I may not be devoting
all of my time and effort to covering movies – bad, good or otherwise – these
days, but that doesn’t mean I stopped loving them. So once a month, I’ll spread
a little bit of that love…
I’m so excited. Tomorrow night, I will be getting all
dressed up and going out to see a cinematic event.
What’s that? No, I am not going to see a movie. A movie is
something you listlessly watch on an airplane or in between commercials on
cable. A movie is mildly entertaining and quickly forgettable. Police Academy is a movie. Olympus Has Fallen is a movie. A movie
is something Brett Ratner makes.
No, I’m talking about a Cinematic Event: Something you mark
on the calendar, something for which you re-arrange your schedule. It’s a full
sensory experience, with popcorn.
That’s right, I’m going on opening night to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
In honor of the long-awaited release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, I’m going to cover a different
Godzilla title. Though if Godzilla: King
of the Monsters is a Cinematic Event and the 1998 Godzilla is a Movie (to put it generously), then this month’s Movie of the Month is a Film…
Toho cracks me up: They sell the rights to Godzilla to an
American studio, take a look at what they do, and regardless of whether it’s
good or bad, they say, “Yeah, why don’t you let us show you how it’s done.” And
in the wake of 2014’s Godzilla, Toho
really out-did itself.
As a sign that they weren’t messing around, Toho promptly
signed Hideaki Anno to direct. Anno is best known for creating Neon Genesis Evangelion, a statement
that either means absolutely nothing to you or has made you leave this review to
immediately track down Shin Godzilla.
Things start off as Godzilla movies typically do: with a
mysterious boat incident, followed by some kind of issue at a Japanese port.
This time, it’s not immediately clear what’s happening at the port (usually the issue is that a giant monster is squishing it), only that a major tunnel has
flooded. And instead of following a scientist or some short-shorts wearin’ lad,
we follow a pack of government officials as they react to the situation.
They’re concerned and they’re taking action, and by that I mean they’re talking
fast while striding purposefully to an emergency committee meeting.
That’s right: Shin
Godzilla is more or less the Japanese version of The West Wing.
Almost, as this is more of a sly satire of modern politics
than The West Wing ever attempted to
be. You don’t have to be particularly versed in Japanese politics – lord knows
I’m not – to catch on to the fact that the film insists on calling out
every single person’s title (and re-introducing them as they earn longer and
more unwieldy titles), or that nearly every meeting consists of at least five
times more people than necessary. Characters spend almost as much time jumping
through bureaucratic hoops and mincing over jurisdictional ownership as they do
actually addressing the crisis at hand. There’s even a moment where, upon
learning that the crisis has become an environmental issue, everyone gets up to
relocate to that department’s conference room.
Our protagonist is Yaguchi, a mid-level administrator who is
considered to be something of a rebel because of his reluctance to fall in line
with the senior advisors. Yaguchi is the first to suggest that, based on some
of the video footage eye witnesses have posted online, the incident might be
caused by a large marine creature. This ushers in one of the more heavy-handed
gags of the film: Yaguchi makes a suggestion, senior leaders contemptuously dismiss
Yaguchi’s suggestion, Yaguchi is immediately
proven right.
So let’s take a look at that marine creature. Clearly it’s
Godz—
Oh, okay.
To be fair, a still of this creature doesn’t do it justice.
There is something a bit unnerving about its unblinking face and the way it
charges down the avenue, sweeping cars along like a fleshy tsunami (it won’t surprise
you that there’s a lot of imagery evoking the nuclear disaster and tsunami that
hit Japan a couple years ago).
With the Prime Minister fretting about safety concerns and lack
of legal precedent in dealing with a giant creature roaming the city streets,
it takes a bit to mobilize a military response. And once one is set up, the
creature mutates…
In the film’s most pointed rebuke, Yaguchi is eventually
promoted to heading up a task force to address the new threat, assembling a
squad of “lone wolves, nerds, troublemakers, academic heretics and general
pains-in-the- bureaucracy” to work as a flat organization that shares
information regardless of title. I imagine you’re thinking this is a sensible
approach, but this is clearly a healthy bit of mud in the eye to a status quo
married to hierarchical systems.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about Godzilla.
This re-imagining of the character may be the scariest
version ever presented. Yes, he has comically undersized arms, but between the
design of Godzilla’s face and the mindless lumbering, this feels like the
zombie version of Godzilla. And in a showstopper sequence halfway through the
film, when the military does strike in earnest… well, without spoiling any
surprises, things don’t go as expected.
If I have a knock on this film, it’s that Shin Godzilla can’t quite top the Tokyo
assault at the halfway point. But that’s not to say the rest of the film is bad:
there’s real time and care (and angst) in the discussions around allowing a
U.S.-led coalition drop nukes on Godzilla, the launch of Yaguchi’s plan has
legitimate tension, and the final, silent shot of the film is haunting.
You might be surprised to learn that Shin Godzilla went on to dominate Japan’s equivalent of the Academy
Awards that year, taking seven awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
It wouldn’t be too surprising after seeing it. Toho clearly wanted to do
something different and unexpected with its response to the 2014 Godzilla, and it did – it gave us a
worthy successor to the grim 1954 original.
Congratulations,
Shin Godzilla: You are the Movie of
the Month.
