He's faster, sleeker, but still stuck in a bad movie

Starring Matthew Broderick, Maria Pitillo, and Hank Azaria. Directed by Roland Emmerich.

by DAVID J. FOSTER
Movie Critic

He certainly looks better.

He's got new muscular calves, a sleeker gait, and a killer set of jaws. The big guy's make-over by producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich is every bit as eye-popping as the hovering alien craft of their smash hit Independence Day.

And as they did in Independence Day, Devlin and Emmerich have successfully strip-mined another sci-fi pop culture icon and hyper-charged the cliches.

This isn't like George Lucas paying homage to movie serials with Indiana Jones and Star Wars. He played with our expectations and utilized old filmmaking techniques. There's even depth, subtext, and character.

For Devlin and Emmerich, the new Godzilla is all about gloss and hype. Hide the monster from the public (until opening day), unleash the eyeball-bending special-effect action scenes, and hope no one notices the mediocrity. It worked in Independence Day.

The sad thing: The original source material is so ripe for serious updating. The first Godzilla movie tapped Japenese fear and loathing of the nuclear bomb. Then he became a hokey kids super hero with a rubbery waddle and spongy head. Cheesy, but innocent. The new Godzilla could have gone in either direction.

Instead, we get an interminable stretch (the film runs nearly two-and-a-half hours) of stomping and chomping. For once a movie tag line is honest: "Size does matter." Endless scenes of mayhem are exactly what Emmerich knows will bring in the millions (billions?) who'll make what is essentially a cousin to the listless Jurassic Park: The Lost World a worldwide phenomenon.

It starts with the colossal beast leaving his footprints across the South Pacific and Central America on his way to the Big Apple where he has plans for laying a few eggs. But looking for good nesting grounds means battering Manhattan with his rolling tail or smashing skyscrapers noggin-first.

Godzilla is so omnipotent he eviscerates Matthew Broderick, playing your standard sci-fi scientist who stands around mouth agape warning of the coming cataclysm.

But then, that's Emmerich's formula. To make the cast anything more than cardboard stereotypes would interfere with all the stomping and chomping.

So we have Hank Azaria as a daring New York cameraman, Maria Pitillo as a greenhorn reporter who happens to be Broderick's ex-flame, and Michael Lerner as the New York mayor struggling to put the best light on this horrible calamity.

None of them matter. It's the missle attacks and helicopter pursuits that will draw the kids, and a final act that makes room for more stomping and chomping.

After all, in modern Hollywood, it's the size of your sequel that really counts.