Library: Godzirra

Here it comes, I finally went and saw this so I could be just like so manyothers. Actually I went because I got tickets for free because someoneelse didn't want to go alone so she paid for mine. (How's that for cool...I love this equal gender stuff) Little did I know that I've been calling the movie Gawzirra for a long timenow, and that's exactly what the freaked out japanese boat guy said. "Gawzirra...gawzira....gawdzilla", though it's actually spelled Gojira I think, thejapanese name for our green rubber suited friend. Now, for those of you HAVENT seen it, and THINK there is a plot to spoil,let me say you're wrong. But in any case...to be nice...if you've not seenthis movie, I suggest you save this and read it AFTER. It will make more sense AND might even make you laugh once and a while.OKAY so here it goes...the "rant" on Godzilla. Our quaint little film starts with some stock footage of nuclear tests onislands. Supposedly these are French Polynesian islands that are blowing up,but being a former history buff, they are in fact film from the Bikini IslandH-bomb US tests. Of course, Bikini Island is no more, they actually blewup the island...it's now Bikini Atoll. Anyways, it was big. Of course, theseeggs survive. Ooookay...I'll dismiss this because it's fairly close to theoriginal movies...but at least the Japanese never tried to claim an egg survived a nuclear blast within the thermal radius. (the egg looks cooked)Next, in true godzilla form, godzilla shows up and eats a Japanese filledfishing boat. At this point I was fooled that I might enjoy this movie. Iwatched all the old movies as a kid...and in EVERY movie this has happened.Godzilla seems to love to wreck on little scared japanese guys. Not sure why,but at least it shows that the writers actually watched at least one of the old ones. Now, we jaunt off to Russia, where our hero (matthew broderick) (sp?) is collecting oversized worms. A bunch of russians show up and Matt blunders toform even the simplest of sentences. What? This guy has been doing researchfor what he claims next to be like 4+ years and he hasn't picked up Russian?Foreign exchange students usually pick it up in less than a year...because...well you need to talk to people to live somewhere. An unfortunate fact,but the situation is quickly remedied as they jaunt off to an island to stare at Godzilla tracks. I actually have no problems with the island scene...other than the factthat it is piss poorly acted. I think the key moment here is when the femaleleader lady tries to hit on Matthew by saying, "You're the wrong man forthe job, but you're cute." Matt turns and says, "She thinks I'm cute" with a little smirk. At this point someone in the theatre went "I'm CUUUDEI'm CUUUDE," a well placed reference to the old Rudolph Christmas special. Godzilla sinks some more boats...and then attacks the fisherman. Now we allsaw this preview...is this guy an idiot or what...he takes like 10 seconds todecide to run as this wave 4x the size of him approaches. REGARDLESS of what is causing the wave...you RUN from a wave like that...and when somethingstarts tear assing up the dock you're on...you DONT look BACK! Well no, I should say normal people don't but this guy does.SO, they evac the city...the mayor is of course pissed. And here is where themovie introduces all the cliche characters. FIRST, we have the obnoxious,short, lead reporter with the Golden voice. He wants to sleep with hisassistant, who is of course the nice country girl stereotype. Of course,country people can't cut it in New York because they are too nice and notkiller enough. Let me state for the record, that I BOO'ed loudly when theythrew up threw up the logo "The City that Never Sleeps"...it's New YorkCity you assholes, get over yourselves. They don't introduce Chicago as the "Windy City", nor Cleveland by the "Rock Capitol" or even "The mistake bythe lake". Every city has a nickname...but none of them seem to throw itin your face like NYC. Hmmm, who else...well we have a crazy cameraman who does incredibly stupid shit to get film. His dominant girlfriend who threatens to kick his ass butnever does. We have a french secret service guy who insults american cultureat every turn and who can forget the clueless American army leader guy.The only original character in this film is the over nervous and generallywussy little army field commander. He's totally out of place, and franklydoesn't exist in our military. Those kind of guys don't make it past bootcamp. So here's the situation. Godzilla comes into NY tears up some stuff whilesight seeing, and then disappears. The army decides to lure him out and thenwhen they DO, Matthew Broderick has a VERY JP2 moment with godzilla...standingface to face. Then...they go buck nuts trying to kill godzilla...with heatseeking missiles...in the rain...on a cold day...AT A LIZARD. What the fuckis going on here. Did someone forget to mention to clueless fuck army boythat lizards are COLD BLOODED! Why the hell would a heat seeking missilework? SO of course the missiles miss and down go a few buildings. NEXT UP: 3 moronic helicopters pilots. Alright...there is a monster runningaround NYC. He's fast. He's agile. You're in a helicopter. Do you...A> chasehim at an equal height and have to deal with the buildings and shit fallingoff them due to your friend, or B> Fly 60 feet above the buildings and shootdown on your friend (gawzirra!) with the weapons on an Apache Gunship designedto do so. Of course, the answer is B, but these idiots follow him at his level. Surprise Surprise ...godzilla turns around and wrecks two copters.Now copter 3 is running from this monster. New choices: Do you A> fly aroundthe city trying to dodge buildings with this huge