My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 45 - Godzilla (1998)

Godzilla (1998; Tristar Pictures)

What can you say about Roland Emerich?  He is a connoisseur of bad filmmaking.  His films like Independence Day and the Patriot are revered as sloppy pieces of nostalgia blurred in the beer goggles of time.  Godzilla, however, is where most people realized that something was very wrong.  It was the point where two things happened: Matthew Broderick’s career faded, and Roland Emerich became the schlock-meister of the next generation of Hollywood.

Godzilla does not center on Gojira, the great radioactive lizard born of bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean.  No, it focuses on a hapless scientist named Nick (Broderick) who studies the effects of radiation on worms in Chernobyl, Ukraine.  He is recruited by a general to aid in the profiling of a creature that attacked a Japanese ship.  After the creature makes his way to New York (seemingly only a few days later.  What did he do?  Teleport?  Fly?), it wreaks havoc on the Big Apple and Nick, an ex-flame reporter and her cameraman (Hank Azaria) take on the creature with the help of a french national (Jean Reno).  

Yeah.  Godzilla is dumb, but it goes further than that, it is flat-out illogical.  It would make more sense for the beast to attack L.A., or some other city on the Pacific Coast, but to think this creature could swim to New York from the Pacific Ocean in just a few days or so is just ridiculous.  This is a film filled with flawed science, annoying characters and cheap action in the form of big explosions that destroy New York landmarks.  Roland Emerich doesn’t try to make his films make sense, he just tries to make them loud.  If you like nonsensical crap, then maybe you enjoyed this one, since I prefer to use my brain, I hated every second of it.