the film its revealed a single egg survived and a baby Godzilla comes out. The series picks up right here, where Broderick's character finds the baby and the little guy imprints on him. Later on Godzilla Jr. Pops up fully grown and now treats Broderick's character like a foster dad. And so Nick (Broderick's character) assembles a team to study Godzilla and later on, deal with many other big nasty monsters that pop up. The series fixed everything wrong with the film: Godzilla had the design of the Tristar one and could burrow, but also was tougher, smarter, and actually had green atomic breath, and nearly every episode features him fighting another monster. Its like an entire movie in a nice 25-ish minute episode with some actually likable human characters, great art and honestly, I think its great and highly recommend it.
In 2004, Toho actually bought the rights to this monster, renamed him “Zilla” and had him fight the classic Godzilla in the film “Godzilla Final Wars”. The fight lasted less than 30 seconds and “Zilla” got steamrolled. But, thanks to this and a reference in an earlier film from 2001 (Where two soldiers comment that people thought Godzilla attacked New York but it wasn't actually him), Zilla was then entered into the franchise cannon as a separate monster. This allowed the 1998 film to get looked at in a new light. The film can now be looked at as a movie about a different monster set in the same universe as Godzilla, and as such, Zilla has now been much more warmly welcomed as its own distinct creature. The earlier animated series as well as the fact the monster showed up to much fanfare in the IDW Godzilla comics from a few years ago really helped show people didn't hate the actual creature, just that it was not Godzilla.
As for the film? Well, it might be treated as its own movie about a different monster, and that does soften many people's thoughts towards it. That doesn't, however, solve the other issues such as the poor pacing, unnecessary length, all around poor casting choices and well, its late 90's cgi, many monster scenes have not aged gracefully. Emmerich and Devlin never recovered from this either, every film they've made since has been a total flop and they've all but vanished. Hollywood was handed open of the most iconic monsters of all time and somehow screwed up almost everything in what should have been an easy movie to make. That being said, while I would never recommend going out of your way to see it, if you happen to see it on cable or just want something to watch on Netflix on a Friday night, its not the WORST thing ever. Do check out the animated series though, that needs more love.
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