It's time got one of Steve's movie reviews! Today, I shall be reviewing a high tech 90's remake of the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. AKA: "Godzilla", or, informally, "GINO", (Godzilla In Name Only).


Synopsis:

...Y'know, I *really* don't feel like writing a synopsis for this thing, so I'm just gonna be quick and to-the-point so I can get to the review.

The movie begins with a montauge of lizards sunning themselves on rocks watching nuclear explosions going off in the background. A lizard's nest, (specifically, the nest of a Green Iguana, not a Komodo Dragon or a Sea Iguana as many people mistake it for), gets irradiated by the fallout from the explosions...

Fast foreword years later, stuff happens... something MYSTERIOUS sinks a ship, makes big footprints, drags some fishing boats underwater, etc. Blabity blah, a scientist and military investigation and stuff.

Umm... some more characters are introduced here. Very boring, unlikable ones. I kinda gapped out here for a bit.

A monster appears and goes for a stroll through New York. It steps on some cars, drops lots of boats onto the ground and somehow disappears without a trace. They get the idea to lure the creature out into the open with some fish so they can blast it, as this creature is apparently an icthyovore.

They lure GINO out of hiding with the fish, and then there's a helecopter chase scene that makes my head hurt with its sheer contrivance, (why don't they fly ABOVE the buildings!?!!)*. Then there's some exposition about GINO being asexual (forever corrupting the meaning of "asexual" in the public eye and aggrivating asexual men and women the world over,) they fight GINO in the East River and think they killed him. Then they discover that the hermaphrodite lizard has layed a bunch of eggs in Madison Square Garden.

They infiltrate the ruins of Madison Square Garden, and there's a scene with a bunch of baby GINOs that's kinda alot like the Raptors-in-the-Kitchen scene in Jurassic Park, (only without any of the... y'know, suspense and all that), and they blow it up and kill the baby GINOs. Unfortunately, the Adult GINO is still alive and angry that its brood has been killed, and chases after the heros while they make their escape in the world's fastest, most indestructable taxi cab. After a chase scene with even more gaps in logic then the Helecopter scene, they manage to lure Godzilla out onto the Brooklyn Bridge and entangle it in the suspension cables. (How one could do so without causing the bridge to collapse or why GINO doesn't just rip through those puny cables is beyond me.) Some jets come, they fire some missiles at GINO, and he dies. Everybody celebrates and stuff.

Meanwhile, in the ruins of Madison Square Garden, buried in rubble, is a single remaining egg. A baby GINO hatches out, setting up a sequel that will never, ever happen. (Or, to be optomistic, setting up an animated series that is superior to the movie in every concievable way.) Thank god the synopsis is over, now I get to rant!

Review:

So, nearly 10 years after the fact, what did I think of the 1998 re-make of Godzilla? Well, before that, let's take a trip back in time to that fateful year...

I saw GINO at the drive-in with my mom and my sister. Even back then, as a child who knew comparatively little about Godzilla, I didn't like GINO, and the reason was as follows: I *knew* that Godzilla isn't supposed to be able to die. He's the King of the Monsters! He never loses to the puny humans! That's what made Godzilla special, that's what made him different from all the other movie monsters. I never liked it when the monster in the monster movie dies at the end, but Godzilla was an exception. He wasn't some brainless animal who causes trouble and gets killed the end of the movie, Godzilla was a *character*. Seeing Godzilla getting slain by mere missiles contradicted what the innocent 9 year old Steve knew about the Monster King.

That's what I thought about GINO then, and now, having seen nearly every Godzilla movie made and growing to adore them, fully enlightened to what Godzilla is *supposed* to be all about, my opinion hasn't changed much since then. I won't rant about GINO's nonsensical story, its gaps in logic, its laughable science, its inaccurate portrayal of the so-called-military and its detestable characters. Honestly, normal Godzilla movies aren't that much better in that regard. If you want a Godzilla movie with a brain, the 1954 original is your only option. No, what pisses me off about GINO was how the character of Godzilla himself was handled. The sheer disrespect for Godzilla in this movie really disgusted me then and it disgusts me now.

It's not the use of CGI that turned me off. CGI characters can be expressive and have heart and warmth; one only needs to look at Gollum from Lord of the Rings, or Peter Jackson's King Kong as an example. (Now there's an idea! Let's try motion-capture technology on a guy in a rubber Godzilla suit! Okay, digressing...) It's not even really GINO's design that turns me off; it's not worthy of Godzilla, but as a monster, GINO's pretty cool looking, his Shere Khan chin aside.

