OFF: GODZILLA REVIEW

[Jean Lansford]

On Thu, 28 May 1998, Nick English <nick at THECAMPUS.COM> wrote:

>I still say they did a hack job on the French. The coffee scenes made
>them look pretty prissy and sissy if you ask me.

<shrug>  Happily eating crappy food on a stakeout is an American TV
stereotype.  I got a laugh at seeing it turned on its head like that.
And it reminded me of Bond's gourmet appetites.

>And the absolute
>stupidity of them chewing gum to 'look more American', and of Jean
>Reno not being able to do an American accent unless he's aping Elvis.
>This from the French Secret Service?!

Didn't believe these for a minute.  Reno's character (Phillippe?) was
having fun with his new American friend.

>Also, someone mentioned that
>the movie shows the French 'taking responsibility for their actions'.
>Not so. If they were taking responsibility for Godzilla, they would
>have offered overt military help. Instead, they sent clandestine
>operatives to try to quietly get rid of the problem. Reno's character
>even says as much.

They're still doing =something=.  I find covert action far more
believable than overt action in the situation.

>Add to this the fact that very few people die in
>this film, and most of them are the French Secret Service dudes.

Very few die visibly.  We were making death estimates every time the
monster's tail hit a building.  Whoops, there goes another floor full
of people.

>Given how poorly the rest of this movie was written, I could believe
>that all this stuff was meant as innocent comic relief, not intended
>to detract from the French characters. But apparently, Devlin and
>Emmerich have little or no ability to write a logical, competent
>script.

After ID4 I had no expectations of a movie that could be taken
seriously.  Where it failed for me was the lack of an adrenalin rush
until after I was already heartily bored.

>My addition to your criticisms is this:
>
>If you were faced with a Godzilla, would you send a stammering,
>half-incompetent field commander like the one played by Doug Savant
>to lead the troops into battle?

In a peacetime Army, it wouldn't surprise me at all.  It always takes
a while to shake out the officers who are only qualified on paper for
the job they're assigned.


Jean Lansford
lansford at vnet.net
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/