Shin Godzilla (2016)

aka Godzilla Resurgence
Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi
Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, and Satomi Ishihara
119 Minutes
Japan

Godzilla, a genuine pop culture behemoth. Ever since his debut in 1954, he's starred in 31 films, become recognised one of the most iconic symbols of Japan in the west, and went from villain to hero and back again, but more often than not been something in between. Gareth Edward's 2014 american Godzilla, though a highly flawed film, was a great attempt which treated the character with the respect and reverence he deserves, and served the job of bringing him back into the public consciousness. The time could have not been better for Toho, the Japanese company responsible for the franchise in the first place, to reboot Godzilla in his first film produced in his home country since 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars. They did so with a serious statment of intent, getting famed anime postmodernist Hideaki Anno to direct. What they have delivered, is arguably the darkest iteration in the franchise to date, the most horrific incarnation of the king of the monsters, and one the best films in the series since the original.

Notably this is the first time that Toho have rebooted the series completely, with zero links to any past entries. Previous times that they reintroduced the character, they have at least acknowledged the events of the 1954 original as cannon, whilst ignoring everything in between, such as in 1984's The Return of Godzilla. Here though, it is made explicitly clear that this is the first time that Godzilla has appeared. It's a wise creative decision, as it allows the filmmakers to speculate just what it would be like if Godzilla appeared in the present day, with the government being totally unequipped to deal with the situation. This is brilliantly demonstrated in early scenes where Godzilla is captured in a viral video, which most of the government officials pay no attention to and assume the source of the recent destruction to be natural phenomenon. Sure enough, footage of a tail coming out the ocean is seen on the news and government is forced to acknowledge the existence of the creature. The Japanese Prime Minister then holds a press conference to assure the public that there is no way that said creature could come on land, a scene which is brilliantly intercut with the creature coming ashore and causing devastation. Shin-Godzilla works not only as a monster movie but as a biting satire of ineffective politicians and bureaucracy. The older members of the cabinet in film are portrayed as being totally unequipped to deal with a crisis of such magnitude, seemingly more concerned with protecting their own positions at the costs of lives of civilians. There are long scenes of ministers talking other each other and getting nowhere which are darkly contrasted with scenes of Godzilla causing destruction. In a year when more and more people are becoming disillusioned with the political landscape, it joins I, Daniel Blake as a seething indictment of bureaucratic redtape and laissez faire attitudes (as odd as it seems to be pairing a Godzilla film with a Ken Loach film). Just as the original Godzilla was a chilling metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons, Shin Godzilla is a political satire which warns of the pitfalls of the political system in a crisis situation, and just like the original, it demonstrates that monster movies don't just have to be dumb popcorn entertainment but can say important things about the world we live in.

Let's talk about Godzilla himself. He's one of the most iconic movie characters of all time, so it stands to reason that a reboot should reinvent him just enough for the modern day whilst staying true to the origins and spirit of the character. Shin Godzilla's way to go about this is to the revisit the franchise's roots, by making Godzilla as much a sympathetic victim of the nuclear age, but at the same time updating him to make him appropriately scary for today's audiences. He's depicted in this film as a horrifying abomination, reminiscent of the works of Junji Ito and Hp Lovecraft. On his first appearance he doesn't  quite resemble the Godzilla we know and love, as he evolves throughout the film until he reaches his final and most recognisable form. Each time, it's quite clear he's in immense pain just from existing. When he roars he stretches his mouth  stretches back unnaturally wide, and several times in the film he excretes a blood like substance from his gills. His final form almost resembles a zombie Godzilla with its exposed muscle and dead black flesh. Later in the film, when he first unleashes his trademark atomic breath, its the most devastating and brutal display of the power ever seen. This is a Godzilla which is, anatomically horrific, totally unpredictable, and dead set on revenge against the race which has caused him to be living such a miserable existence.

Towards the end of its run time, Shin Godzilla begins to lose some its momentum. Though the ongoing debate scenes were great in the early part of the film for establishing the urgency and helpless of the situation, after a certain point they begin to drag on a little two long. The film does leave you wishing for a little more focus on Godzilla, though on the one hand that could be considered a positive in the sense that the film leaves you hungry to see more and not overdosed on action in the way that so many modern blockbusters do. It's certainly a much different story from the 2014 Godzilla which would tease you with Godzilla and then cut away as he was about to do something. Overall the latter part of the film could have used some tighter editing, perhaps bringing the film down to an hour and forty five minutes rather than two hours.