No, what bothered me about GINO was how they took the "God" out of "Godzilla" and turned the King of the Monsters into what amounts to a giant Velociraptor with dorsal fins. GINO fights no other monsters, he doesn't wreck much stuff, he doesn't shrug off puny human weapons, he doesn't regenerate indefinately or have atomic breath. GINO isn't pissed off at the world around him, he isn't a villanous, vegeful allegory for the horror of nuclear destruction, he isn't an apathetic force of nature, he isn't even a goofy superhero who does sliding dropkicks on his tail or the Jumping Shie! No, GINO is just another big animal on the loose, and not even a very vicious one at that. He wanders around like a big unchained dog, squishing some cars under his feet but inflicting little property damage other then the tip of his tail accidentally cutting through buildings as he turns a corner. GINO borrows, and lays eggs, neither of which Godzilla has ever done. GINO is very much succeptable to conventional firearms, running away when being shot at (rather then running *towards* the puny humans and trampling them). He has no means of fighting back; he has no atomic breath, only stinky fish breath that can ignite when sparked, his hyde isn't particularly strong and he has no ability to regenerate. 90% of the destruction in the movie isn't inflicted by Godzilla himself, it's inflicted by the military's friendly fire. The ONLY thing GINO has in common with the true King of the Monsters is the roar. The roar still sounds the same, but prettymuch everything else bout the creature has been changed. Hell, the Tyrannosaurus Rex in "Jurassic Park: The Lost World" acted more like Godzilla! It was *aggressive*, at the very least!

Dean Develin and Roland Emmerich's excuse for these changes is that "it's more realistic". But y'know what? GINO is a *far* more implausable creature then Godzilla, both in terms of physiology and its origin. It's utterly rediculous that a monster like GINO could mutate from an Iguana. Its limbs are nothing like an Iguana's, Iguanas eat PLANTS, not fish, etc. GINO's shape simply doesn't *work* for an animal of that size; it's got big long, gangly, multi-jointed limbs, it's too front heavy, etc. A creature that size needs big, straight, column-like limbs with big padded feet to absorb its footfalls... kinda like the legs Godzilla has. They set out to make a creature more "realistic" then Godzilla, and fell flat on their faces. They could've easily came up with some pseudoscience to explain the atomic breath and the regeneration; for example, some reptiles can regenerate their tails- Godzilla's reganeration could be an expansion upon that ability. OR! Better yet... they could've simply *not* explained it at all! It's a GIANT MONSTER for ferks sakes! People aren't gonna care if it breathes fire. It's a little something called "suspension of disbelief". Trying to explain something like Godzilla is an excersise in futility. People aren't gonna go to a Godzilla movie expecting something plausable to happen. I don't see anybody whining about implausable superhero origins!

Still, I may be a bit too harsh on the film. As a monster movie, GINO was okay. But it doesn't deserve to call itself "Godzilla," as it has so very little in common with its source material and feels more like a normal giant-critter movie with fancy effects; chicken and mashed potatoes served on a silver platter with golden utensils. Call it "Iguanitar" or "Megalizard" or something, not Godzilla. It felt more like they were trying to sell a new monster and using name recognition as a cheap marketing ploy... but I digress. Some good did come out of GINO. We got some cute Taco Bell commercials, and the GINO animated series took the GINO design, gave it back the atomic breath, durability and aggression, and let the creature fight other giant monsters, which was cool. Many an homage to the old Godzilla movies was inserted into the GINO animated series, and unlike the movie, was respectful to its source material.

Best of all, however, GINO gave us the Millenium series; has GINO not failed so utterly as it did, Toho wouldn't have brought back Godzilla until 2004! But instead, it flopped, it's two planned sequals were never made and we got six new Godilla movies, three of which, (Godzilla 2000, Godzilla vs Megaguirus and Godzilla: Final Wars), rank as some of my all-time favourite Godzilla movies.

Overall, as a Godzilla movie, I give GINO a crap-tacular 3 out of 10. As a Monster Movie, I give it a passable 5 out of 10. If you want to see GINO at his best, skip the movie and just watch the cartoon.





* For extra happy fun on the WTF-inducing Helecopter chase sequence, enjoy this AIM conversation between me and my buddy Rick on the subject. (Screenames have been changed with respect to our privacy. Fear his dyslexic techno-jargon!)

