Review of Shin Godzilla (2016) by Jesus L — 11 Oct 2016

Oh man it's been awhile since I wrote one of these. Yup, nothing more satisfying than having a few friends on the Facebook see me stroke my ego with one of these. So like John Wick I guess I'm back and so is Godzilla in this new Toho produced film the first since 2004. Lemme just say how nostalgic it was to see the Toho logo light up the that theater.

Going into Shin Godzilla I was expecting an update on the basic Japanese Godzilla formula and that's pretty much what I got. Characters are basically exposition fodder while we patiently await to see Godzilla. To their credit they include satire that was politically relevant. Instead of Godzilla being an allegory to the Bombs it's been updated to the Fukushima Accident from 2011.

The story is pretty easy to follow leaving almost nothing left to interpretation. Director Hideaki Anno responsible for Neon Genesis Evangelion, which I haven't seen yet, delivers probably one of the best visual impressive Godzilla films yet whenever he has the opportunity to. Dead serious, the first act of the film is nothing but quick cutting instead of actual scenes. Like I understand he's was trying to imply a sense of urgency but I found it unnecessary and annoying when the action started to calm down. That wasn't nearly as annoying as the constant close up of characters delivering important exposition. It's even worse when it's an actor who can't act for shit and you're stuck with this claustrophobic shitty monologue. However, despite that, the acting was overall solid with the latter being the exception. The music for Shin Godzilla was pretty good and even surfaced some old queue's from the series.

It was a fun and welcomed return of form of the Toho Godzilla series for better or worse. Not much to say about this one but what you see is what you get. So if you saw the trailer and think you'll like it chances are you'll like it and if you didn't then skip this one. I'm giving this one a 6/10.