Hitting a limited number of theaters for less than a week, Godzilla fans in America had only a small window to catch the latest Toho installment in the world-famous film franchise. The fact that it released theatrically in the US at all is, frankly, a miracle, probably owed to the internet. Trailers had released long before, causing many Stateside fans to campaign the Japanese movie studio to bring it here. Funimation managed to get the rights for limited screenings. After over a decade-long absence, the Japanese Godzilla was back, but was he better?
For the first time in Japanese Godzilla history (so don't think of Gareth Edwards and Legendary Pictures' 2014 Godzilla, and you should just forget Roland Emmerich and TriStar's 1998 Godzilla ever existed anyway), Toho put forth a new Godzilla film that is not in any way a sequel. Yes, virtually every Godzilla film since the original has been a sequel of sorts, even when they tried rebooting the series with The Return of Godzilla (1984) and then again with the Millennium series. Every Godzilla movie to this point told a story that followed the events of 1954. In Godzilla: Resurgence, however, the world has never seen Godzilla before. There was never a giant creature that rampaged through Tokyo not long after the atomic bombs. With that, the new film is the first complete Japanese remake of the Big G.
In many ways, the end result is a film similar in tone and themes to the original. In Gojira, much of the drama is centered around political and ethical reactions to the creature. The original film dealt with Japanese frustrations with their US occupiers, but also dealt with the moral dilemma of whether to kill or study the monster. In Shin Godzilla, the entire human story is a scathing criticism of an overly bureaucratic government more interested in formalities and protocol than actually getting things done. Mixed with visual cues clearly recalling the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear plant incident, it is not hard to see that this film functions to address Japanese concerns with their modern government and its ability to handle disasters. Though often dragged out, eventually getting kind of boring, the use of a kaiju film to criticize those in charge is a big part of what makes Shin Godzilla feel very much in the same vein as the original.
Unfortunately, this also makes up the majority of the film, which runs just about two hours. Though the politics of the film are intriguing and compelling - making it perhaps one of the most interesting human plot lines in a Godzilla film in decades, especially when it gets into the global political stuff - the long running time and lack of real character arcs or development make it feel longer than it is. Character arcs are not a requirement for a good film, of course. However, in this case, the lack of them adds to a film that feels longer than it needs to be by easily a half an hour.
What makes Shin Godzilla feel the most like the original film is in the destructive capabilities of the titular villain. Godzilla is back as a lumbering force of devastation. At no point are we meant to root for the monster. We're not even meant to think of Godzilla as "cool" in this film. There is street level destruction that we see, highlighting the human cost (even if by the end, they have safely evacuated the city completely, giving them free rein for any and all destruction). It is also the result of a hideous and intimidating redesign of the King of Monsters. This will likely be the most talked about aspect of the film, and could wind up being one of the more polarizing debates in Godzilla circles! "How did you feel about the redesign?" is something many fans might still struggle to answer for years to come. (I am virtually no closer to an answer myself after almost a full week.)
I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE REDESIGN FEATURES NOT SHOWN IN THE TRAILERS AND CAME AS A HUGE SURPRISE TO ME. BE WARNED IF YOU WANT TO GO IN TOTALLY BLIND.
See, the thing is that we all knew Godzilla was redesigned to be this ugly creature from the trailers, but those trailers don't really even show the half of it. First of all, Godzilla is constantly "evolving" throughout the film. The first form is this super top heavy thing that can't stand on its hind legs, flopping around as it ran instead. With giant eyes and mouth agape, it looked ridiculous and almost too silly for the serious tone the film was going for. He almost resembles a snake more than he does Godzilla. Eventually, he does evolve to walk on his hind legs, but still retains absurdly tiny forearms and an amusingly long tail. Distant shots depicting the profile make it look a bit goofy as a result. However, close ups (especially of the face) were often freaky. With smaller eyes, more prominent teeth, and a tougher, more cracked coat of scales, this Godzilla is the most terrifying look in the monster's history. It looks like it is going to kill everyone on the planet. (The red glow emitted from his body made for an especially frightening profile shot at night.)
There were a few things that didn't work so well for me, though. The atomic breath had randomly been changed from blue to purple. Plus, the way he used it required that his mouth slowly open very wide, with the lower jaw splitting almost like Predator. He looked like a drunk snake unsure if it were going to puke or not. Then, this strange black mist poured out, followed by an impressive fireball that lit nearly the entire city up in one of the biggest "holy crap!" moments in Japanese Godzilla history. But then that terrifying fire turned into a less intimidating purple beam that looked at home on an episode of Dragonball Z. He doesn't wind up using it that often as a result, but that part isn't so problematic since he didn't really use it that often in the original film either. (I'm not opposed to changing the color, for the record. I just didn't think changing it to purple really made it better, and the texture of the beam was less impressive.)