Rick: That scene is sooooooo dodgy to a MilTech geek like me
Rick: for starterts, Sidewiders are air to air weapons. Their seeker heads are attuned to eliminate gound-bound objets, to stop them form targeting htings ike the desert floor,. Tghey're designed to pick a hot target (ie, a jet) Out of hte cool sky
Rick: However, that Apache was also carrying eight Hellfire ATGWs. Now those are laser guided and htus do not requoire a "hot" target
Rick: All they need is to keep oyu pinting the laser designater aotre the atget
Steve: Duhhhrrrrr. Well, that's pretty ferkin' stupid. They *easily* coulda dispatched GINO, then...
Rick: Yeah. Now a Helfirte is designed to mash tank armour. Given that GinO fell to a pair of Maverick AGMs, eight Hellfires would have made salsa out of him
Steve: Hehehee...
Rick: Given the hellfire's dual-charge wahread, they would have ramemd htrough is skin and blown his gizzards out
Rick: BUT it gets better
Steve: Oh?
Rick: The Apache was also laoded with htiry-eight Hydra Rockets. Now they're just simple 'dumb fire" rockets.. but given that he spent forever chasing GinO's butt trying to get a 'lock", he coulda just unl;oaded the FFARs into him
Steve: ...........
Rick: Now hweile hte hydras are a lot less dangerous then the Hellfires,. they wioulda hurt. LOTS
Steve: Yes... 'cause GINO doesn't have tough-as-steel skin and regen like the *real* Godzilla.
Rick: Yeah
Rick: Actually,m htwere was no reaosn ofr the Apache to carry sidewinders anyway
Rick: They only carry them in situatiosn hwre hty're epxecting air-to-air combat aginst hosytile aircraft
Rick: An apche will usually carry a quartet of modifed Stinger Man-portasble SAMs for use as AAMs aginst choppers/ THey can laso be ocnverted to shoulder-launched wepaons as a survival tool for downed pilots
Steve: Interestingggg...
Rick: And a US National Guard PAache would certainly not be carrying Sidweinders
Rick: Finally, the Sidewinderh as a much smaller warhead then the Hellfire, which goes back to the earlier question of hewy the pilot didn';t use htose instead
Steve: Act of plot!
Steve: GINO's intelligence is plot powered as well. He's only smart when it's convenient to the story. XD
Rick: As much as oyu, the Kaiju fan must have bveen hurt, me, the MilTech geek was hurt more

Further research on my part concluded that a Sidewinder missile wouldn't have the destructive power to blow the top off the crysler building. On top of that, in a later scene, the Crysler building is fine and dandy! Either they fixed it reeeal fast or someone screwed up bad. XD

Ah, missiles, underrated in the Zoids world and it seems a lot of media. It bugs me that most of the ones in my game have crap accuracy.

A little use of Search and a good missile set with one of the misslesgowheee attacks is nice for killing low-level enemy swarms (or finishing them off), though. There's also one attack some learn that lowers defense...closest they can get to armor-piercing, I guess.

Gords, my AIM-ness tyoing is BAD!

As a futrhter annedum, I doublt that a pair of sidwinders would havew enough OOMPH in their warheds to blow the Chrysler building in half. Sidewinders carry reltively small proximity warheads, designed to sdhred aircraft, which are light and frail. Stone and concrete are VERY tough; the 'winders would have lbown a chiunk out of it, yes, but not blown it in half.

For compoarison, the Empire State Building (Of simlar vitnage and construction) was once hit by a B-25 Bobmer. It came out reltively unscathed.

Rick R.

I kinda liked it. Mind you, it wasnt a very good movie, and I'm not a diehard Godzilla fan. But it was amusing for what it was worth, I thought.

Steve did a bit of digging on GINO, and discovered the following trivia:

Enough lumber was used for the sets to build 50 homes.

35 tons of steel were used to build the sets.

There was enough paint used on the film to paint the entire Golden Gate Bridge.

2.4 million gallons (~321,000 cubic feet), of water was used to create rain for the film.

2,000 foam fish were made to create the fish pile.


Enough non-toxic smoke was created on the film to completely fill the Los Angeles Coliseum 24 hours a day for one week.

Mayor Ebert and his assistant Gene are spoofs of film critics Roger Ebert and his late partner Gene Siskel. This is in response to the duo giving negative reviews to Emmerich and Devlin's earlier films Stargate and Independence Day. When mayor Ebert is introduced he holds up two thumbs, the mark given by Siskel and Ebert to movies they like the most. Mayor Ebert's campaign slogan is "Thumbs Up For New York!". And when Gene disapproves of Mayor Ebert's latest platform (of exploiting the Godzilla disaster for his own benefit) he gives him a thumbs down. When the actual Siskel and Ebert reviewed the film on their show, it received two thumbs down and Gene Siskel commented on being spoofed in the film, he said it was "Petty".

This movie features more Simpson voice actors than any other project besides "The Simpsons" itself: Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Nancy Cartwright.

Tomoyuki Tanaka had produced all of the Japanese Godzilla movies. He died only a month before this film began actual production. This film is dedicated to him.

