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Godzilla

reviewed by Brenda Aske

Godzilla the movie is a giant-size flop. A stinker as rank as the massive beast's fish-foul breath. Even the cute teeth and Ferris Bueller charm of Matthew Broderick are powerless against the towering ineptitude of some fuckhead writer who's probably the brother-in-law of the producer or something. Overall, it barely achieves a score of 2.

In spite of having an utterly predictable plot ("*sigh*, oh honey, does Godzilla really have to rise from the dead again? I'd like to get some sleep") this movie suffers from some of the worst acting I've ever seen. And I'm not critical about that type of stuff; I've really only complained about one bad actor before, and that's Laura Dern. So you can see I'm tolerant. But somehow they've selected a bunch of slack-mouthed, seemingly lobotomized people to represent the characters in this multimillion-dollar venture. And failed to give them accent and dialog coaches. To top it off, none of the characters is even "attractive". Geez, if I'm going to spend my life with "entertainment" that offers jokes like, "asexual reproduction? Where's the fun in that?" I want to at least be looking at something luscious.

Worst of all was the drugstore scene. Now, I can suspend my disbelief when Broderick says that this cold-blooded, egg-laying, radioactive, mutant creature has the same biological markers of pregancy as humans. I can tolerate the artistic liberties taken when he uses an over-the-counter home pregnancy test designed for urine to test the blood of Godzilla. But when someone so horribly mispronounces the drug name "clomiphene citrate," all hell breaks loose in my mind.

On the plus side, there are some fantastic shots of NYC being destroyed (which seems to be an ongoing theme in Centropolis movies.) This can provide some cheap thrills, especially if you're a New Yorker who hates New York.

Also, the opening titles were excellent. Just a few minutes of beautifully filmed ochre-toned pictures, starring a lizard and a nuclear bomb, expressed more raw emotion than the movie itself and wordlessly revealed the human folly that inveitably led to the creation of such a monster.

Hopefully someone'll take the brains of the people behind this picture to a nuclear test site. Maybe they'll mutate to be big enough to create something worthwhile next time.

Godzilla

reviewed by Brenda's boyfriend, Mark Prindle

One of the most boring, pointless, stupid piece of shit movies I've seen in a long, long time. A complete waste of film and time. Do not under any circumstances rent this pathetic pile of fucking crap.

See, the thing is -- I'm not hard to please moviewise. I fall for all sorts of Hollywood swill, including Centropolis' LAST movie, Independence Day, which I thought was a lot of fun! But Godzilla is not fun. It's brutal. A bunch of big explosions and shootings don't do a bit to cover up the fact that the script sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old. Every nook and cranny of the film is completely cliched, suspense-free and excruciatingly dull.

Here's a little exercise for you if you decide to rent this movie: Count how many times in the movie a character stands still with a dumbfounded look on his/her face when he/she is in a dangerous situation and should be taking instant action. It happens every couple of minutes for over TWO HOURS!!!!! Here's another exercise: Try to count how many bits of "humorous dialogue" the writers try to interject into the script, then compare this number to how many of these lines are actually amusing. If you're anything like me, Mark Prindle, the ratio is something like 150 to 2.

So why not a 1? Welly, because there are actually three things I liked about this movie.

1) As a New Yorker, I was very impressed by the destruction of the Chrysler and Flatiron Buildings, and laughed my ass off at that big hole Godzilla put in the MetLife building.

 

2) As a Simpsons fan, I enjoyed getting the chance to see what Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer look like (and Harry's Kent Brockman voice was awesome!)

 

3) As stupid a gag as it was, some lameass inside me really enjoyed the Siskel and Ebert characters.

 

 

But that's it. Seriously - ten minutes into this thing, I wanted to turn it off and go to bed. The creature is NOT scary, no matter how many times the actors stare dumbfoundedly at him when they should be taking instant action. He doesn't even look like a lizard. And the baby Godzillas - jeez, could Devlin and Emmerich possibly have ripped off Jurassic Park any more? Shit acting. Shit side romance plot. Shit dialogue. Special effects are okay, but no great shakes since there's really nothing interesting going on (A big fake-looking green monster stepping on a car is interesting the first time, but that's about it).

Shit movie. Possibly the third worst movie I've seen in the past five years (right behind Crash and Speed II: Cruise Control).

Talk to ya later!