Easily the aspect that will be most discussed is the tail. The tail, it turns out, offers a second exit point for the atomic beams, so at one point, he was shooting the purple radiation from his mouth and his tail at the same time. To me, this felt rather silly, something that had little substantive purpose and instead was done just to "look cool." It was the Godzilla equivalent of a double-bladed lightsaber in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Yet the most lasting image, and not just because it is the very last image, is of a close up on the tail. As the camera slowly zooms in, we can see what appears to be some sort of life forms on the tail. Actually, that is a bit misleading. It's not that they were on the tail. It's that they were the tail! We can't exactly see what those life forms are - they looked like human skeletons with dorsal spines - and others have pointed out that they thought they spotted whale bones throughout the tail as well. This prompts the question of, "what the hell am I looking at?"
It's creepy as heck! The close up of the tail reminded me more of The Rotten from Dark Souls II more than anything from any other kaiju film I've ever seen. It was insane and disturbing, which is why I feel so conflicted. In context of the film, Godzilla shouldn't be a monster you actively like. Yet I can't help but feel like they were a little too harsh to the monster in its design! (It also makes me wonder what the future of the franchise is, since this design is not suited for fighting other monsters, so do they expect to continue with that as the model, or do they plan to just let creators re-imagine Godzilla however they want, or do the just have no plans for future Godzilla movies at this point?)
Either way, it does succeed in leaving an impression and generating talk.
OK! DONE WITH THOSE SPECIFICS! IF YOU WERE SKIPPING REDESIGN TALK AND SPOILERS, YOU CAN PICK UP FROM HERE!
The other thing about Godzilla Resurgence is that they try their hand at more creative shots. It is hard to really pinpoint the role of the camera in the film. It changes between the traditional overseeing steady-cam, giving the audience the sense that they are omniscient viewers of the events unfolding. At other times, it changes to a shaky cam to give the impression that you are there and the camera is another character present as these things occur. Then, it often resorts to found footage style shots to give a more ground-level view of Godzilla's rampage, with the camera actually functioning as another character. And then there are the strange variations of camera position. When the group of politicians and scientists stare at data on a computer screen, the camera appears to be within the screen, looking out at the people who are looking in. There are also some weird placements of the camera, like on the seat of a chair as one person slides it to another.
It doesn't always work, and creates a sort of incoherent visual look, but many elements were interesting and different enough to stand out among the history of generally boring shot composition from the franchise's history.
It's been a few days since I watched this, and I'm still no more certain as to how I feel about it. As an American fan who has seen two less-than-stellar American interpretations (though I did enjoy Gareth Edwards's take), I really wanted to see Godzilla get re-imagined by the people and society that created him in the first place. Godzilla is inherently interesting in that his popularity spans the globe, and yet he was a uniquely Japanese creation born out of uniquely Japanese experiences. Indeed, directors Hideaki Anno (of Evangelion fame) and Shinji Higuchi (who worked on another giant creepy thing in Attack on Titan) very much updated Godzilla for a new generation, whose concerns are a bit different than past eras.
Godzilla Resurgence is the first time Toho produced a traditional remake, one that does not follow the events of 1954's classic Gojira. Not everything works, and it isn't the classic that the original was. It isn't reinventing anything, but it changes quite a lot from the typical formula. One excellent part of the film sure to be criminally ignored when discussing it is the use of the score. There are two classic Akira Ifukube tracks featured in the film. Both work within the film and a nice nod to one of the men who helped fully realize the icon. At the same time, they often added tracks that sounded like a track from the original, but was different. It was as if they didn't have the rights, so came up with something that sounded similar. This was actually brilliant as it reinforced the eerie sense that this was like Godzilla - it felt familiar - but this wasn't the Godzilla you know.
As a die hard Godzilla fan, I wasn't necessarily into the look in a broader sense, but it worked within the context of the film. Additionally, I'm left wondering what the future holds. It is difficult to make more Godzilla movies without featuring him fighting other monsters, and this version of Godzilla doesn't lend itself to that aspect very well. I don't think Toho really wants to just have a new re-imagining every few years, since it tried that in a manner with the Millennium series to limited success.
Yet it's hard to imagine this latest installment not being among the most discussed of the franchise. There was a lot to process, and a number of elements sure to be divisive among fans. It might not be the single weirdest Godzilla film to date (for all the times people give that to Godzilla vs. Hedorah, I tend to lean All Monsters Attack), but it's definitely up there.
With Legendary Pictures set to eventually release an American sequel to their re-imagining, and supposed build up to an American King Kong vs. Godzilla, there is plenty of renewed interested. Toho has done well not over-managing their creators in Resurgence, allowing a complete re-envisioning that updates a lot and makes the King of Monsters relevant again. In the past, Toho has had a problem with rushing production on sequels and over-saturating their own market. As strange as it might sound in an age where Disney will release a Star Wars film every year, and all studios release multiple superhero flicks every year; Toho cannot simply expect to make a Godzilla flick once a year like before and expect the same results. Resurgence was vastly different than any Godzilla film to date, and it was coming off of the longest retirement of the franchise. While I don't want to see another five years before another Toho Godzilla film, I think patience is a wise virtue to adopt when working on the next one. We've been down this road a bunch, now.
So if you're a Godzilla fan, you kind of have to make sure you see this one. Everyone will certainly be talking about it.
RATING: Pretty Good
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