Review: Shin Godzilla

Okay, this is SUPER belated. Shin Godzilla came out in Japan in July, and was screened in the U.S. in October. So I better get on it before another one comes out.

The last Godzilla movie that was made by Toho was Godzilla Final Wars, which came out in 2004 on the 50th anniversary of the King of the Monsters. 10 years later, Legendary made up for the mess that Tristar made in '98. And now, 12 years after the Final Wars, a new Toho Godzilla movie has been released, and by God was it beautiful, For a monster movie, this film hits all the marks. Unfortunately, the rumors about this being a sequel to the original 1954 movie were false. This is an entirely new Godzilla world with an entirely new Godzilla. I won't give too much of the plot away, but it's basically a Godzilla vs. Humanity movie, which we haven't gotten in YEARS. All of them had other monsters. Godzilla 1985 had that Shockirus thing, Mechagodzilla II had Rodan, Against Mechagodzilla had the original Godzilla in it, so all of the Godzilla vs. Humans movies had other monsters except for the original and this one.

This isn't a remake though, it's an entirely new plot, well except for the giant monster attacking and the army fighting him bits. but that doesn't matter. The plot's basically: some creature shows up, government debates about it, monster appears and attacks, army retaliates, monster showed to be powerful and escapes, government hires people to help, monster reappears even stronger, army attacks with help from U.S., monster gets even more powerful and humiliates the army and the U.S., monster goes comatose, geniuses come up with plan, monster wakes up, army initiates plan, plan works, monster defeated, the end. That's all I'm telling, you'll have to see the movie for yourself.

All I can say about the monster effects is that they're good. I found it hard to differentiate between the suitmation and cgi, which I find to be a plus. The new Atomic breath is also really cool. All of the effects are cool. The best of all is the music. Hearing Akira Ifukube's music in the movie theater is a privilege and honor, and I hope I'll be able to hear his music again in the sequel. I forgot to mention that a sequel's been announced.

All in all, this is one of my favorite Godzilla films for many reasons, the way that the Japanese government debates about whether or not to kill Godzilla be fore he becomes a threat is very realistic, and all of it is handled as if a monster did appear in the real world. And because of that, this movie actually scared me, which is a first for the Godzilla series. Godzilla is treated like a force of nature, which he is, and not as some creature knocking things over. This is just as good as the 1954 movie in my opinion, and I cannot stress this enough when I say it's the best film of 2016.

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