SHIN GODZILLA

Shin Godzilla (aka Godzilla Resurgence) is the first new Godzilla movie from Toho Studios in twelve years and represents the studio’s third reboot of the character who has now appeared in 29 films from  Toho. There have also been two American-made Godzilla movies with a third one scheduled for 2019.

Via Funimation, Shin Godzilla is having a one-week limited release in the United States and Canada from October 11–18 on 440 screens. It’s being shown in the original Japanese with English subtitles. My son Eddie and I went to the October 11 showing at the Cinemark Theater in Strongsville, Ohio.

The short version of our reaction to it is that we liked it a lot. To learn more, scroll down past the spoilers notice.

SPOILERS AHEAD
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Some of Shin Godzilla’s greatest weaknesses are also some of its greatest strengths. No Godzilla movie has devoted as much attention and screen time as this one to the minutiae of figuring out what the menace is and how to combat it. No Godzilla movie has featured as many interesting characters as this one. The weaknesses come from the tedium of the political machinations and the movie’s failure to  develop most of those interesting characters. Also shortchanged in the two-hour movie are scenes of the human tragedies in the wake of Godzilla’s appearance and rampages.

When a Japanese Coast Guard vessel investigates an abandoned yacht in Tokyo Bay, it is nearly capsized by a steaming water spout. The Tokyo-Bay Aqua-Line is flooded and collapses. Theories as to what’s happening are discussed with the Prime Minister and his ponderously large staff. A theory that these events are being caused by a giant monster is dismissed...until the large creature makes landfall and starts destroying everything in its path.

Digression. Writer and Chief Director Hideaki Anno had the actors playing the politicians and bureaucrats speak faster that normal to resemble real politicians and bureaucrats. It’s effective, but it makes following the subtitles of these conversations intense. The effort to do was exhausting.

When Shin Godzilla - “Shin” can have several meanings, such as new, true or God - makes landfall, its initial appearance is a very odd looking worm-like creature. It lumbers/slithers at a slow pace, but not slow enough to allow for anything near a complete evacuation. We get a shot of a family - parents and a young boy - packing some belongings as their building collapses. It’s a frightening moment, but the only such scene in the movie.

Godzilla evolves before he goes back into the sea. He now stands on two legs and more closely resembles past versions, though, in this film, there have been no past versions. He’s more terrifying than any other Godzilla, but I found his tiny hands and arms a wee bit disconcerting. Probably because of the coincidental resemblance to Donald Trump’s unnaturally small hands.

The movie switches back between Godzilla’s rampages and the humans debating what to do about the beast. The scientists, gathered from  the best and the brightest, work feverishly. The rest of the world takes note and alarm...and decide to drop a thermonuclear bomb on Godzilla. The clock ticks as the scientists try to implement a plan to “freeze” Godzilla in his tracks.

Shinji Higuchi, the film’s co-director and head of special effects, used a combination of computer generated images and suit effects for Godzilla. Mansai Nomura, a traditional Japanese comedy theater actor, portrayed the creature in motion capture. Eddie and I were amazed and impressed by the special effects, which I’ll leave for you to discover for yourselves.

There are over 300 credited actors in this movie. The “leads” are Hiroki Hasegawa (as Rando Yaguchi, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary); Yutaka Takenouchi (Hideki Akasaka, Aide to the Prime Minister) and Satomi Ishihara (Kayoko Ann Patterson, who is the Special Envoy for the President of the United States and the daughter of an American senator). These are the only truly well-defined characters in the movie, each of them a dedicated young public servant looking to the future and not without ambitions of their own. The scenes in which Ishihara expresses horror at the thought of a third nuclear device being dropped on her grandmother’s homeland is compelling.

Other characters are less (and perhaps too thinly) developed. The Prime Minister (Ren Ohsugi) struggles with his inability to choose a course of action sans political considerations. He allows others - notably the United States and United Nations - to make decisions for him. There are other intriguing players among the politicians and scientists, but they don’t get enough attention and screen time to truly resonate with the viewers.

None of these implied shortcomings alter my overall view that Shin Godzilla is a magnificient movie. It places Godzilla, the greatest of all giant monsters, in a contemporary setting. Japan’s history plays a key role in the film...from the memories of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings to the machinations that must be gone through before Japan can defend itself to the allusions to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami to the political climate in which it finds itself forced to agree with the stratagems of the U.S. and the U.N. The real world is as much a part of this movie as Godzilla.

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I loved Shin Godzilla. I love it more the more I think about it and can’t wait to purchase it when it because available. I recommend it without any hesitation whatsoever. I know I’ll be watching it again and again. It’s that great a movie.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2016 Tony Isabella