Shin Godzilla Film Review

Whilst we are getting a direct Japanese Godzilla sequel later this year with Godzilla Minus Zero we actually could have gotten one alot earlier. As the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today pleased the heads at Toho that there was a sequel proposed and yet for one reason or another it never came to be this is despite the fact that more people attended this film then they did for Mothra Vs Godzilla and this film had more of a job to do as the film had to reintroduce Godzilla to a generation that almost grew up without a Godzilla film and so then join me as I review the film that sees Godzilla go fully CGI for the first time in a Japanese Godzilla film with the film in question being called simply just "Shin Godzilla" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when a creature starts attacking Japan for the first time it's up to the Japanese government to stop the monster before several countries agree to drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about thew actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. While this films plot is pretty much the typical Godzilla plot which is fine the film does spend so much of it's time just on having the human characters talking about advancing the plot of the film and showing us almost every single mynute which is something that does make this films plot feel very boring when we should have been seeing more things from how the people that aren't government officials are dealing with the attacks as that's when the films plot does get interesting. This is not to say that the films plot is bad persay because it's not rather it does seem to focus on alot of the wrong things and it's those things that do bring down the films plot this is despite the fact that this film does have a strong enough plot to support an entire feature film by focusing it to much on the characters discussing plans to take down Godzilla instead off cutting alot of that down it is something that does make this films plot a chore to sit through as you do have to sit through different versions of the same scene over and over again but despite this this films plot id also really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is Hiroki Hasegawa as Rando Yaguchi , Yutaka Takenouchi as Hideki Akasaka and Satomi Ishihara as Kayoco Anne Patterson. Also starring in this film is Ren Osugi as Prime Minister Seiji Okouchi , Akira Emoto as Ryuta Azuma , Kengo Kora as Yusuke Shimura , Mikako Ichikawa as Hiromi Ogashira , Jun Kunimura as Masao Zaizen . Pierre Taki as Saigo , Kimiko Yo as Reiko Hanamori , Sei Hiraizumi as Yusuke Satomi , Kenichi Yajima as Kunihiko Yanagihara , Akira Hamada as Jun Kono , Toru Tezuka as Goro Sekiguchi , Arata Furuta as Sawaguchi , Moro Morooka as Motobe , Tetsu Watanabe as Hajime Koriyama , Ken Mitsuishi as Kozuka , Takashi Fujiki as Kawamata , Kanji Tsuda as Fumiya Mori , Issey Takahashi as Tatsuhiko Yasuda , Toru Nomaguchi as Tachikawa , Satoru Matsuo as Shuichi Izumi , Takumi Saito as Ikeda , Shingo Tsurumi as Yajima , KREVA as Murasaki , Shinya Tsukamoto as Professor Hazama , Jun Hashimoto as Miki , Ikuji Nakamura as Koji Kanai , Daisuke Kuroda as Tatsuya Negishi and Mansai Nomura as Godzilla.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about thew actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. The fact that this films acting is as good as it is is something that kind of surprising as you never go into one of these films expecting good acting much like how you don't go into a Fast & Furious movie for a well done plot rather you go into them knowing that what your going to be watching doesn't have good acting in them and yet for one reason or another all of the actors in this film do give us a really good performance in this film with this being due to two reasons number one being the fact that the film does focus alot more on the human characters then it does Godzilla and therefore this films humans actors do have to up there game and number this films co-directors Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi do know how to get a good performance out of there actors as it is something that does shine through in this film. With the best actor in the whole entire film being Satomi Ishihara as Kayoco Anne Patterson as she does have alot of English speaking dialog to say and learning an entirely different language is something that is going to be hard work for anyone and yet it is something that she does pull of really well with the acting that's in this very film really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so good that all this films actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Animaroid , Annex Digital , Design Kombinat , Drawiz , Fude , GiFT , M Soft , Modeling Cafe , Picture Element , Shirogumi , Solid Arts , Spade & Co. , StealthWorks , Studio Picapixels , StudioHand , Tetra , Wise and Zinou Pharmaceutics. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about thew actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty pretty good. With this being the film that sees the Japanese Godzilla be done for the first time fully in CGI with Mansai Nomura providing motion capture work for the character with the effects on Godzilla looking really good as it does give of the impression of it being nothing more then a man in suit and yet at the same time due to the fact that he is done fully in CGI it does mean that the camera can now be closer then ever to him with us getting a good look at the character from ever possible angle. Yet whilst the films overall quality of VFX are indeed really good there are some hots in the film that do look a little bit rushed with there being some obvious CGI cars during alot of the action scenes that do give of the impression that they were done at the last minuet and the film does give us some CGI fire which didn't look that good it wasn't bad by any means but it did fall a bit into the uncanny valley a little bit with the same thing even being for the "baby" version of Godzilla where it did look visually impressive but there was just something about it that made the character look a little weird looking as well. 

Much like how you don't do into a Fast & Furious movie expecting there to be a good plot you don't go into a Godzilla movie expecting the human story to be as focused on as it is in this film. Due to the fact that we do go to a Godzilla film expecting Godzilla to be the main focus and yet here in this film due to the fact that the humans and there story eat up so much of the film it does mean that Godzilla is left feeling more like a side character in his own movie heck the human characters are in this film more then Godzilla is when really it should have been an equal fifty fifty split as the human story just isn't that interesting for alot of the time. Due to the fact that as was mentioned before we do spend alot of time with the characters just sitting up there plans to attack Godzilla and not alot of the time seeing them actually attacking him this would be fine where it not for the fact that none of the human characters where that interesting which is something that you do expect from a Godzilla movie but those films had the excuse of not focusing on those characters as much as they do in this film and yet due to the fact that the makers of this film wanted us to spend alot of time with the characters just sitting around various different tables and talking to each other it means that we get to find out nothing about them that makes them interesting with the only thing that we get to find out about Kayoco Anne Patterson is the fact that she wants to be the American president by the time she's forty and that's it and given the fact that the film does spend alot of time on it's human characters that's not enough. While yes it does make sense given the situation that they wouldn't stop to talk about there personal lives there still should have been more of an effort into making this films human characters be better given the fact that they we are asked to spend more time with them then with Godzilla.

