Released: Summer of 1998

Length: 139 minutes

Rated: PG-13

The American’s sure know how to put on a good show. Toho should take some notes. In this movie, Emmerich paces the movie in such a way as to keep you wondering what’s going to happen. It never gets really dull.

Unfortunately, some dumb stuff happens. We start out with shots of islands getting nuked. We also see some shots of iguanas swimming, laying eggs, and crawling about. Why are these animals in here? Because after the nuclear explosions and fall out occur, they turn into Gojira. Wow!

Thus we start jumping from scene to scene. First we see a guy watching some sumo wrestling on a TV in the ocean in some sort of sea faring vessel. That ship is attacked by "something" with big claws. Then we meet up with Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) as he goes hunting for worms in the rain near a nuclear accident. He is taken away and reassigned to a Pacific island to study some giant footprints. While there, he meets Dr. Elsie Chapman (Vicki Lewis) and Dr. Mendel Craven (Malcome Donare). He also meets Colonel Hicks (Kevin Dunn), a guy who likes to swear like a sailor.  Soon after, three fishing boats are pulled under the sea.

Throughout, we see Geiger counters being used and going off. Enough of that stuff. We jump to a New York office to meet our next star, Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo) as she tries to get her boss to give her a promotion. (She’s a reporter’s assistant and wants to be a real reporter!) He says she has to have "dinner" with him etcetera if she wants the job. She’s not like that, thankfully, and refuses.

Well, I’m not going to go into every scene in this movie since it’s more than two hours long. Instead, I’ll complain about Godzilla’s dumb first appearance in New York. Somehow a fisherman’s hook catches on Godzilla who’s quite a distance from the dock. Anyway, when Gojira starts coming toward the dock you can tell that there’s no way it could have caught on him. The water effect is cool though. And so are the following scenes as Godzilla chews on a semi full of fish and runs around downtown New York making cars bounce with every footstep.

Eventually, Nick and some army personnel set up a large pile of fish to lure Godzilla out. I should mention that there’s a French group of spies that have been monitoring all this from the beginning. Their leader, Phillipe Roache (Jean Reno), is probably the coolest character in the entire movie. Alright, the army lures out the monster and then tries to shoot it. They miss or are ineffectual and give chase with some black choppers. This is a neat scene as we zip between buildings. But this group stinks. They shoot and wreck the city instead of hitting the monster. And they tick Gojira off so much that he takes them down.

Now the dumbest part of the movie: Nick goes into a shop to get a bunch of pregnancy tests and Audrey somehow knows where he is. She steps in and they chat and what-not because they used to be sweethearts. Now that part about them finding each other is dumb, but that’s nothing! Nick goes on to test some Gojira-blood to see, if what he calls a male-monster, is pregnant. Is this standard practice? Does he check every unknown creature for pregnancy, especially when they think it’s a one-of-a-kind!?!? HELLO!?

Well, he tests and talks to his ex-girl and then he has to leave to confirm his tests. Thus, Audrey gets nosy and finds a "Top Secret" tape. She takes it, of course, and gets Nick in big trouble! So much so that he’s booted from the group of civilians helping our wonderful government. (This happens right after his announcing that the animal is pregnant and may have laid some fast-gestating eggs.)

Nick leaves and gets taken in by the French guys. They sneak into a restricted area by wearing army uniforms and chewing gum. This is funny, but stupid. Especially when you consider that Nick’s been on the TV a bunch lately and somehow he’s not recognized. Duh!

Meanwhile, the army is trying the fish trick again. While Nick and Phillipe are hunting in a subway tunnel, they come across the G-man! (And Audrey and a goofy cameraman known as "Animal", played by Hank Azaria, have followed them) We see Godzilla do some tunneling and then he goes to sniff the fish. It’s instincts tell it that all these lights and people are a bad thing and something must be amiss, so it turns tail.

Godzilla outruns a dozen of choppers and dives into the sea/river. Poor Godzilla! There’s a bunch of subs just waiting for that. They shoot heat seeking torpedoes at him. Now this is odd and it deserves mention. The heat seeking missiles that the choppers shot at him earlier couldn’t track him because the building were hotter or something…but these torpedoes can track him…uh huh, right! Well, Godzilla changes direction and leads the torpedoes into one of the subs. Then he tries to dig into the channel but gets blasted by a couple more torpedoes. It looks like the end as Gojira sinks.

Elsewhere, Nick et al have found the nest. It’s in Madison Square Gardens and there is a LOT of eggs. Dozens in fact. The French guys put out some plastic explosives, but they just don’t have enough and the eggs hatch too quickly anyway. Now the people smell like fish and that attracts the babies to them, so we get to enjoy some hide-and-seek. Most of the French spies get chowed on. Audrey and Animal flee the creatures too and run into Nick and Phillippe. They head to a broadcasting station inside the building (because this is a sports arena and they obviously come equipped with this kind of stuff!) and broadcast pictures of the creatures and that the place needs to be destroyed ASAP.

Soon, they’re running again to get out before the place is bombed! They escape after some more harrowing run-ins with the little beasties. The place explodes, the babies die, and Nick and Audrey talk about getting together again. It looks like we’re done…the movie’s over and they’d better go to black before those too get the kissing…but no, there’s more! Gojira comes exploding out of the ground and sniffs his babies. He doesn’t like what he smells and starts chasing the humans.

They take a taxi and race all over the city in probably one of the best car chase scenes I’ve ever seen. (I mean, what other movie has a giant monster chasing a car for a long time? "Jurassic Park" doesn’t count!) They get stuck in a tunnel and use the car’s bright headlights to get out. They race to a suspension bridge and discover that Gojira has given up the chase…until he explodes out of the road in front of them. Then they spin around and slide into his mouth. Cool!

Well, they get out and Godzilla chases them across the bridge getting really tangled up in the suspension lines. The car just makes it as the bridge starts to collapse. And some F-16s come along and kill off Gojira with 5-6 missiles. Finally, the monster is dead, the good guy has his girl and the movie ends! NOT! We have to go to one last burning scene that shows that not all the eggs were destroyed…there’s one more…and it hatches with a roaring baby…then we go to credits!