Bingowings said:

I think 1998's Godzilla is meant to be more like King Kong.

Essentially the creature is a victim. It's biology has been screwed up by what mankind has done to the environment, it staggers around Manhattan in more in confusion than malice. Being shot at by little pink things (mostly) in metal flying things and then it's children are killed.

GODZILLA (1998) is a remake of THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) in all but name only.

After atomic testing, fishing boats mysteriously start to disappear and in a pattern that leads toward New York City.

Soon after a giant creature emerges on a Manhattan dock and proceeds to raise havoc and destruction as it wanders the streets.

The creature disappears and the army decides to lure it out by dumping an enormous pile of fish in the middle of the street. The lure works but they fail in their attempt to destroy the creature.

Later on the army is finally successful in killing the beast and it dies in a tangle of collapsing infrastructure.

Now, as an ode to the classic American monster movie I'm quite fond of it.

HOWEVER, as an american attempt on the Kaiju genre, let alone Godzilla, it's an abject failure.