Review of Shin Godzilla (2016) by Lee F — 03 Nov 2016

A lot funnier (and intentionally funny!) than I was expecting. Kaiju films almost always have tons of scenes with government officials, and it's completely boring. You're forced to watch countless characters with next-to-zero (at most) development so you can watch a little bit of giant monsters attacking. This film understands how ridiculous these meetings are and makes them funny. The city of Tokyo itself also feels like a character in the final Godzilla fight--something I haven't seen in a kaiju film before.

Like all Japanese kaiju films, the American actors are absolutely awful. And even though the film is funny, you still don't care that much for the characters.

Godzilla as a character is very different in this film, but not so different that he doesn't feel like Godzilla. The ending leaves it open for a sequel, and it's definitely a sequel I'll watch.