I find Godzilla to be a very underrated movie
 

the one with Matthew broderick and Jean Reno. Seriously, it had some great special effects and well made for a Dino movie.

Hmmm. Anyone else liked this?

From my point of view, it started out real well but the whole godzilla chasing a taxi cab around New York was too stupid. I see it as another movie that people has some real good mental images of how the movie should develop, but no idea on how to finish it. I hate that.

If they hadn't stuck the name Godzilla on it, I would've been perfectly fine with it. It's pretty good for a stand-alone monster flick, even if the whole Baby Godzilla sequence was torn right from the pages of Jurassic Park. Still, the monster just didn't feel like Godzilla, y'know?

Anyways, since this is slightly on topic, it's the 50th Anniversary of the original Gojira, and they're finally releasing the movie in the US in its original form. Completely uncut (the American version had a good 40 minutes cut out and the main character changed to an American actor), uncensored, and with subtitles instead of the horrible dubbing. Aside from the crappy special effects, the first Godzilla is really a much darker and more serious movie than all of its ultra-campy sequels. I can't wait to get my hands on the DVD.

And great special effects make a movie...

The special effects were pretty dodgy, at different times Godzilla was a different size.
And the acting was ****ing awful, even Jean Reno which is a real shock.

That's not what I meant. Having good special effects really does add to the movie, especially in scifi/monster movies, but that's nowhere near enough to make a film by itself. Hell, just look at the last two Star Wars movies, or that stupid Torque flick, for evidence of that.

I meant that compared to a lot of the other special-effects-intensive movies at the time, the man-in-suit effects and rubber puppets used in the first Godzilla were lacking, and it ended up hurting the overall atmosphere of the movie. They do an awesome job with instilling this sense of dread, only for it to be thrown off by a bad shot or two. Which is really a shame, since the acting (especially the Japanese cast, which had some of the actors from The Seven Samurai), script, and story as a whole were way ahead of all of the other old giant-monster flicks, but all anyone ever remembers from Godzilla movies are the shoddy suit effects and the awful voice-overs.

I was referring to the original post.

Chill.

On the subject of special effects, I've read a lot on the original Godzilla/Gojira. It was a huge budget for a monster movie at the time, and was done much in the way it was envisioned.

After all, Dinosaurs were slow, lumbering creatures...according the the paradigm of the time.

The effects were done by a man known for his WW2 reenactments...Reenactments so "realistic" that when Americans captured some of them, they believed it to be REAL footage.

IT's not great now, but remember, this was a MASSIVE blockbuster back then.

D'accord.

It's a shame, because they managed to build up massive suspense in the trailers...And I like Matthew Broderick...

Oh. Sorry.