In the early 50s, when Hollywood was making films like Them and Tarantula, in which creatures were turned into giants because of nuclear testing, the Toho Company of Japan produced Gojira, about a giant lizard which wreaked havoc on Tokyo. An American distributor bought the film, dubbed it, re-titled it Godzilla, and inserted Raymond Burr to make it more accessible to American audiences. The much-heralded new Godzilla is not much of an advance on the earlier one. The big lizard looks like a refugee from Jurassic Park, his offspring have strayed in from Aliens, and the humans are a terribly insipid bunch of no-hopers... There`s one effective scene in which Big G tramps through New York causing mass destruction with every flick of his scaly tail, but it`s followed by a truly banal moment in which the impossible romantic duo of Matthew Broderick and Maria Pitillo engage in small talk without a mention of all the devastation. Jean Reno, as a French secret service agent trying to atone for his country`s nuclear testing in the Pacific - testing which created the creature - provides a little jaded Gallic charm. But what a fizzer.
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