As I mentioned in my revice of Kong:Skull Island, Shin Godzilla is just one example of how the Kaiju genre is more alive than ever in 2017. A film that includes all the amazing spectacle you'd want to see but also transcends the genre and becomes a political satire. It's essential viewing for Godzilla fans, and i'd recommend it to anyone who has even a passing interest in these kinds of films.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman and Brie Larson
118 Minutes
United States

Thanks to the success of Marvel and the Avengers, "Cinematic Universes" are all the rage nowadays, with everybody seemingly determined to kick start their own cash cow franchise. DC continue to fail spectacularly in every way Marvel succeeds, Universal are bringing back their famous Monsters for an all Universe, and Legendary Pictures' 2014 Godzilla was the start of what has now been dubbed the "Monsterverse", an american series of Kaiju (the Japanese word used to refer to films about giant monsters) movies.

The series is due to introduce other Toho monsters in 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, before culminating in what will surely be the rematch of the century, 2020's Godzilla vs. Kong. Before we can get to all that though, we need to establish the eight wonder of the world himself, which is where Kong: Skull Island fits in. Set in 1970s, it sees a group of scientists and Vietnam soldiers travelling to the titular island for supposed research purposes (organised by the secret government organisation MONARCH which first appeared in 2014's Godzilla). When they get there they make the big mistake of dropping bombs to try to lure out Kong, which goes about as well as you expect as Kong smashes the shit out of all their planes. The team end up split after this, with vindictive Vietnam veteran Packward (Samuel L. Jackson) swearing revenge on Kong for the deaths of his men. At the same time, the rest of the group including tracker Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), photographer Weaver (Brie Larson) and MONARCH official Randa (John Goodman), encounter the natives of the island. They initially appear hostile until it is revealed that they have living among them a stranded World War II veteran named Marlow (John C. Riley) who crash landed on the island after being shot down over the Pacific. Marlow reveals that to that the natives see Kong as their King, protecting them against the more malevolent creatures of the island, including the lizard-like Skullcrawlers, who previously did battle against Kong's parents and reduced him to the last of his kind. Both parties are determined to reunite and get off the Island, however Packward is still dead set on revenge, and the bomb blasts have brought forth hordes of Skullcrawers and other monstrosities to the surface....

For me personally, Kong: Skull Island demonstrates the perfect way to tackle one of these big budget reboots of a popular character. While it gives you all the monster battles and destruction that we've come to expect out of a popcorn flick, the whole thing is treated with an intelligent and cineliteracy that makes it stand out from the crowd. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has clearly done his homework. Updating the Kong origin from the 30s to the 70s was nothing short of inspired. Roberts evokes Apocalypse Now with scenes of gung-ho american GI's dropping bombs on a lush jungle environment to Black Sabbath's Paranoid. This is followed by Kong's grand entrance, as he fights back against the invaders on his territory, and this scene personally left me exhilarated. I can't really put my finger on it, but taking one of the most iconic scenes from one of my favourite films of all time (Apocalypse Now) and giving it that Kaiju twist really clicked with me. God knows Apocalypse Now did feel like a horror film a lot of the time, with the imposing nature of the jungle and the sense of going into the unknown, both of which can be applied to Skull Island in the original King Kong. In fact, it makes it so much sense to do a Kong story against the background of Vietnam I'm kind of surprised no one has done it before it now (VietKong if you will). The film takes influences from a range of other sources too. There's a surprising visual reference to Cannibal Holocaust, and Packard's vendetta against the giant ape recalls that of Ahab's against the titular whale in the classic novel Moby Dick.

Kong himself has more in common with his Toho iteration from the 1960s than the original 1933 film. Not only is he similarly beefed up in size compared to the original (after all both versions were designed to be able to fight Godzilla), but he's portrayed more as a more benevolent creature than the confused brute of the 1933 film. This characterisation made sense in the original King Kong vs. Godzilla, as Godzilla was still a villain in his own series at that point and Kong was introduced as the underdog, clearly the one Toho expected audiences to root for. Just like in that film, it's clear Kong is a gentle soul who never goes out of his way to cause destruction, though here he's been made even more tragic through explicitly being the last of his kind. In this way, the Monsterverse is doing right what the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla did wrong. The monsters are characters in and of themselves, not being portrayed as mere animals whose purpose in the film is merely to cause destruction. Between the Monsterverse, 2016's Shin Godzilla and the upcoming Godzilla: Monster Planet anime, the heart of the Kaiju genre keeps on beating, and it's a great time to be fan.

Oh, and stay after the credits too. I got chills.