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SHIN GODZILLA (シン・ゴジラ)
Starts off incredible. Other Godzilla films are about a force connected to human sin, a visual representation of our actions against one another. This Godzilla, on the other hand, is unknowable, unexplainable, and unavoidable. As the city falters in his wake, all anyone can do is ask "why?". The mad scramble for answers is what makes the beginning of this movie work, and it's so thematically interesting that sustaining that intrigue over a 2 hour long running time is a practical impossibility. When the mystery starts to unravel, the movie starts to become less consistently engaging. There are some riveting scenes later on, but they become few and far between. For a movie that's only two hours long, it ends up feeling a lot longer. This doesn't ruin it, but it means you'll have to wait a bit to get to the greatest moments.
If this was a short film, I think it'd be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it can't quite sustain it's massive ambition. That aside, this will probably end up being the best Godzilla movie. It's certainly the smartest yet, but coming from Hideaki Anno, that's not much of a surprise.
Starts off incredible. Other Godzilla films are about a force connected to human sin, a visual representation of our actions against one another. This Godzilla, on the other hand, is unknowable, unexplainable, and unavoidable. As the city falters in his wake, all anyone can do is ask "why?". The mad scramble for answers is what makes the beginning of this movie work, and it's so thematically interesting that sustaining that intrigue over a 2 hour long running time is a practical impossibility. When the mystery starts to unravel, the movie starts to become less consistently engaging. There are some riveting scenes later on, but they become few and far between. For a movie that's only two hours long, it ends up feeling a lot longer. This doesn't ruin it, but it means you'll have to wait a bit to get to the greatest moments.
If this was a short film, I think it'd be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it can't quite sustain it's massive ambition. That aside, this will probably end up being the best Godzilla movie. It's certainly the smartest yet, but coming from Hideaki Anno, that's not much of a surprise.