Shin Godzilla (2016)

published 2025-11-02 | tags: #backlog #movies #godzilla

Ok so I know I've said some of the other Godzillas were good and they are -- each Godzilla is good in it's own way -- but Shin Godzilla is just categorically good. Not "Good for a Godzilla" movie, not "Good for a 1980s monster movie" just a really good movie.

That 10 year hiatus between Final Wars and this really paid off.

• The pacing is impeccable, feeling at times like a West Wing episode with just how much happens in dialog alone.
• The visual effects are perfect, selling Godzilla's scale in a way that we haven't seen in a Toho production before.

I have no idea what the story is behind this movie but I am so glad it exists. It doesn't feel like any other Godzilla movie, it looks so good, and it is firing on absolutely every cylinder!

I guess it does feel like other Godzilla movies in that they do invent a novel interesting thing to finally kill Godzilla, but that's only a similarity on paper. The actual moment to moment story telling, camera work, visual language -- all of that is totally different from anything I've ever seen in a Toho film.