Believe it or not this film was essentially born out of a real life disaster as according to the book "Godzilla The First 70 Years" what helped to inspire this film was the attacks on 3/11. That us of course the numerical date that this tragedy is known by as an earthquake was measured around a 9.1 lasted for six minuets underwater which then caused tsunami which then in turn washed away several fighting villages and towns and caused the complete and total meltdown of THREE nuclear reactors nearby with it being the anxiety and anger from the people that gave this films writer and co-director Hideaki Anno the idea for the film in the first place. With him incorporating alot of the things that the Japanese people where fearful of when these attacks first happend for example we do Godzilla attack multiple times something which would have been one of the thigs that they were fearful of and the fact that other countries threated to drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo in an attempt to destroy Godzilla with that being one of the things that the people might have been anxious about due to the fact that they've just lost three nuclear reactors at the same time with this approach to telling a Godzilla film being where this film works best as these films when they are at there best is when they have something that's based in reality as then we the audience can then connect it to things that have happend in real life with the only difference being that these films are heightened fantasy due to the fact that we have giant monster causing all of this damage and yet at the same time it's the fact that Hideaki Anno really turned that fear and that anxiety not only for what has happened but what might have happend and what might happen and use it as a way to give us hope for the future that makes this film stand out for all of the right reasons.

While the topic of is man the true monster is something that was done a bit more subtly in the first film here in this film it is something that does come out nowhere. As in the first film you do see characters discussing that subject granted not at length but a few times in the film with us seeing both Godzilla and man himself acting like a monster several times in the film and yet here in this film it's something that was only brought up once near the end of the film in no doubt an attempt to make this film feel all the more important then what it actually is as none of the other characters have discussions about it during the film with it being something that does come out of nowhere and feels at odds with the rest of the film. This is something that could have been fixed quite easily as there is a scene after the first attack where Rando and his colleges look on at the damage that Godzilla did to a small part of town and yet none of them think to ask that question then when it would have been really easy to fit it into the film as the characters have just seen Godzilla cause all of the damage in the first place therefor it would have been natural for one of them to bring that point up and encourage further discussion of it and yet they don't they just feel sorry for themselves and move on this is wear showing the film from the point of view of the average person would work as then you could have the average person who perhaps doesn't have all of these connections asking them all these questions that they are two afraid to ask themselves as they wouldn't have lost anything but the average person might have lost a loved one , their family , their house or there place of work and therefor they would have lost alot whereas the characters in this film don't loose anything that's important to them and therefor they don't ask the question of how is the true monster in this film when it would have been more better suited.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fifty nine minuets and fifty one seconds. Which is something that will pretty much be the bog standard running time for alot of the live action Godzilla films moving forward as even the American live action Godzilla films do have very similar running times to this one with this film having just about the right amount of plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place with this film really needing all of it's time to tell this story as this film does have so much to cover interms of plot that to even cut ten minuets of the film would risk doing harm to the film as the film does have to cover how Godzilla came to be the monster that he is and how he got his powers in the first place and still a good story and it wouldn't be able to do all of that in a shorter amount of time as eventually the film would collapse in on itself. Yet despite this tho the film rally doesn't use its running time all that wisely due to the fact that this film doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot as even tho the film does send alot of time with the human characters the films plot doesn't really get developed until near the end of the film when other countries threaten to drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo which by that point as good as an addition as that is it's far to little to late and heck for large amount of time the film does feel like that it's repeat mode with its plot when it could have spent time developing its plot and not just going around and around in circles. The same thing is also true for the films lack of character development as none of the films characters get anything interms of character development with it feeling like that the makers of this film wanted to have it both ways where they harken back to what worked in previous Godzilla by having the human characters be these one dimensional characters and yet also do what the 2014 film did and focus more on the human characters and while having poorly developed characters worked for those earlier films it doesn't work when your focusing more on them and less on the title character but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho. 

So now then as this is ana action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well in the in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. While there is alot of CGI action to be found in this film all of which does look goo there is one piece of live action miniature footage being use in the whole entire film with it being one of the ending scenes with Godzilla which in all fairness does look really good but getting back to the action it is always going to be a good time seeing Godzilla going around Japan walking through giant building and destroying them like there paper with that being the kind of stuff that we want to see in a Godzilla movie and to be to this film unlike the 2014 film it doesn't cut away from it the second that the action starts either as we get to see all of the damage that the king of monsters can do. With the best action scene in the whole entire film being the attack on Tokyo as we get to see Godzilla be this unstoppable machine with him not only destroying buildings in every direction but when the army tries to shoot at him from a helicopter we get to see those bullets just bounce off of him which does make him seem like an even bigger threat as now we know that nothing can stop him as he is this huge unstopping force of nature that is coming for you with things being made even worse when he uses his heat breath to burn huge parts of the city to the ground and kill several characters in the film all of which works as they make Godzilla out to be this really unstoppable monster that we might not be able to defeat with the of this films action being just as good in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Overall this film walked so that Godzilla Minus One could sprint as this is still a really good film in its own right as when it does get something right it really does get them right but you do have to sit through alot of boring with boring characters just sitting and talking for several scenes straight which is something that does make this film out to be an entertaining mess of a film in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such tat really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I person ally used in this very review well then boys an girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I person ally used in this very from Wikizilla and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Wikizilla this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Wikizilla are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Wikizilla really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.