Shin Godzilla (2016)

As I was relaxing last night doing some last minute paperwork for Prestige tryouts today, I thought about working on a second review. Instead, I waited for today to review one of the best monster movies I have seen, 2016s Shin Godzilla (AKA Godzilla Resurgence).

Plot/ An unknown accident occurs in Tokyo Bay's Aqua Line, which causes an emergency cabinet to assemble. All of the sudden, a giant creature immediately appears, destroying town after town with its landing reaching the capital.

The last few modern creature features I have watched have been pretty good and I hoped that Shin Godzilla would be the same. This was especially the case after hearing that Toho was behind the film and taking the famed creature back to its roots. What I found was both enlightening and entertaining with a darkness that seems to create something deeper than most of the stylized Godzilla flicks from my youth. The storyline is intriguing with an interesting look at the flaws in the way the Japanese Government is set up. I have to wonder if this is somehow a message about the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant. Even after the initial scenes with the monster, Godzilla morphs into something amazing and more devastating than one would expect, the performances are solid, and the soundtrack works really well. Yes, the character development is lacking, there are some head scratching moments, and the audio dubbing is not the best, but those flaws were somewhat expected. In the end, this was one of the best monster movies I have seen in some time, and I could only hope that this is the creature that ends up facing King Kong. Sure, it is not quite the typical Godzilla flick, but it is well worth watching.