GODZILLA (22)

Directed by: Ronald Emmerich

Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Hank Azaria, Maria Pitillo

The Pitch: That's a big lizard.

Theo Sez: What can you say about a blockbuster that died? Not a lot, really - except perhaps that it was closer to euthanasia. There's a half-decent climax in this sad botch of a monster movie, plus a vaguely enjoyable first 20 minutes, globe-trotting from one Godzilla sighting to another (though you have to wonder why the beast didn't show up in satellite photos) ; beyond that everything is dull and lame beyond belief, from the desperate in-jokes to the painful quips ("Hey I told them so, but no-one listens to genius!" says a 'wacky' sidekick) to the look of the monster itself, which seems to have no facial expressions at all. The script is by Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, which would suggest that some people are born to write scripts and others are born to be directors and producers - it's a bit like that old cartoon where an electrician walks into a house past a woman with her hair standing on end (caption : "Tried to fix it yourself, huh?"). The lines lack zing, the plotting creaks, and Reno's French commando (a sop, presumably, to the international audience) never quite fits in with the rest of it ; poor Matthew Broderick must be wondering - what with this and THE CABLE GUY, another Sure Thing that wasn't - what exactly he has to do to get a hit.