Godzilla has been a mainstay in one form or another since 1954, and since then has been rebooted twice before Shin Godzilla. The timeline is not so much a mess as it is a bit of a learning curve. The original era of Godzilla films are called the Showa era, regarding the era under Japanese emperor Hirohito (the whole "era" concept in Japan is complicated and I don't understand it all myself, but it is easiest to understand as: an era is a frame of time under an emperor - they are currently in the Reiwa era). The Showa era has the start of Godzilla with Gojira (1954), and goes all the way to Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1974. The Showa era is known for moving Godzilla from frightening post-war allegory into a child friendly anti-hero of sorts, from monster to beloved protector. The films became more cartoonish as they went, until finally Toho had to reboot the franchise with Godzilla (1984), starting the Heisei era. Godzilla (1984) acts as direct sequel to Gojira (1954), bringing back the horror elements of Godzilla to the franchise. This series carried with it a more strict continuity and kept Godzilla as a wild force of nature, even as it pitted him against classic monsters like King Ghidorah, but the franchise was rebooted again 15 years later with Godzilla 2000. This new era of Godzilla films became more of an anthology, where their only consistently referenced film in the cannon was Gojira (1954). This era is considered the Millennium Series, ending in the corny (but incredibly fun) Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), in which Godzilla gets to face off (briefly) with his American reboot counterpart. To say the least, the Godzilla franchise was becoming something of a chore to keep up with. Toho's three timelines had only used the original film as a jumping off point, making each reboot technically a sequel. What they needed was to completely start over, to nix the original and go again from the very start with Shin Godzilla.
Much like Gojira (1954), Shin Godzilla acts as an allegory. Gojira was a response to Japan's being bombed at the end of World War II, a travesty that has only happened there and nowhere and no time else on the face of the planet. A nuclear bomb strike is, not to mince words, an atrocity that doesn't just decimate where you drop it, but leaves radiation to harm future generations. The anxieties of nuclear fallout and the devastation at the end of WWII are layered thickly within Gojira, focusing particularly on how the original Godzilla was nature being twisted into some sort of reckoning for what human beings had done. Shin Godzilla has elements of this as well, often referencing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, but the film doesn't stop there. One of the directors for Shin Godzilla is renowned anime director Hideaki Anno, creator of the classic anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Anno is not a man to mince words, and went full tilt with Shin Godzilla as not only a condemnation of the Japanese government's ineptitude in handling the myriad of disasters the country faced in the early 2010s, but also in the complexity of Japanese culture that led to this being the case.
Shin Godzilla plays unlike any Godzilla film ever made. Godzilla himself is hardly in the film, letting the plot instead focus on a realistic depiction of how the Japanese government would handle the situation if he happened to be real. Shin Godzilla plays out more as a cross between the scientific dryness of The Andromeda Strain with the kinetic, fast talking of The Social Network. If you're a slow reader and don't understand Japanese, this film may be a bit rough on you. Dialogue whips back and forth as the bureaucracy tries to handle the crisis, scrambling to get as many opinions as they can on the unprecedented creature while trying to decide the best course of action. The bureaucratic system is slow moving and often incapable of making tough decisions, going for the least impact options more often than not to little affect on the radioactive creature. The real villain isn't Godzilla - he is our reckoning - but rather the government itself, unable to properly make decisions to save its people.
The complexity of Japanese culture will always be beyond a person like me, never having lived there. There are obvious commentaries on how traditional Japanese thought leads to a hampered response, but I feel in no way qualified to comment on them. The structure of authority seems to be a particular striking point, as often somewhat radical but less preposterous ideas are often sidelined for the more traditional, but highly unlikely solutions. Early in the film, before Godzilla has shown himself, the odd occurrences in the sea are being investigated. Despite an underwater volcano being easily disproven, the government acts with this understanding first, ignoring those actually looking at the data for something they can at least understand. There is a need to uphold a sense of authority, and they ironically undermine that authority at every turn as Godzilla repeatedly proves them wrong in the face of the public. The situation gets incredibly dire, and the US government decides to step itself in. There seems to be an identity crisis when it comes to Japan in the global context, with anxieties latent throughout that Japan is not left to deal with their own disasters without commentary or political pressure from other nations, particularly the US. The film deftly criticizes the US's part in global policing and control, showing them to be arrogant bullies who want to act as saviors even as they obscured the knowledge of Godzilla's existence, and want extreme action with little in the way of choice from Japan. Shin Godzilla is more a political film than it is a monster movie, an incredible and compelling achievement for what could have easily been a simple and fun blockbuster. The impact of these themes are in a bit of a cloud, not knowing exactly how Japan thinks of these issues, but the frustrations and anxiety therein come through loud and clear. As a US citizen that finds this government frustrating and cruel at times, I can relate to their anger, even if I cannot relate to their position.
Shin Godzilla's special effects are probably the most iffy aspect. The CGI for this film looks a bit shoddy, but is certainly serviceable. The new design for Godzilla is frightening. There is the slight feeling that post-production was either rushed or in an intense budget (this is the first Godzilla film not to use the man-in-suit technique at all, making some of this pretty well out of their wheelhouse), but it does little to inhibit the film. Shin Godzilla was criminally undervalued here in the US, where it was criticized for its mountains of dialogue and less-than-stellar special effects. There's something oddly hypocritical about this, as so many political thrillers - full to the brim with people fast-talking at one another - in the US get critical acclaim, but because this isn't about something within US culture it gets swept under the rug. For my money, it is one of the best films of 2016, and maybe my personal favorite Godzilla film.
8.5
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