Quack

My small nitpick, and maybe because I worked early and was getting tired, was how low the captions were. Being at the VERY bottom of the screen in my theater, I felt like I had to look up and down so much.

Loved the movie though!

B5Erik

So, halfway through the movie I'm thinking this is the best Godzilla movie ever!

And then the lights come on and a theater employee asks everyone to leave because there was a medical emergency. Someone in the audience was having a heart attack or something and he had to be carried out.

So now we're waiting for the theater to open again so we can start it over again....

Solid Snake

.... I guess.... you finished it?

There's a point to where I'm also thinking this may be the best G film ever but all that government talking, as awesome as it is, does drag the film a bit. The 1954 film also had better characters. This one was exciting as fuck though.

TomOpus

The Alamo Drafthouse did a great job with the pre-movie show. Clips, trailers, cartoons, Japanese toy ads - all related to Godzilla - were shown before the movie. The one thing the theater messed up was my friend and I made two separate food orders but they put it on one bill.

Thankfully, the movie was a lot of fun. One thing that was kinda annoying was the text at the top of the screen showing the location and character name. It wouldn't be so bad except there's a lot of dialog and it was a pain to read both and see what's going on. After a bit I just read the subtitles.

But, other than that, we had a great time with the movie. I won't go over what's already been said. Just a high recommendation if you're a Godzilla fan.

B5Erik

Yep, I sure did. Started again from the beginning with the next showing.

Interestingly, shortly after our screening was when the movie kind of lost steam and went from being THE best Godzilla movie ever, to one of the best. Still arguably the best, but the first 70 minutes or so is better than the last 50 or so. The pacing was absolutely perfect in that first 70 minutes, after that it dragged a little. Cutting 10 minutes out would have made for a better movie, overall.

Agreed.

I wasn't big on all of the changes to Godzilla...


...but I loved everything else.

It was a VERY well made movie, and was clever as hell. And I liked the fact that...


This may very well be the best Godzilla movie to date. If it isn't, it's still in the Top 3 as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, and I loved...

Abob Teff

Gah!!! You guys have me pumped for this and it looks as I won't get to see it. It's not showing anywhere around here. I figured I could catch it in the Tinley Park area next week, but it ends on Monday (I won't get up there in time to catch the lone 7:00 showing). Not on in St. Louis the following week.

I am really starting to hate the area I live in.

Breakfast with Girls

Oh, I saw this in Kyoto last month. It's funny how different the takes are. I'm a huge Godzilla fan, and I thought it was easily the worst Godzilla movie I've ever seen (I own them all). Apparently the people in the theater agreed with me because at least half of them were asleep during the movie, except for the Godzilla parts.

It was like—let's create a movie where most of the scenes are government meetings. That should be exciting, right?

TomOpus

I thought it was pretty funny, the bureaucracy behind making a simple decision.

Solid Snake

I drove 30 miles to see this movie. I don't drive out that far for movies normally but I couldn't miss this one. Shit. The last movie I drove some distance from me was Brooklyn at like 23 miles. And then... the Hurt Locker which was playing in Dallas when it was first released. My first Japanese G film? Fuckin' A. I don't think any G film after this that I've the opportunity to see will top this one. This one just had so much fucking freedom.

They can be and they were for me. I'll take this film w/ all it's talking by government people over the shitty as fuck talking in damn near every G film. When people talked... it actually mattered here. This is G's 2nd best film. No doubt about it. I'm not sure wtf third best is but second best is Shin Godzilla. I love G in all the G films. It's hard to make G boring. But he's been in a lot of crap flicks. This isn't one of those at all.

Yeah. If anything, it really really didn't show Japan in a great light w/ it's old school mentality in getting shit done. Specifically.. the government leaders, I wonder what the Japanese public thought of that. Really though, I was actually surprised how they handled the military.

Apparently this film, I'm not sure what Japan's film culture is right now, kind of surprised many Japanese that Japan's military.. you know.... CAN fight. Lately, in the international eye, they've been seen as a force for humanitarian and disaster aid. And for them, too. They know they have one but it's not one where like us.. always in conflict. While G is a wild premise... he's handled rather realistically. Nothing really fancy about it, real world solutions to an unreal threat. Which kind of comes off funny cuz sometimes reality isn't all that cool looking. And there'd be a chuckle and then you don't anymore cuz G is terrifying as fuck.

-----

I loved seeing the return of some classic G actors in this too. I didn't think they'd do that but they did. And it also didn't detract.

