A few years back, a group of some of my friends decided to hit up our local theater for a screening of the Japanese film “Shin Godzilla”. With the recent release of “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, I figured it would be a good time to look back on some of my experiences seeing Godzilla on the big screen. Unfortunately, “Shin Godzilla” is the only Godzilla movie I can honestly say I saw on the big screen.
This film reimagines the origins of Godzilla and sets it in modern Japan. Instead of emerging in full form, this Godzilla evolves over the course of the film. These evolutions the creature experiences seem to help him adapt to any weapon he is exposed to. Unlike his American counterpart, this Godzilla isn’t a force for good. This Godzilla comes in like a wrecking ball and leaves a path of destruction in his wake. Throughout the film, the Japanese government and the scientists researching the creature must try to figure out the best way to stop the beast before anyone else gets hurt.
This movie is Toho’s third reboot (the three American Godzilla films were not produced by Toho) of Godzilla aka Gojira. The Godzilla films are recognized as the longest continuously running movie franchise by Guinness World Records. The film ended up making a ton of money in Japan and even won seven awards at the Japan Academy Prize ceremony. It is also the first Japanese produced Godzilla movie to receive a North American theatrical release since “Godzilla 2000”. Does that mean it’s good though?
Well, to be honest, I found the film to be a little too slow and at times a bit boring. Don’t get me wrong, the scenes with Godzilla were impressive and enjoyable but there just wasn’t enough of the ‘not so jolly green giant’ for my taste. Now I know sometimes less is better and they did do a good job with the buildup, it’s just with Godzilla, everyone already has a pretty good idea what they are going to see and how massive he will be based on previous films. It worked better in a film like “Jaws” because you didn’t know what to expect.
Now, I did revisit the film on home video because the first time I watched it I nearly fell asleep in the theater. This actually had nothing to do with the movie however, I didn’t get a lot of sleep at the time due to helping an ailing parent. Having to read subtitles because the film is in Japanese didn’t exactly help that at the time. I generally prefer when foreign language films use subtitles but my eyes were just not feeling it that day. That is one nice thing about the home release of the film. They have the version I saw with subtitles (which I recommend unless you are sleep deprived like I was that day) or a version with an English language dub which was released on DVD as “Godzilla: Resurgence”.
The reason I mention the different versions on home video is because the film features social commentary that can easily be lost on a viewer if they aren’t paying attention. There is a good chunk of political subtext about the Japanese government that is easily lost on a western audience (which might explain why the reviews weren’t as glowing for the film as they were with eastern critics). Much of it was lost on me until I had a friend pointed it out to me.
Godzilla is a hard character to get right and every fan has an opinion how to handle the character. “Shin Godzilla” is probably the most like the original “Godzilla” film we have got to date and probably will ever get in the future. I will say this too, while I personally wish the film had a bit more action, I love how much most of the Godzilla fans have embraced it. Just the other day, I was reading about a theory revolving around the character of Goro Maki and how he could tie into Godzilla’s tail (yes you read that right and you really should go look up that theory because it is bananas). At the end of the day, “Shin Godzilla” wasn’t the Godzilla movie I wanted but perhaps it was the Godzilla film the other fans needed.
Grade: C
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