Toho, the studio that owns the rights to Godzilla, agreed to allow an American version to be made, but only if Tristar followed a set of guidelines in order for the film to properly "capture the spirit of Godzilla." The following guidelines were laid down:

1. Godzilla is a giant reptile with dorsal fins on his back.
2. Godzilla breathes fire.
3. Godzilla was created by nuclear radiation.
4. Godzilla must have the same roar.
5. Godzilla does not eat people.
6. Godzilla cannot die.

Most of these requests were ignored. Roland Emmerich Dean Develin were able to get by on technicalities; GINO dies, but because there's a baby left over the species survives. GINO doesn't breathe fire, but he has stinky fish breath that can be flammable if sparked, and while the baby GINOs eat people, the adult GINO doesn't.

Finally, half way through a screening, Kenpachiro Satsuma, who played Godzilla from 1985-1995, walked out saying "It's not Godzilla. It doesn't have his spirit."

I have say i totally agree with your review for the most part. The characters were just not likable, and you found yourself hoping they would be eaten. I know they were going for a "realistic approach" but gozilla without atomic breath just isn't Godzilla. I'm glad he got stomped in Godzilla Final Wars. I know this zilla is a wimp but i really would have like to seen the real G givem him more of a whipping. yeah this movie totally lack the "spirt" of Godzilla. The only thing I slightly disagree on is this statement:

"GINO isn't pissed off at the world around him, he isn't a villanous, vegeful allegory for the horror of nuclear destruction, he isn't an apathetic force of nature, he isn't even a goofy superhero who does sliding dropkicks on his tail or the Jumping Shie! No, GINO is just another big animal on the loose, and not even a very vicious one at that. "

All true except from Godzilla '85 ( I forgot what this series was called but I know started with an "H") up until Godzilla Versus Destroya, Godzilla was still treated like a "big animal on the loose" though a very powerful one. Which was how he was treated in the original 1954 movie which is wear this series picks up directly from with the other movies featuring "the good guy Godzilla" being absent from this particular time line. This theme also followed in at least the first of Millinium series movies, Godzilla 2000 and including the one shot movie "Godzilla, King Ghidora, Mothra...". Godzilla's "moves" began to get more "creative" again in Godzilla vs Megaguirus and continued on in the remaining ones featuring the newest Mecha Godzilla (Kiro I think it was called) and in Final wars. Final wars harkened back to the 1960's "good guy" Godzilla but with a more modern flare.

I will also agree that the true Godzilla was and is an aggressive creature. That is what makes him unique in the "animal kingdom". Gino's (or Zilla, I prefer, as he is called in Final Wars) behavior is more realistic in as far as animal behavior. Most animals will flee from a threat they can avoid unless backed into a corner. The true Godzilla moves toward aggressors.

I have seen all of the Godzilla movies except Gigantis vs Anguirus which is actually where all of the "good guy" Godzilla movies progress from. This is the first apperance of Anguirus and is the direct prequal to Godzilla vs King Kong which is recognized commonly as the "second official Godzilla movie".

Hey why don't you to start a thread with your opinion on "Godzilla Final Wars" (or actually any others that you want to talk about).

Heisei Godzilla did indeed stand for something, actually. He was the aforementioned "apathetic force of nature". Sometimes Godzilla is a villain, (as he was in GMK, the Kiryu series and the original Godzilla), sometimes he's a hero, (like in Final Wars or Godzilla vs Megalon), but in the Heisei series, (and in Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs Megaguirus), Godzilla's painted in a big ol' shade of grey, a force of nature that has no alliegiance and fights on either the side of good or evil depending on who attacks him first. This Godzilla is no more evil then an earthquake or a tornado; he's just an apathetic force of nature.

Rest assured, I've got a review for GFW in the works, and I'll post it as soon as I can. Until then, you're free to read and/or comment in some of my older reviews.

Here's my review for Godzilla against Mechagodzilla...

http://s4.invisionfree.com/Zoids_Evolution...topic=2023&st=0

Godzilla vs Destroyah...

http://s4.invisionfree.com/Zoids_Evolution...wtopic=2464&hl=

Godzilla vs Megaguirus (This one *really* needs a rewrite.)

http://s4.invisionfree.com/Zoids_Evolution...wtopic=2256&hl=

Godzilla vs Megalon (also in need of a rewrite)

http://s4.invisionfree.com/Zoids_Evolution...wtopic=1993&hl=

I agree about the "force of nature" but he was still treated as an animal on the loose that couldn't be stopped. They were even trying to tag him in Godzilla vs Space Godzilla. An animal on the loose is still not evil even if he is consider a force of nature because he is unstoppable. Thanks fro the reviews Steve, I'll check out the others. It's good to have a fellow G-Fan around!lol

I liked the American Godzilla, mostly because he lacked the badly outdated upright posture of the Japanese original (I have this problem with a fair number of dinosaur Zoids, as well)...