Likes swimming, jogging and crushing people beneath feet. Recently relocated from southern locale. Enjoys fish – a lot.

What is Godzilla?
The TriStar release Godzilla is basically a love story between biologist Nick Tatopoulis and his college sweetheart, Audrey – not to mention, between Godzilla and himself. That's right, folks, you heard it first right here on NY Rock, Godzilla is an asexual being, and he's come to Manhattan to reproduce (much like the Bridge and Tunnel crowd does every Saturday night).

Tatopoulis is played by Matthew Broderick, who does a splendid job, as usual. Audrey is played by Maria Pitillo, who doesn't do quite as splendid of a job. The story goes something like this: Years of nuclear testing at small islands in the Pacific Ocean have allowed the accompanying radiation to spawn a new species, much like radioactivity caused our old friends Spiderman and the Hulk to be hatched.

How big is Godzilla?
Let's just say that when he descends down the 23rd Street subway entrance he basically has to remodel the accommodations as he goes. And the Big G, as you can expect, does a whole lot of remodeling during the course of the movie. Filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the duo who brought us the 1996 phenomenon Independence Day, have the idea that people like to watch their cities getting destroyed by hostile forces – and you know what, they're right.

Godzilla does a bang-up job of ravaging New York City. I especially enjoyed watching him tear through the Helmsley Building, early in the movie, but felt a little bad about the Chrysler Building going down. Fortunately, the Big G spent little time on the East Side, leaving NY Rock headquarters virtually unscathed.

Matthew Broderick

To get back to the storyline, Godzilla arrives in NYC for the purpose of spawning a nest of offspring. This allows the two leading characters to also spawn a long-dormant romance since Tatopoulis is a scientist who examines, under a microscope, whatever remnants the Big G leaves behind, and Audrey works for a local news network covering the sordid sequence of events.

Unfortunately, Godzilla is a clumsy sort, and winds up leveling half of New York City as he makes his way about town (a similar problem exists with our cab drivers). The U.S. military steps in to remove this nuisance from our streets, but unfortunately our boys in green are not very good at actually aiming their guns. In addition, it takes them about three-quarters of the movie to realize they need something bigger than hand-held semi-automatic assault rifles to down the monster, once again proving that the term "military intelligence" is the oxymoron of the century.

As the U.S. army continues to blunder, Phillippe Roche (Jean Reno) of the French Secret Service steps in. Roche is adept, intelligent and, with the help of Tatopoulis, eventually saves the day.

Without a doubt, Reno steals the show. He has an arresting presence on camera, tough and likable. Also worthy of mention are Hank Azaria as the cameraman named Animal, whose Brooklyn-ese persona is damn near perfect, and the special effects which are dazzling. If nothing else, the recently hatched baby Godzillas running amuck in Madison Square Garden should be worth the price of your ticket alone, proving – by the way – that many of today's top performers are not the only ones to lay an egg in the venerable old theater.