From the makers of Independence Day, the 1996 extended advertisement for the Pentagon which justified everything from our nation's bloated defense budget to its nuclear stockpile, comes the antinuclear morality play, Godzilla. Originally released to Japan as Gojira in 1954, less than a decade after A-bombs killed some 270,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla soon became a symbol of Japanese pride and resilience. The original picture was patterned after the American film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, in which a large green reptile is awakened from the depths of the South Pacific by U.S. atomic bomb experiments on the Bikini atoll. As such, Gojira, along with its 1956 U.S. companion Godzilla, King of the Monsters; was quite effective as a sobering and suspenseful allegory of the horrors of nuclear war. What do you expect from a movie about an irradiated beast that rampages through Japanese cities?

This original theme was quickly lost on later films, generally referred to as Godzilla vs. Monster X. These films were to the '60s what the World Wrestling Federation was to the '80s. Thus, what was not lost during this period was the continued emergence of Godzilla as a symbol of Japanese pride. In fact, in many of the later movies, Godzilla is more hero than villain. A notable example of this is Godzilla vs. King Kong (1962), in which both monsters engage in a prolonged bout that ends with both plunging into the Pacific. The only difference between the U.S. version and the Japanese version, aside from the now infamous over-dubbing, is the ending in which, in the U.S. version, King Kong resurfaces triumphant and, in the Japanese version, 'Gojira' emerges victorious.

The latest Godzilla follows the earlier tradition, but has a definite 90's spin which can be interpreted as apathy wins or the west above the rest, depending on how cynical you are. There's Mathew Broderick as the stock scientist character, Niko Tatopoulos, who one could surmise, after participating in the largest peace time protest in US history (the Anti-Nuke demonstration in New York's Central Park during Reagan's Strange Loving Era), has decided to compromise everything by joining the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and pursue "change from within." And then there's the journalist Audrey Timmonds, played by Maria Pitillo, who compromises her humanity for a sensational scoop only to find redemption by calling an air strike on herself. And then there's Godzilla himself who is no longer the small head atop a huge lumbering body that we all know and love, but a Testosteronosourus Rex (a la Jurassic Park) that compromises his gender to lay eggs. Touche.

In addition to this `90s fun, Godzilla is more thematically aligned with Independence Day than with the original Godzilla. Once again it's more a great big affirmation for the Pentagon and US pride than a sobering harbinger of nuclear doom. One noteworthy line has our beloved Sergeant O'Neal exclaim: "We need bigger guns!" Although the film begins with the original nuclear allegory, it quickly looses this focus in favor of its `90's motifs of moral compromise, gender bending monsters, and love and redemption amongst the ruins. One only need look as far as the plot's greatest loophole to see this--a scene early in the film in which a Japanese fisherman and sole survivor of the beast's wrath at the beginning of the movie ends up on his death bed ranting "Gojira, Gojira, Gojira..." thanks to radiation poisoning. Meanwhile our heroes celebrate after prolonged exposure to the beast's atomic temper. Perhaps they all die off camera during the credits.

Despite my social commentary, I didn't take the film that seriously, and so rather enjoyed it. The film fulfilled my chief requirement for any Godzilla movie. Namely, Godzilla evaded destruction with some interesting newfound talent only to finally confront his mortality in a new and interesting way. Also, who can't help but laugh at such gimmicks as the Frenchmen with their constant jabs at "those stupid Americans," Jean Reno's Elvis imitation, or Mayor Ebert with his aide Siskel. Besides, wouldn't it just be grand, just grand, if all of our environmental woes would simply rise up and confront our complacency as huge gangly monsters that we could then put down with our awesome military might?