While I have some issue w/ the classic theme coming up at times... I LOVED the military march theme in here. It's old but it composited so well w/ the attack on G. It just felt like these series of trials that felt so right w/ the march. That attack was amazing w/ that theme going. It could have gotten corny but it didn't. You felt the rush and pressure on the military trying to get this done. The waves of attacks on G really helped out w/ the theme going cuz that's such an old sounding theme but it works really really well here. I was surprised by that considering how when G's theme came out.. sometimes it didn't mesh so strongly w/ the image for me.

Orbi-Wan Techno

I think I will finally have a chance to see this Tuesday night. Been a huge G fan since the mid 60s, became interested in visual effects at a young age because of G and (wait for it) Ray Harryhausen...

The Valeyard

Saw this last night and thought it was great. A refreshing departure from other Toho G-films. We were at a 8pm showing and the theater was packed. When the Toho logo came up, the back half of the theater cheered. Last time I experienced that was at the premiere of Final Wars. It was a good audience.

islandclaws

Shin Godzilla made around $455,000 this weekend, giving it a total so far of roughly $1.5 million. For only being in 34 theaters that's a great number. It had a $13000 PTA, over $6000 more than the #1 film.

Abob Teff

Any chance of an extended run?

ytrez

I saw this Saturday and thought the government scenes bogged it down. I get it. Bureaucracy. Red tape. International relations. But did I need 300 different government officials introduced throughout the film? And they were all introduced while reading lines so the dialogue is way down the bottom of the screen and their name/title are at the top of the screen simultaneously. I gave up trying to keep track of who they were because it simply didn't matter. There were only a handful of characters needed to be focused on (a few government officials and a few scientists) and cutting back on the talking head scenes to bring this movie to 90 minutes would have helped it a lot. I won't even complain about how the female lead, who is supposed to be from the US with future aspirations for the presidency, clearly could not speak english without a thick Japanese accent.

The Godzilla scenes were fun and the atomic breath scene made the movie for me. CGI was passable most times. Without giving too much away, I thought the FX in the scenes with the pumping trucks could have been better; maybe they could have shown some of the liquid dripping out or something?

Anyway, on a 5 star scale I gave it a 2.5.

Ash Ketchum

Yeah, I wondered why they simply didn't get a bilingual Japanese-American actress for that role, or someone like Yuki Kudoh, who's done films in Hollywood (e.g. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA), but apparently Satomi Ishihara is a big TV star in Japan and the fact that she could speak English at all probably clinched the role for her. And the accent wouldn't bother Japanese audiences, the intended market for this film. Plus she's gorgeous.

Solid Snake

She is very good looking. Still... would have gotten someone who could speak it better. She does sound nice in English though.

I think the government scenes were great. And it was the humor of it too at first w/ the back and forth. I thought it worked really really well. Probably 20 mins too much of it but otherwise... they were great.

islandclaws

Yes, the text was overwhelming at times but that was part of the joke. Like when one of the leads is named head of yet another organization and suddenly he gets a giant blurb above his head with the new title. Ignoring them isn't a big deal; the point is for viewers to laugh at how absurd all of these meetings and titles and ad hoc committees are when a major threat is looming.

Solid Snake

Yeah. That was the best pay off. When Yaguchi gets moved up cuz.. Godzilla frees up the upper ranks.

islandclaws

Funimation is extending the run with a special Saturday (10/22) matinee encore on 200 screens, while the current run will be going through 10/27 in select theaters.

Orbi-Wan Techno

Sitting in the theater now, waiting on it to start. This is the first Japanese Godzilla movie that I have seen in a theater since the mid-seventies, when I went to a triple feature at a drive-in when I was in high school.

Abob Teff

Hmm ... I don't really want to drive into the city (Chicago), but it looks as if I could catch this at the AMC River 21 tomorrow. It's 45 minutes out of my way, but I can't seem to find any showings in Illinois south of this. Tough decisions ...

B5Erik

Do it...

Solid Snake

johnnysd

I thought this was pretty terrific for the most part. Satomi Ishihara I thought was perfect. She was clearly not from USA, but it was close enough ( I sense she does speak some English)and she is gorgeous.

I loved the zillions of characters and thought it actually pretty easy to follow the main people. It was maybe a touch long, but the angle was really neat. And Godzilla was pretty great. I loved that they called him both Go'Jira and Godzilla at times.

I also thought the escalation of war metaphor was handled really well. I'd enjoy watching it again, especially if there is an unrated naked Satomi Ishihara version, just kidding. Well worth seeing. Was very well cast and characters were pretty believable.

Orbi-Wan Techno

As there is no official review thread...

Here is my review as posted on my Facebook page, Orbi-Wan Goes To The Movies.

