GODZILLA (Directed by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Starring a pathetic computer-generated monster and a host of actors so bad it would be cruel to quote their names.)

Godzilla embodies and personifies the essence of the ’90s blockbuster like no film that came before it. Its release (and surefire success) is the logical culmination of all that’s preceded it, and when future generations look back at the 1990s and scratch their heads in bafflement at the box-office winners of the age, Godzilla will stand as the definitive highlight/nadir, in much the same way that The Towering Inferno now defines all that sucked about the 1970s.

Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich once had the privilege of being interviewed by yours truly, and while they were extremely nice guys, my chief recollection is one of sitting open-mouthed in ever-increasing bewilderment, as these apparently intelligent and well-adjusted gentlemen recounted the feverish excitement they felt upon first watching The Poseidon Adventure. Mmm, how could we ever forget? Having made millions upon millions from Independence Day, the boys are now in a position to make any kind of movie they want, and to hell with budgetary considerations. Needless to say, they’ve opted for another similarly-themed project. No surprises there.

What is surprising is how downright dull, laboured, uninspired and (the biggest sin) unspectacular Godzilla actually is. Independence Day, whether by accident or design, was a genuinely hilarious movie with its tongue implanted firmly in its cheek, and visually, it didn’t let up for a second. Godzilla fails to come up with even one amusing twist, or a single line of enjoyable dialogue, in 139 minutes of trying. Even the special effects are so tame as to verge on the laughable.

Godzilla doesn’t actually turn up until at least an hour-and-a-half of waiting, and when he does, he looks positively cuddly compared to the huge-fanged T-Rexes that roamed the plains of Jurassic Park. He is presumably intended to seem ferocious, but actually looks quite ridiculous, clumping clumsily around the streets of New York like Peter Schmeichel on horse-tranquillisers.

More to the point, before the viewer gets to actually feast eyes on Godzilla, he/she has had to endure a hundred minutes’ worth of one of those paper-thin plots that make Neighbours look like Hamlet. Matthew Broderick is annoyingly wholesome as the nice-guy scientist who has to save the day, while Maria Pitillo is quite pitifully wooden as the standard-issue romantic-interest heroine. In contrast, Jean Reno at least manages to make something of a dreadfully-written role as a French secret-service agent, against quite heroic odds.

The film’s final half-hour, as you would expect, ups the excitement quotient slightly with a couple of loud action sequences, but if rigor mortis hasn’t set in long before then, you’re easily pleased. Give Godzilla a miss, I implore you, and if you must see it, at least skip the first hundred minutes.