Just got back from a theatrical showing of the new Godzilla reboot from Toho. It’s in a one-week only US run in limited theatres, in Japanese with English subtitles, and is directed by Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame.
It’s really good.
I was a fan of the 2014 American remake, and this is a very different movie than that. Most surprisingly, it’s primarily a political satire - the main storyline follows the Prime Minister’s Cabinet as they try to maneuver through the political and bureaucratic hurdles in dealing with an emerging threat like Godzilla, and the main character is a deputy Cabinet aide who gets swept into power as he finds himself leading the anti-Godzilla task force. To an extent it satirizes the government’s response to the Fukushima disaster, and there’s a definite nationalist theme - Japan is institutionally rigid and slow to react to changing circumstances, but it’s at its best when disaster strikes and the nation is forced to recover and rebuild. A good chunk of the movie is set in boardrooms and offices, but there’s a definite sense of tension and suspense that underpins it. Most of the movie has no music - there are only a few scored scenes, mostly when Godzilla is on the move.
Whereas the American movie took about an hour to introduce Godzilla (the characters refer to it as ‘Gojira’, although they set up in-universe that it was originally named ‘Godzilla’ by its discoverer), he starts to make his presence known within the first few minutes of the movie and shows up on screen at about the 15-20 minute point, though he doesn’t quite look like his iconic self yet - the defining trait of this Godzilla is that it’s capable of rapidly mutating to acclimate to its environment. When it first makes landfall it basically looks like a giant iguana, reaching its “final form” during the second act. The scenes of the destruction it causes are realistic and terrifying - I was particularly moved by the scene of a family trying to pack their things and evacuate when Godzilla bumps into their tower block and tips it over. The scene cuts away before their inevitable death, but as someone who watched 9/11 happen live, it definitely evokes some powerful emotions.
The motion capture and CGI are great, and the monster is visually terrifying albeit a bit stiff. Its eyes look a little goofy frozen in a permanent stare, but it’s definitely one of the more intimidating Godzilla designs ever, with its jagged teeth and radioactive glow. There’s a recurring theme of comparing Godzilla to a god, in the Cthulhu sense more so than the benevolent type. Even the title is a play on words - it can be translated either as “New Godzilla”, or as “Godzilla the God”. The scene where it first uses its atomic breath was far from what I expected and really sold it as being an unstoppable menace, even during the parts of the movie where it just stands still for days recharging. Its purpose for coming to Tokyo is never made entirely clear, adding to its inscrutability - it can’t even really be called an “attack”, as it just walks in a straight line and doesn’t seem to deliberately strike out except when it’s fired on.
It’s a little hard for me to critique the acting since I don’t speak Japanese, but the delivery sounded good and the subtitles were prominent and easy to read. It got a little distracting when there was a subtitle on the bottom of the screen and a caption on top translating some Japanese text, and the names of all the characters were hard to follow, but the plot is easy enough to understand. The Prime Minister is a particularly interesting character - he’s terrified of launching a military strike for fear of collateral damage, even when his inaction is possibly costing even more lives. You can definitely feel the stress and the tension the characters are under, and there are a few funny moments that really illustrate how humor can be a coping mechanism in difficult times. There was one bit of dry humor when a character dismissively rejects the idea that the Americans would be so willing to nuke Godzilla if it had attacked New York, calling back Toho’s long history of poking jibes at the Roland Emmerich movie.
The theatrical run goes through Monday, and I’m sure you can probably buy it on DVD or online streaming somewhere soon if it isn’t already available. If you’re a fan of monster/disaster movies at all, this is a good one, and I’d really recommend it.
Anyone else seen it yet?
