Godzilla: Monster, Titan, Icon: Godzilla (1998)

 Written By: Danny Albers 

Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) looked to reintroduce Godzilla to American audiences in 1998 with one of most iconic projects to his name. Emmerich, famous for making disaster movies, abandoned the Godzilla versus other monsters narrative, and took a similar approach to this film that he did on Independence Day. Godzilla was very much looked at as a parasitic invader as he crashed into NYC to nest his eggs. A bunch of little Godzillas were nested and hatched like Raptors from Jurassic Park in Madison Square Garden. Instead of a god-like creature, Godzilla’s origin story in this film is that of an iguana exposed to nuclear fallout during a test in French Polynesia. 

Matthew Broderick stars in this film playing a scientist studying the effects of nuclear radiation on animals and insects. He’s studying enlarged worms in Chernobyl when the government comes and reassigns him to a new and critical case. They fly him out Panama and Jamaica to study the massive footprints left behind by a mysterious creature. He’s shown video footage of a frenchman questioning the lone survivor of a shipwreck. He’s only able to say one word when the Frenchman lights a flame to get his attention, that word is “Gojira.” The media begins to spin the narrative that this is some type of living dinosaur, but Nick is set on debunking this theory and proving that the monster is a reptile that morphed from Nuclear radiation. 

The creature crashes into New York City, creating a path of destruction unseen before. All attempts to kill it fail. Nick sets up a trap with fish, and he feeds the creature. He’s able to get a blood sample, finding out that the creature is pregnant, and is asexual which mirrors many reptiles. He comes to the conclusion that the only reason Godzilla is in NYC is because it’s able to easily go into hiding and nest its eggs safely. During this time, Nic’s ex-girlfriend, and aspiring reporter Audrey gets in touch with him. She uses him for information in which her sexist network steals from her and releases it to the media, getting Nick fired. Nick is picked up by the French who know that he’s aware of the origin of Godzilla. The Frenchman tells Nick that they’re trying to cover up their country's involvement in the origin of the monster. They find the eggs in MSG and destroy the eggs. Enraged, Godzilla chases them to the Brooklyn Bridge where he gets stuck and eventually killed by the Air Force. But one egg survived as if to signal the true origin story of Godzilla. 

The start of the movie does a lot to draw you in, but from there the movie dips in interest substantially. It moves slowly, has a lot of unneeded dialogue for a monster movie, and gets quite boring. There are some iconic moments in the movie and the design of Godzilla is unique and more animalistic than ancient dinosaurs like all his other adaptations. For the most part, Godzilla isn’t a very menacing monster in this movie compared to how he’s written in every other movie. All he’s trying to do in this movie is nest, sleep and eat. For most of the movie, he’s unaware of human intervention, and doesn’t really mean to kill people in the wake of living his life. All the measures he takes during the military offensive are defensive, and doesn’t really begin to attack until his babies are killed. Emmerich clearly had no intention of paying homage or making a film similar to the iconic Japanese franchise. The later movies in the 2010s align more with the Japanese concept of Godzilla. I feel more comfortable calling this a disaster movie than a Godzilla movie. Interestingly enough, some of the Godzilla video games like Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, don’t recognize this Godzilla adaptation as part of the franchise, instead acknowledging the Japanese made Godzilla 2000. Millennials who were young in the 90s will have fun nostalgic memories of this movie, but watching it back in 2024, it’s not a very good movie. 

Danny’s Star Rating: ★★★★ 4