Shin Godzilla

A reserved procedural satire on (not only) the Japanese bureaucracy and the government's inability to respond dynamically to the devastating "nuclear" earthquake of 2011. Yes, you understand that this is not guilty pleasure monster film like the later (I mean, actually earlier) Godzilla (which on the one hand is a pity, that´s for sure), but entirely following legacy of Honda's original film full of post-war nuclear trauma. This version, in addition, is enriched by the role of today's Japan towards itself and the rest of the world. This is done using dozens of talking heads or zero direct connection of passages with Godzilla. In any case, most of the time-consuming "meeting" segments are fantastic, because in addition to the satirical and "reflecting" mode, they also serve as a believable mediation, as it would (not) have worked at the highest executive level during the national crisis. And the rest of the footage is packed with catastrophic passages with "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" having a destructive walk through Japan, which masterfully combine total destruction, magnificent design giving tribute to the original, imaginative (and damn impressive) shooting and congenial Sagisui/Ifukube´s music. "Restart" of Japanese Godzilla is by no means for everyone and not even remotely for every uncritical fan of the monster king. With an untraditionally chosen concept and adaptation, it explicitly calls for contradictory acceptance. And that´s exactly what it deserved and what it got. Anyway, it's at least interesting and hardly about who ever says "a mediocre disaster movie that blew out of my head with the final credentials start", because whether you condemn it for those bold decisions or on the other hand fall in love with it, the movie will affect you and leave you with a specific opinion about it. And what other high-budget blockbuster is recently capable of doing this? Howgh. (08/01/2017)

Five percent of the movie’s runtime comprises shots of Godzilla. Those filmed from a distance, where it is set in a wider environment, are atmospheric and exciting. The close-up shots are ridiculous, especially in the first third, where Godzilla looks completely different than in later shots. It is still very far from Hollywood digital Godzilla, as if the Japanese wanted to stay faithful to the traditional cardboard monster, which has no facial expressions and can only open its mouth and spew fire or laser beams. The remaining 95% of the movie is made up of discussions between more and more characters in the form of politicians, generals and scientists trying to identify the monster and later planning its destruction. These are quick-cut conversations aimed at showing how such a situation would be dealt with as realistically as possible. This greater part of the film is surprisingly fun in a guilty-pleasure kind of way and arouses curiosity with its big budget and epic ambition. (05/05/2017)

Shin Godzilla is still a good film for me, and I'm curious about how the Japanese will continue in the legendary series. There's an animated version in the works, so we'll see what happens. This is a path that could be taken, but it could also be a completely new restart, a new concept, even more political and ecological, which perhaps in recent years has somewhat faded from the Godzilla series - mainly due to the American approach. I hope this isn't the end of it. The series has a lot to offer in terms of special effects. (02/13/2017)

The new approach of the Japanese to their most famous monster is certainly not promising. The action scenes with Godzilla are great and there are quite a few, but the vast majority of the film is occupied by various debates by experts, scientists and politicians dealing with a combat strategy, urban evacuation, new prime ministerial elections and the like - almost as if the filmmakers were trying to create procedural realism. At the same time, however, these dialogue sequences are extremely condensed, resulting in chaos, all the more so because the film is not very well directed and edited even worse. In terms of editing, it is really complete non-art, and the same is true for the work of the camera and dramaturgy. The whole time I felt like it was directed by Tomáš Magnusek, but he at least had tricks from UPP at his disposal. (04/21/2017)