Shin Godzilla

⭐ 2.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

So when I was scouring the internet about details on Godzilla Minus One, this movie kept coming up. Some were saying this was the true Japanese masterpiece, a unique take on Godzilla from 2016. Don't be fooled by this hot takery. This movie probably doesn't offer much to most Western audiences. It's got some cool ideas, but overall I thought the whole thing was bad.

So it's actually a very bureaucratic take on Godzilla: how do leaders react when this happens? It's all about politicians trying to navigate a disaster, and I think that's cool. It felt very grounded and real. It kinda mixes in some Japanese historical themes and thoughts on world relations. However, this was an issue for me for a few reasons. The biggest is that this movie has a cast of about 3000 characters, and basically none had any unique personality traits that I could really discern. Further, the dialogue is absolute rapid fire. It's all about them having big talks in crowded board rooms, and I simply couldn't read fast enough which I don't think has ever been an issue. I was falling behind all the time.

And then the subtitles fell behind! And it was actually hard to tell, because it was Japanese, but it wasn't matching and soon I couldn't tell who was saying what. Eventually I had to switch to the English dub which was horrendous.

But I also think that the other issue is just that this movie looks awful. It's 2016, and we have a man in a costume doing Godzilla. The visuals are usually the draw for these, and it totally failed in that regard. This Godzilla is supposed to be terrifying, be he looked like a bad sock puppet.

There are other nitpicks, like some weird injections of terrible English, and also like... This movie was just boring most of the time. I think I lost a lot in the subtitles, but either way, I just don't recommend this movie.