Shin Godzilla

[Svengoolie 3]

 To begin my review of shin godzilla, I must honestly say this movie itsn't for a lot of people.

 It's for intelligent people who like intelligent movies.  Most people won't be wiling to think enough to appreciate this movie. It actually is an intelligent movie and maybe the Godzilla movie that comes closest to the spirit of the original Godzilla movie.

Yes, realistically godzilla is impossible. Intelligent people know this. The movie actually makes references to this fact. But it accepts the impossibility of godzilla's existence and makes some gestures to acknowledging it.

The movie accepts godzilla exists and then creates a very plausible, easy to believe portrait of how the world, especially Japan and America, would react to something like this happening. While godzilla may be unbelievable the world's reaction to him isn't. People actually refer to the effect he has on the stock market! Also the refugees created by him are shown at times.

Politics and economics play real roles in this movie and are believable. Also the science team created to deal with him are described as 'lone wolves, nerds, scientific heretics and general pains in the establishment's ass'. It's an admission that normal scientists wouldn;t be able to deal with such an abnormal situation.

Also on the realistic side, several days into the crisis a government official trying to save his country is told by co workers that frankly he needs a shower and a new shirt as the stench is becoming troublesome to others. It was not in a hateful way as it was understood a crisis was ongoing.

America was portrayed in the movie realistically, neither villain nor saint, but America tries to aid Japan and American military personnel die trying to save japan. America offers aid to Refugees.

It's also implied that after 70 years as a client state Japan may be getting just a bit tired of it.

 Another political nod what that it took several nations efforts to stop Godzilla without nuking tokyo, a move america was wiling to commit once it was understood that this godzilla posed an existential threat to humanity on a global scale, but even so japan was reluctant to work with china or russia, an understandable attitude to anyone familiar with history.

Non Japanese people with not get some things about this movie. One should know that in Japanese culture when a person disappears from home but leaves his shoes neatly laced together it is often an indication the person left to commit suicide. Remember that, it's important to know in the first few minutes of the movie.

Also this movie was largely an indictment of the Fukishima nuclear disaster and the japanese government's absolutely pathetic and inadequate reaction to it in the first few days when much of the laser catastrophe could have been aborted  by quick, reasonable and serious action. In a way it's as much a statement about the japanese government's fossilized and canalized response to a sudden and unexpected disaster as the original movie was a statement about nuclear weapons and the harm they caused.

 Despite the impossibility of godzilla's existence, I must say that at about the same time this was released there was a 'fast ans furious" movie featuring a scene where a russian submarine surfaced thru thick ice and was being attacked by a gang with customized cars. In the movie the submarine fired torpedoes that skidded across the ice and were kicked at by people hanging out of their cars. Personally I found shin godzilla far easier to accept than this movie would have been.

All in all this is an intelligent movie and generally believable. I think a few  folks here would like it.

[Fox Sake]

Thanks for the very balanced and informative review!

I wrote on another post earlier, with regards how popular Shin Godzilla is, especially in portraying a realistic cum believable scenario. Personally, I really don't have the inclination to watch these kinds of films - King Kong et al - because of my expectations of seeing a huge "dinosaur" stomping on cities while shrugging off WMDs from the various defence forces. However, I am prepared to give this a go, with an open mind and objective reasoning. It's had pretty good reviews across the usual film critic boards, so it must have something special going for it.

Thanks again

[Svengoolie 3]

Oh, you will see a giant monster stomping a city and shrugging off massive volleys of weapons fire in shin godzilla, absolutely.

In fact the scenes with the military going at godzilla are extremely well done and more believable than any other kaiju film I've even seen.

You see, in the movie they aren't just throwing fireworks at a rubber suit ramdomly. It's assumed a trained, competent, modern military can actually reliably and consistently hit a target that is many, many times larger than anything it's been trained to engage for years, and is moving fairly slowly.

How many times have you shouted "Aim for the damn head already?!?!" at the incompetent militarys in other kaiju films who seem to miss godzilla with 90% of what they fire at him? In shin godzilla the weapons fire looks quite realistic, and they actually seem to hit him at least 99% of the time, and they indeed aim for and hit the head. We see realistic military vehicles attacking godzilla including gunships, tanks, artillery, fighter bombers, etc. Wow, you mean a professional, trained and well equipped modern military can atually reliably hit a target dozens of times larger than it was normally trained to hit? Amazing! 

It's just that people fairly quickly realize that conventional military forces aren't going to stop this thing. (One attack comes close) and act in an intelligent fashion. A military commander, realizing they can't kill this thing after expending their ammo loadouts against it, orders his men to focus all efforts on speeding up the evacuation of the population to save lives. He tells his men that's the best they can do for their country now.

The military fights and monster city stomping are definitely there, and very well done. It's just that this movie does so much more than that.

[Svengoolie 3]

D'Oh! Where is my brain?!  I forgot to mention the best thing about this movie!


THERE'S NO &@#*ING KENNY IN IT!!!