monster chasing, or B> flyUP and out of his reach in a few seconds. Not this idiot...he loses sight ofthe monster...and then in a really cool CGI shot, godzilla eats the bottompart of the helicopter and the blade flies off. Neat-o.Oh yeah, and this whole time the French secret service is drinking coffeein a van watching feeds they've tapped on the US government. Complainingabout bad coffee and no croissants. "Yesss...I get it...I have bad teeth"or in this case, "Yes...I get it...American food is crappy, now can weget on with the movie" Okay...so...Matthew Broderick collects some blood from the ground and the first thing he does is go buy a pregancy tester. Anyone else find this to be strange? Here is a new creature...never before seen...tearing upthe city and the first thing that occurs to you to check...is if it's pregnant? When you claim this is the only one? I understand eventuallyrunning this test, but the first thing you'd look for is a way to kill it.Like...could we poison the fish...or something like that. But, it turnsout that gozilla the he...is really godzilla the it. And a pregnant it.Godzilla came to New York city because, "Like no other island in the world,it's a place he can hide"...so he could have kids. Um...excuse me. Did heknow by his spider sense that this was where he should go because he couldhide? How does a monster from French Polynesia decide to come New York becausehe knows he could hide there? Does he know what a building is? I still can'tfigure this out.Second, why did he come to New York? The characters said that{Godzilla was searching for an island, and since it was pregnant, it waslikely looking for a suitable place to lay it's eggs.} therefore it wasprobably looking for the right temperature, food supply (fertile waters), and adequate shelter. So it looks like Emmerich and Devlin were thinking,right? WRONG! Let's see . . . a burrowing lizard can burrow anywhere (e.g.hide anywhere). It headed to one of the most polluted areas of theworld, and it laid it's eggs above ground. Okay it was cute that itmade a nest in the Garden, so I'll give them that for poetic license.But fucking-shit man, let Broderick try to figure out why it's there andgive the movie some suspence. Now...bitch assistant nice girl under the advice of an asshole new yorkersteals a tape...and puts it on the air to try and get herself a reporterposition. It fails...the short guy steals the report...and now she'sfucked over Matthew Broderick again. All because of some advice from a"rough and tough" resident of "the city that never sleeps"...bite me.Why is this lifestyle so often raved about? Being an asshole is...cool?Alright, so after the tape is released...Matt gets cut off...and I haveto scream a resounding WHY...the tape is already out...and who gives a shit,it didn't have anything in it anyways. Other than the guy repeatinggawzirra gawzirra. That's top secret info? GAWZIRRA!French man wisely picks up Matt, and they go off looking for the nest. Meanwhilethe US army tries to trick Godzilla into coming into Central Park. Alright, another New Yorker obsession. Central Park. Boys and girls...I suggest theresidents of NYC go visit Gatlinburg tennessee. I suggest they drive. I suggest they look out the window. Guess what...the whole fucking state islike Central park. It ain't that big, it ain't that great...it's a smallarea of nature in a concrete mass. It's cool that it's there, but does ithave to be in every movie about NYC? Now...we have some more idiots trying to fire missiles...they miss...we alsohave 60 helicopters flying between buildings again. Whee. Godzilla spendthis whole time running...and jumps into the water. Ahhh...but wait...theyhave subs in there. BUT apparently godzilla saw The Hunt for Red October, as he leads the torpedos to the subs and they kill one of their own. Then,after this brilliant display of agility and intelligence...he slams intothe bank. Our assumption is that he is trying to burrow. Um...excuse me...30 seconds ago this thing is dodging torpedos with ease...and now he'sfrantically trying to dig as two more barrel down on him? Ex-squeeze me?They were dumb enough to fire again...so do the same thing again. But no...BOOM...falls to ocean floor. Also...something that was in every other godzilla film...and again I was pleased to see it...godzilla lies on thewater bottom and pretends to be dead while he heals.Now, Matt and the French team + the camera man and the country bitch arelooking for the nest. They find it in Madison Square Garden...there are aton eggs. Of course, they are short on explosives...and worse yet theeggs hatch. Now..here come the velociraptors. Hundreds of them...theyrun, jump, move, and even behave like our JP friends, apparently...thespecial effects artists liked the things...so they carbon copied them.<sigh> Hell...I might add that Godzilla himself is a cross between theRaptor and the T-rex from JP...with a nasty head thrown on top. Theycould have done better methinks. Getting to the end here. So...the group inside calls in a bombing attack,and a pair of f-18's show up. Meanwhile, our inside team tries to escapethe garden as the places barrel in. ooo oo stress? Hardly. I wanted everyonethere but Broderick to die. No such luck. The french guy, the bitch, Matt,and the cameraman escape. I might add...my favorite scene was right here.While looking for a way out (before they call for the attack) Matt is inan elevator and the doors open on a floor where a bunch of little raptors,oh wait I mean babies, are eating popcorn. Matt says, "Heh, wrong floor"and the raptors (fuck I mean babies) look confused. That to me was thebest scene in the film...I actually laughed...aloud.They get out the front door in a ballsy charge...dropping light fixturesto scare the little ra---...okay you get the point. HERE COME THE PLANES!Sccccchhhhooooom. And they fire...HARPOONS?!?