~ my review of Shin Godzilla (2016). Re-released in U.S. theaters in 4K August 2025. Spoilers ahead.
To me, Godzilla is peak fiction. The monster and the metaphor, the incarnation of devil destroyer or god of nature, defender of the balance ~ Godzilla is the GOAT.
My favorite Godzilla movie has perhaps become Shin Godzilla. (I have many Godzilla films yet to watch, though for now I’d rank the original 1954 film, Shin Godzilla (2016), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), Destroy All Monsters (1968), and Godzilla (2014) as my top five.)
Hideaki Anno’s recreation of Godzilla is a masterpiece on all three cinematic levels (I just made up) required for a kaiju epic: story, spectacle, and sublime transmission to the future. Here are my thoughts on Shin Godzilla.
“Godzilla, the authentic reincarnation of a God!” Shin Godzilla is a film about humanity’s response to the existence of a true God of destruction. Bureaucratic confusion turns to crisis science as this creature named Godzilla from oceanic depths emerges to wreak havoc upon Japan. Instantaneous mutation, and thus adaptation, to earthly existence transforms the titanic beast into a moving mystery. Lumbering, fish-eyed, and bleeding over the apartments and shoppes of outer Tokyo, this reincarnation of a God does not truly unveil itself until after humanity’s rain of failed weaponfire. Our technology can only make the monster stronger. Shin Godzilla’s atomic breath sequence could be the ultimate in the cinematic artform. It is our hero Yaguchi that eventually proclaims the final iteration of Godzilla, a beast to finally surpass Man. The audience can only look on as God lumbers through the skyscrapers. Behold, the dark beauty of Shin’s Godzilla-based cinematography.
Bureaucracy & Cooperation. A major theme of Anno’s works is that of cooperation, learning to work together even with your rival (or your crush). A furthering goal of Shin Godzilla is to explore bureaucracy, and how governments respond to the novelty of chaos. Many scenes take place inside of conferences, asking questions, mulling uncertainties, devising plans. There are comedic juxtapositions of economic ministers trying to explain the problem away while Godzilla rages inland, piling boats in the surf. Has society built the best political vehicle for handling Godzilla? How must we evolve to defeat this creature and survive? The elderly leadership, the boomer, is necessarily lampooned in this film. They cannot conceive of Godzilla’s true threat nor of making any kind of fast choice at the expense of industrial interests or without consulting a squadron of consultants. When the people are being crushed inside their homes there is no time for anything but working together as effectively and efficiently as possible. It turns out Godzilla can make us act that way.
The Rise to Self-Determination. Anno does not shy away from geopolitical statements within Shin Godzilla. His characters in Japan’s national leadership decry the conditions of the United States’ framework of control over their military actions. Japan collectively resents the lack of self-determination, or the capacity for a nation to choose her own course, for better or worse. By nature of Godzilla’s continued calamitous march into Tokyo, an American nuclear bomb once again threatens to touch down on the Japanese landscape. Against a deadline, Yaguchi and Akasaka and the crackpot team of scientists and engineers that Japan is able to bring together synthesize their minds to come up with a semi-permanent countermeasure against the nuclear beast. Using a blend of chemicals, and some well-timed bombs, they believe Godzilla can be frozen inside out. In the final action plan, Japan is able to weaponize their spectacular infrastructure in the form of roads, bridges, buildings, and trains to slow and neutralize Godzilla. Anno showcases that his country’s greatest strength is indeed in the field, with the next generation of young experts and ambitious leaders ready to take on the reins of determining the country’s path forward. There is a singular sense of civic purpose that I appreciate in Shin Godzilla and a true exploration of how (un)natural disaster can bring a nation’s hands, minds, and hearts together to battle back against great odds.
Thresholds of Transformation 