Shin Godzilla
Director: Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi
Year: 2016
Duration: 2 hours
Country: Japan
AKA Godzilla Resurgence
Godzilla is back in the film "Shin Godzilla" and is stomping all over Tokyo
yet once again. On a personal note, it was just nice seeing a disaster film
in which New York City and my condo was not destroyed for a change. Tokyo
doesn’t make out so well. This one could have been titled Godzilla vs. the
Government Bureaucrats as it seems to take special pleasure in skewering the
inability of the Japanese government to get anything done as every action
gets bogged down in red tape, indecision, political calculation and a strict
adherence to every law in the books. Also, probably not by chance is the fact
that nearly all these bureaucrats are men. They finally decide that they
can attack Godzilla once they find a regulation that allows the government
to destroy pests. Some pest. But at times you have to wonder that if they
can’t destroy Godzilla (called Gojira in Japan) with weapons, they could certainly
talk this creature to death as this has to be the talkiest Kaiju film ever
and often at the speed of light. Kaiju for those not in the know is the term
used for the genre of Japanese monster films that also included Gamera (my
favorite), Mothra, Rodan and others who have cheerfully been obliterating
Japan now for about 60 years. Throw in some good old anti-American sentiments
– well we want to nuke Tokyo – and you have a very political film among the
wreckage.
But that is really the origin of Godzilla if you go back to the very first
one in 1954 which was a harsh critique of the nuclear age. Not too surprising
considering the war. In that one Godzilla is a creation of nuclear waste and
that is also the premise of this one and if you throw in the disaster at
Fukushima in 2011 the film is even more pertinent to our times. By the way,
the original Godzilla was corrupted for American audiences by inserting a
part for Raymond Burr, deleting other scenes and dubbing it into English.
It is a mess and helped make Kaiju films a bit of a joke in America, but a
few years back I had the chance to see the original at Film Forum and was
shocked at what a truly great film it is.
When the film gets away from the bureaucratic inaction and infighting –
which in truth is fairly interesting from an outside perspective – it has
some wonderful scenes of pure mayhem and destruction that are delightful
on so many levels. In most of the Godzilla films I have seen there are sympathetic
roles for civilians – children often who have a bond with Godzilla – Godzilla
is never really evil and often actually saves Japan from an even worse threat
– but this film just jumps into the action from the moment it begins and bothers
not with any sub-plots around romance, little girls or civilians in the path
of destruction. And this Godzilla is perhaps not evil but is as pure a destructive
weapon as could be devised. Don’t be put off by the initial appearance of
Godzilla in which he looks like a damn sock puppet pushing over buildings
– I was horrified - but it evolves into the Godzilla we love and fear soon
enough.
Rating 7.5/10