Flicks from the Mos Eisley Bijou - SHIN GODZILLA (Resurgence) - (2016) - Not Rated
When fully formed, Japan’s iconic kaiju is terrifying, but we sit through a government PSA getting there.

Ah, yes, Godzilla. I have fond memories of watching the big fellow and his kaiju friends cavort across my rabbit-eared holoscreen as a kid, and the occasional double-triple feature at the Coruscant Landspeeder Drive-In as a teen. I’ve enjoyed pretty much every incarnation that both Toho and Hollywood have brought to the screen (I even enjoyed the Matthew Broderick version, although that was really an overgrown iguana.) The big G has enjoyed success with multiple soft and hard reboots over the years, the most recent being the Warner Bros version, which introduces the Monarch organization, and will eventually be tied in with the upcoming Kong: Skull Island film.

With Shin Godzilla (Resurgence), Toho once again presents an origin story that is, at first, sort of humorous, but eventually rather scary. We never seen anything quite like this in past kaiju films, as the focus is more on the government’s efforts, frustrations, and RED TAPE when dealing with a force of nature they are ill-equipped to handle. Yes, there is a bit of monster action, but be prepared, about 75 percent of the movie is set in government meetings and think-tank sessions.

When something starts bubbling up in the middle of Tokyo Bay, officials gather to come up with a way to keep citizens calm and safe, and to deal with the disturbance. They think they have a handle on the situation when a comical-looking, spiky-backed, googly-eyed muppet creature plops out and starts making its way up a local river, then flippy-flops its way through the city, apparently mutating as it goes along its merry way. As an audience, we find plenty of humor in scenes of government officials trying to remain calm, trying to make decisions, and failing miserably at adapting to the changing nature of the beast. Eventually, the creature heads back into the bay, and everyone breathes a premature sigh of relief.

Within hours, the creature re-emerges in the more familiar form of the biped lizard we know and love. However, something just ain’t quite right with the boy. He’s covered with red pulsing cracks, he’s bigger than any other Toho Godzilla we’ve seen before, and he looks REALLY scary. Also, when Japanese Defense Forces and the U.S. Air Force finally commence attacks on the creature, it displays abilities almost beyond comprehension (not going into details because SPOILERS, but the crowd I saw the movie were shouting and cheering when - uh, it happened the first time).

When the most obvious efforts to stop the creature fail, it’s up to a newly-formed brain-trust come up with a solution that thinks outside the box.

The visual effects in this film are astounding, for the most part. They’ve managed to create some incredible scenes of monster destruction centered around a CGI creation that could almost past as a practical effect or a man-in-suit, the Japanese gold standard. But as I mentioned earlier, the actual monster parts of the movie only make up about a quarter of Shin Godzilla.

The majority of the the film is centered squarely on what is happening at the highest levels of government. Decision makers spend valuable time talking through the balance of public safety verses expedient actions. Fresh ideas are at first ignored until they suddenly make sense, or there seems to be no other choice. Most of the films humor is front-loaded in these scenes of government bureaucracy at its best and worst. Every time a new government official or agency is introduced or reintroduced, names are displayed on the screen (which gets a little cluttered with the subtitles on top of everything…)

Oh, and be prepared for the WORST AMERICAN ACCENT ever spoken by an actor who is supposed to be a Japanese-American with aspirations for for White House. Also, the movie ends on a semi-cliffhanger, as there are no real resolutions, only stop-gap measures, ensuring a sequel down the line.

Shin Godzilla (Resurgence) does a really good job giving us a newer, scarier version of the giant lizard (lizard? Not really sure that’s an accurate description). I mostly enjoyed the scenes of government gridlock (although they went a bit too long), the uneasy acceptance of oversight of other countries by Japanese officials when they realize they are in over their heads, and the out-of-the-box thinking of the group that comes up with the plan to halt the creature’s advance. I just think the movie could have been tightened up a bit, and I would have liked a little less of a cliffhanger ending. BUT - I really dug the fact that they used quite a bit of the old majestic Godzilla themes as part of the soundtrack.

Overall, it was enjoyable for this old Godzilla fanboy. I’m giving it 3 out of 5 lightsabers.

FOR PARENTS: At this time, Shin Godzilla is presented in Japanese with English subtitles, so young ones will definitely have a hard time keeping up, and the long government scenes are likely to make them squirm. The film has NOT been rated, but my best guess is that it would be PG-13 due to the realistic scenes of massive destruction and the Godzilla’s design when seen in close-up details.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Shin Godzilla (Resurgence) is coming to the end of a limited run in U.S. theaters, but I expect it will eventually make it to Redbox and Netflix.