Godzilla (1998)

One of the most rewarding parts of writing reviews for me, (especially of widely-seen stuff I had missed before), is knowing the general consensus of a project going in, and realizing I am going to disagree with it! I'm not a troll, but I DO enjoy being a contrarian, and nothing pleases me more than seeing a long-decided project in popular culture that people already either love or hate and telling y'all why you are wrong. Me playing Devil's Advocate in my reviews are my favorite kind of reviews.

I am not going to enjoy writing this review very much. Because it denied me that on every level. I WANTED desperately to be able to start the review with the words "People's hatred of that is completely overblown." But by the end, I resented the entire film for doing nothing right, and denying me a golden opportunity to be That Guy On The Internet. I love being That Guy! How dare this film suck so badly this review will be just as pedestrian as everyone else's?!

Before I demolish that piece by piece, I think I have a spin that sort of fits what I wanted to say, without having to extend a compliment to this wretched film. But I don't think this film is worse than a LOT of big movies that were megahits. Independence Day is just as bad, and Ace Ventura is worse. And the Bay Transformers and Ninja Turtles films suck ass too and nobody cares. I think although Godzilla's suckiness is not remotely unusual compared to a big budget movie of the same quality that made a lot of money, Godzilla makes SO many bad choices, it never had a chance to succeed. Bad movies are hits all the time. Godzilla underperforming at the box office was like a perfect storm of negative feedback from audiences.

I mentioned audiences have been conditioned to watch bad movies and make them hits. The truth is even worse. Audience's standards have gotten so low, mere mediocre movies make the same kind of boffo box office E.T., Star Wars, and Jaws used to. Men In Black is a very underwhelming movie. And I will argue seriously that both Jurassic Park and Batman '89 are actually bad ones. And they all were blockbusters anyways. Audiences let FAR too much slide in the 1990's, and I think Godzilla was too much for them to forgive.

Why did Godzilla underperform? In 1998, the days before streaming, and even DVD sales, blockbusters and sleeper hits made most of their money from repeat viewings. Both Streaming and Covid has made it so repeated viewings of current theatrical movies just isn't feasible anymore. But for the hits that made hundreds of millions of dollars back in the 1980's and 1990's, most of that bank was due to repeat business. Ghost, Home Alone, and yes, Titanic made most of their scratch not in opening weekend, but by staying in the box office top five for months on end due to people watching the films over and over again. And Independence Day sucked butt for sure, but it's not like people were unwilling to see Will Smith be Will Smith a second time. Godzilla however, people saw it once, didn't like it, and never watched it again.

And normally that shouldn't be a problem for most bad films. That's how most of them are received, in fact. The problem was Godzilla overhyped itself, and billed itself as a new huge tentpole franchise. And Jurassic Park and Men In Black showed that's still possible if the film is iffy. But nobody had pushed a film this bad this hard before. And it imploded.

You're gonna scoff, "Matt, Bonfire of the Vanities! Hudson Hawk! Howard the Duck! Ishtar!" I maintain those films performed to expectations. They were terrible, had that reputation ahead of time, and people stayed away. That's not what happened to Godzilla. If it had bombed, that would actually make me feel better. Any other film did Godzilla '98 numbers it would be considered respectable. Godzilla was a disaster because it had a freaking toyline, an animated series in the pipeline, and a whole bunch of fast food franchising deals. It being the number 1 film in the country for only like a week was actually a Pyrrhic victory and totally damning. The studio lost a TON of money on it because it cost so much to produce and market.

Time to talk about what the film did wrong. Everything, actually. I'll briefly itemize all that comes to me. There's also probably a ton more lousy stuff I left out or forgot.

First of all, I always was amused that fans of the old Godzilla Japanese rubber monster movies hated this movie. I was like, "There is not way this movie could possible be worse than those Toho crapfests. Get some perspective, folks."

And while I won't go so far as to say it was much worse than those badly dubbed films, I will say I understand why the fans of those films hated it. The climax in the sewers is Jurassic Park, not Godzilla. This version of Godzilla is comparatively, tiny and barely wrecks any buildings. Ally McBeal was the hot pop-culture mess during this movie's ad campaign, and they sort of brought up one of its silly catch-phrases in "Size Matters". And a lot of critics retorted "No, it's quality, not quantity." And I'm like, "Siskel and Ebert don't even need to give them THAT much." Just point out this film contains the literal smallest screen version of Godzilla before or since. If Size Matters, the fact that this Godzilla is so comparatively tiny speaks volumes about that.

The movie's arc was flawed from the ground up. Godzilla laid eggs? I'm supposed to root for army guys essentially killing a bunch of baby Godzillas? Do I have that right? According to how the film ends, yeah, I'm actually supposed to want that. Are they insane?

For some random reason half of the cast of The Simpsons appears in the film.

Like a lot of successful blockbusters, there is a LOT of humor in the film. It's definitely a contrast to the super serious Titans / Monsterverse movies Warner and Legacy are currently putting out. Unfortunately the humor isn't the fun kind seen in Marvel Studios movies. It's the same kind of dumb jokes from Bay's Turtle films. It's puerile, obvious, and painfully unfunny. The jokes are just cringe.

The cast. Say what you will about the Titans Monsterverse, each film hires a couple of great actors to chew the scenery and lend the proceedings gravitas. Matthew Broderick is the only big name in the cast. I have never heard of the female lead and have never seen her in anything else either. And I can't for the life of me figure out why Broderick is the lead. I would sort of get it if the movie were casting him against type, and giving him a chance to actually get his action movie hero on. But the movie portrays his character as a warm, unassuming nerd just like all of his other roles. And I'm like "This drip just walked into the wrong movie." It feels especially wrong to me he actually survived it. Also not credible.

I seem to recall Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert thought the world of Police Academy 6 for doing a very Deep Cut Siskel and Ebert inside joke with a fruit stand. I think the movie was hoping to get a similar level of good press for them for Mayor Ebert and his intern Gene. I don't recall their reaction to that, but if Ebert was impressed, I'd be shocked. And I can picture Siskel being furious instead of tickled.

This is something that would have escaped my notice in 1998, but I'm glad I'm Woke enough now to see it and comment on it. Audrey spending the first part of the climax in her room bawling her eyes out over her fella, and only being convinced to get off her ass once her alpha male friend forces her to, is a keen insight into how the filmmakers truly view women. Audrey is a great name for her because the film has essentially unironically turned her into Ellen Greene from Little Shop Of Horrors. I LIKE being Woke. For sure. It give me extra stuff to complain about in sucky movies like this one.

If you wanted a great mindblowing review by Matt Zimmer turning conventional wisdom on its head and arguing an unpopular opinion rationally point by point, sorry, can't do it this time. People who say the movie was awful were 100% right this time. I'm not happy about this either. 0.