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?HARPOONS? Alright...it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. With a name like HARPOON, what do YOU think the missile is for? ...mmm...yeahthat's RIGHT. For sinking SHIPS! Hence the name HARPOON! YOU know, stickit in the ship, and it's vanquished...like a harpooned whale? What the movie people WANTED was a Maverick, a short stout radar orinfra-red, depending on what you set it to, guided anti ground missile.But the Harpoons surprisingly lock onto a ground target (boggle) andblow it up. Dead (and surprisingly in one piece) babies are everywhere.OH NO...IT'S GAWZIRRA! He's BACK!!! And now he wants to eat people!Commence the car chase...a complete crock of shit as this monster outran Apache helicopters...no way a yellow cab can outrun him. Gawzirra trapsthem in a tunnel...and they use the brights to get out...clever. Bullshit...but clever. Godzirra gets them in his mouth...and Matt finds anelectric cable there and shocks the monster. Where is the cable attached?Where is the power coming from? If they are in the mouth, and they shockgodzilla, why are they not shocked? Luckily...he spits them out, and theyland on the road. Godzillra chases them onto a bridge...and miraculously it holds...and eventraps him. Bull...shit. No really. I mean it. This monster is running aroundtown, crushing 5 feet holes in pavement on ground...hit foot would goright through the fucking bridge. No ifs ands or buts. On the other hand, thebridge cables WOULD tangle him up...they hold like hundreds of thousands oftons before breaking. Again come the f-18's...with more harpoons...well he'sover water...I guess that's close enough to a ship right? <sigh> Well okay,the cables don't hold hundreds of thousands...but my point was that the bridge WOULD certainly trip the bad boy up. Too bad harpoons still wouldn'twork. Now...I'm done. Godzilla's heartbeat suddenly gets REALLY loud...for cinematiceffect...too bad my date at this point was asleep. That good. <chuckle>So the effect was lost on all. One guy in the back cried out as the creditsbegan, "That SUCKED!" Heh. I agree. But it was free...and I had a cute date(albeit a sleeping one) next to me.Oh ...forgot to mention the last egg breaks open...it survived the missiles.Sequel? They wish...I woke up my date to point out Gary's name in the credits. (you da man gary...)The effects were generally really good, I couldn't really bitch about them.Just one shot of the cab flying out of Godzilla's mouth looked fake as allhell. I didn't like the monster designs...but hey...they were rendered well.(Gary worked for Centropolis)I saw an interview from one of the film makers...he said something like this:"I think our godzilla is closer to what the original authors intended, he'sfast, he's lethal, he's cunning."WRONG! Try again! What the original film makers wanted...was a big lumberingmonster that came into town, blew up a LOT of stuff, and was invincible. Thenew Godzilla RAN. The old one...stood there...with a look of "that didn'thurt" on his face as he stomped on and swatted the Japanese miltary around.That was intentional boys, the old authors envisioned Godzilla as a nature'srevenge monster. He wasn't an animal...he was a monster...and he was there tokill people. Not once in the new movie did Godzilla just turn...and wreck a building for no reason. Why? Because somebody missed the point of the Godzilla films. Godzilla was the Earth's revenge for Nuclear weapons...no other reasons. Frankly...that's a more compelling back story than he's a monster createdby our tests and he just wants to have kids in the Garden. I encouragethe authors to watch Godzilla: 1985. One of the only US made later godzillafilms...that pretty much sums up the point of Godzilla films. Sure, it'sa cheesy B movie ...but at least the story of Godzilla is cool.Monster as a new species simply trying to survive. Well this wasa neat idea, but they did absolutely nothing to make it at allremarkable. The old Godzilla represented the choaticelement that showed up to humble us and to tear down the edifices webuilt in our society. It was a boogy man that threatened our securityin our dominance over nature. In addition it was the monster of our owncreation. Our recklessness brought a punishment, a price. But in mostof the old ones Godzilla was nothing but a lumbering clutz. He rarelypicked up and ate people, just accidentally squished em or burned themup when he got irrate. So a typical nintees rendition of this wouldmake Godzilla more of a sympathetic beast just trying to get by. Acreature born of our recklessness threatens our existence not out ofmalice, but simply by its needs for existence. Okay I'll accept that asEmmerich's and Devlin's contribution to the Godzilla pantheon. I'DACCEPT IT IF THEY CONTRIBUTED THAT! But Nooooooooo, we get to spend ourtime watching the antics of a breasty blonde bimbo and these otheridiots who really didn't have a clue what they were dealing with. Nordid they seem to have a brain in thier heads. I could go on with my criticism, but I don't think it would beenjoyable. There are a few things I liked about the story.I loved almost all of the special effects. The stuff before themilitary showed up in New York was great. The red head and the blondeare babes. And the taco commercials are fun to watch.Better than the movie in fact.I hope you found at least one part of that amusing, or I wasted my time.At least I did it from work...so I got paid.Certainly should be good regen SPAM! Written by Matt Kordes with excerpts from Ben Martin

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