[Phantom Stranger]

So I finally got around to seeing Shin Godzilla. My general opinion of it is that it is okay. It's not fantastic, but it isn't bad, just okay.

I am going to get into spoilers so keep that in mind.

Going into this movie I was prepared for a film mostly about human drama, criticism of a tangled system that is the Japanese Government, and Godzilla being used as an analogy or what have you in a few scenes. Godzilla despite being in the title is rarely the main focus, so I don't have any problem with that. That said, you need to deliver on the humans, especially if Goji isn't gonna fight some other monster, and sadly I think that's what Shin Godzilla fails most at.
70-80% of the movie is people in board rooms talking. Now to be fair it does do a good job portraying the bureaucratic nightmare of red tape and indecisive leaders, while also providing a good mixture of well to do people within those establishments that are doing their best to help people and stop Godzilla. And some of those boardroom scenes are pretty fun in way. Our main protagonist, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi, assembles a ragtag team of people to figure out how Godzilla functions and how to stop him. Those parts are often times quite good and shows how committed everyone is. It can be quite exciting when someone figures something out and puts fourth ideas and stuff starts coming together. I think this is the strongest element of the film, and eventually it does lead to them coming up with a plan to stop Godzilla and I think it's pretty clever. It great seeing people come together and work to stop a threat with some out of the box thinking and resourcefulness. Seriously, the way they take Godzilla down is pretty great, even if I can't remember any of them because the cast is so freaking huge and names are rarely said.



But as I stated earlier, human drama needs to play a role. And we don't really get that. We get scenes of destruction, sure, we have plenty of talking about how horrific it all is, and we do get quick scenes of people in terror or refugees displaced from their homes, or the aftermath of Godzilla's rampage. But they're just acknowledgements rather than focus.

I hate to compare it to the original and I know that's not fair in the slightest, but something like the prayer scene is something Shin Godzilla desperately needed. Something more than POV shots that- while fantastic looking and great for conveying size and perspective, doesn't convey the emotion of being in a disaster. I believe the film is really banking on people's memories of Fukushima and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami as a means to invoke a emotional response, rather than go through the trouble of setting up a character caught in the middle of it or simply showing us personal loss and horror with a scene of a girl losing her mother, or the sound of a baby crying among the displaced people. Hell I don't even think we get a scene of someone calling their family to make sure they're safe, and we certainly don't have an emotional attachment to Yaguchi or his team beyond wanting to see them succeed.

Perhaps that was intentional, to show a rift between government workers and every day citizens. But That's not very compelling and it actually would have elevated Yaguchi and his team by showing exactly who they're trying to help and prevent from happening to others. 20 minutes of the film could have easily been repurposed for that very thing, and it should've been.

Also everyone in this film has like a dozen contacts they can call to get shit done without going through a ton of people. It's just a odd thing I noticed.

Visuals.
They're (surprise) okay. Some of the CG helicopters and tanks look fine, the buildings look great. The trains looks really bad, they look like something out of train simulator 2017. There's a part where a bunch crash into Godzilla and it looks hokey as shit, especially the physics of the trains. I really wish they used models and not CGI on that part. It really makes me sad that they didn't.
Goji's first two forms look hilarious, and I get what they're going for, it's like how a tadpole, baby bird, or cat looks before it grows, so I won't hold it against the movie. But the googly eyes are funny as hell. I still have mixed feelings about the final look, it feels like it's trying too hard to be scary with the mouth. Speaking of the mouth, Godzilla's is weird. Obviously it stretches wide like the alien in the AVGN movie, but it also splits at the bottom. So Shin Godzilla looks like Kamen Rider Shin. Yeah I'm not crazy over how that looks, it's just weird.

His atomic breath is vastly different here, starting off as fire before becoming a purple laser beam. I'm fine with it, but I do have to point out it's basically the exact same thing as in 'Giant god warrior appears in tokyo.' Godzilla also shoots lasers out of his back which is really awesome looking the first time. I really appreciate toying around with giving Goji new abilities. That said, the second time he does it is a little silly looking due to framing, kinda looks like Tokyo is having the greatest laser light show. He also fires beams out of his tail and...it's okay I guess.

The scenes of destruction are really great visually, there's also a ton of low angle shots that I LOVE. Few POV shots which look pretty good and sorta wish there was more of just because if give you a more personal look, and this is coming from someone the usually hates shaky POV, but it works in bursts. There is a weird one where it's from the inside view of a laptop and all the characters are looking at the screen- not that great.


Audio.
Explosions are nice and crisp, things falling and crumbling all sounds nice and crunchy. Godzilla sounds like '54 Goji, so that's all good. His atomic laser sounds deliciously retro, like it was taken out of a 60's Sci-Fi movie, I love it. The music is really great, I love the soundtrack. There are one or two scenes where I feel the music doesn't fit well with the visuals, but for the most part it's sport on. I do wish 'Persecution of the masses' and 'Who will know Tragedy' were used a bit more. They're both really haunting tracks that instill a feeling of dread when you see low angle shots of Godzilla.

Also I might as well mention it here, there is English in the movie. It's weird. One of the characters, Kayoko Ann Patterson, speaks English a lot. And I don't know why other than that they're trying really hard to sell that she's totally not from Japan, and to their credit, Satomi Ishihara speaks it very well. I understood her perfectly and it's probably the best I've heard in a Japanese production. But it sounds unnatural, and I don't just mean in a "she's clearly not living in America" way, I mean they have her speak English for seemingly no reason to Japanese people. Also when she converses with English speakers, it isn't incomprehensible word usage, but it's not how someone bilingual would actually talk. But it is a commendable effort and to have such clarity is really great. The non Japanese cast does well too, it's not nearly as awkward sounding like in Godzilla '84. So good job on that.



But all in all I found Shin Godzilla to be a very mixed bad. It's not bad, but it's not great. In all honesty it's probably no better or worse than '14 and yeah I'm actually saying that. Neither really has any interesting characters throughout the film. '14 has the problem of constantly teasing and cutting away far too often to uninteresting humans. Shin has the problem of Goji getting in a few great action scenes before falling asleep through most of the movie in favor of uninteresting humans in boardrooms, only to wake up at the end and be frozen.

Shin Godzilla's run has been extended, though I don't think you should feel like you're missing out if you don't see it. The film has done really well and chances are whatever sequel Toho puts out will likely get this sort of release too, which will hopefully be more interesting and engaging film.