Godzilla

An expertly designed theme park ride of a movie that packs nonstop thrills.

The movie is of minimum interest; the story of the movie, however -- or, rather, of the way in which it has been engulfed by its own publicity -- is bound to fascinate connoisseurs of cultural meltdown.

Godzilla is so clumsily structured it feels as if it's two different movies stuck together with an absurd stomping finale glued onto the end.

The script isn't just "dumbed down," it's lobotomized.

The dialogue is dumb ('zilla has the best lines, "arrrrrggh" and "maaroarrr"), New York is waterlogged, and Godzilla isn't on screen enough.

The makers of Godzilla obviously devoted so much manpower and time and energy and money to the admittedly fabulous special effects that they apparently had no budget left over for actors.

Watching inept American actors and wishing they were badly dubbed into Japanese isn't any fun at all.

One of my childhood memories, really enjoyed the movie as a child, and still do. Too bad it got bad ratings from tasteless critics.

This is a very well made Godzilla film. It’s far from the best and it lacks charm but I enjoyed the spectacle. The human story is pretty forgettable, Matthew Broderick actually is a horrible miscast in my opinion and sinks this film a bit rather than carry it. The effects are mostly good, especially for the time. The sets are really awesome in places. The production quality all round is very high. This also has the best sense of scale for a Godzilla so far, he actually looks huge. Shame they changed the design of Godzilla so much and it’s just ugly now. I didn’t like the whole plot of baby Godzilla, it felt like a bad Jurassic Park movie. At least the city smashing and finale was very exciting making up for the many shortfalls.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Hollywood's first crack at Godzilla was a colossal dud. From juvenile humor, to dull and bombastic action, to sappy, kitschy melodrama, this misguided attempt by Roland Emmerich puts all of the director's worst tendencies front and center.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]