The very – and this case literal – enbodiment of “we have Godzilla at home”, though it’s american-flavoured Godzilla given the production and the year it came out, one year that lives in infamy for the Godzilla faithful, but wait, there’s actually more as this is also kinda E.T., guess the echoes of Nukie and Mac & Me made the idea survive till the very end of the millennium itself.
And speaking of rip-offs it’s not totally incorrect since this TV movie premiered the very same day early screening for 1998 Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla were held, so yeah, it is not a victim of circumstances or a project in production before that was hurried to “compete” (by trying to come out first in hope of fooling the less informed, as usual) with an upcoming big budget Hollywood film that happened to have a similar plot or subject matter.
Still, i think “rip-off” might be too strong a word, since it doesn’t even really tries to do emulate the Roland Emmerich movie, and it’s actually closer to Gorgo or Gappa (as there are more of the monster siblings and parents), because it does involve the “momma monster” coming of the seabed to retrieve “da baby” from an enclosure of sorts, in this case though it because underwater quakes made possible for some amphibious giant reptilian creatures to show up on the beaches of Malau, Hawaii, where a marine biologist has brought along his son for work and to hopefully process the recent loss of the mother.
The kid stumbles upon the baby “gargantuan” monster, forming a dog-like bond with its, then his big bro show ups, gets captured, which triggers the giant sized mother creature to emerge to save his offspring, they call the army, etc. etc.
It’s pretty typical for a monster movie, though the ET element (and i guess the budget) make it more of a “kiddie movie” than you might expect, there’s barely any gore or blood, most of the kills of random people in the water are very PG, as are there the Jurassic Park-esque jungle chases, and it fits the emphasis on the emotional aspect, to the point the movie basically swaps the second and third act, so we have the usual scenes of the army shooting at the monster that rampages through the city… then there’s still 30 minutes left to the film as the army sergeant actually agrees for the more peaceful option, mostly because it would destroy the whole morality tale aspect.
And there’s also that subplot with the australian man that wants to kidnap and sell “not Minilla” to settle in this very slow paced “boat off” finale that mostly them checking a radar thingie. Thrilling stuff.
For what concerns the backstory to the “Gargantuans” creatures, it’s definitely what you expect from the decade, as in it’s that ecological disaster explanation of chemical waste and contamined stuff that updates the old “atomic age” era of monster caused by man messing with nature.
In terms of effects, we get a look fairly early at “baby Gargantua”… and he looks like baby dinosaur prop, a good one considering this is a end of millennium TV movie rushed to come out alongside the big budget Tristar backed Hollywood blockbuster, sure, some of the composite shots are hilarious, as is the cheap CGI used in some specific spots, but the effects for the creatures themselves are more than decent, i gotta admit it’s could have easily looked far worse than this.
Sure the dinosaurs aren’t really scary, but they’re not meant to, they’re meant to look like animals, not evil monsters, and the baby one is cute because it’s a kids movie….. though there are scenes when they clearly meant to be menacing and they’re just too cute and too basic in terms of design to really work, even if the effects weren’t shoddily edited together.
This isn’t to say this is a misunderstood masterpiece, as the plot its utterly derivative every way you slice it, as are the themes and morals, it’s clearly rushed out on Fox’s demand, the cast ha some recognazible names but everyone (aside from Adam Balwin as the marine biologist lead) is overacting, at best, or just clearly half-assing it, the pacing is iffy, especially towards the end, the creatures themselves have the most boring dinosaur designs ever, but it’s not as awful as everyone made it to be, even though it’s an utterly derivative cliches soup of a movie rushed to hell and back.
There’s nothing really new or good here, and i can kinda see why it got this sort of “so bad it’s almost good” reputation to it, but i can’t really hate it too much, once you understand that this was clearly meant as a TV monster movie for kids that didn’t even want to compete with the Emmerich take on Godzilla, despite what the marketing (including its dvd cover and tagline) for it implied.
It’s okay…ish, it’s watchable, but it’s ultimately so close to being outright subpar and without any distinctive quirks that i recommend a watch (the movie can also be found on Youtube as of now) only to the more ravenous monster movie gluttons.
Wise Cafe (International) 