1/3/24 - Godzilla Minus One - 6-/10

It was fine but I  didn’t love it as I had hoped and anticipated. A solid to better than most Godzilla effort, but the weight of expectations and optimism of kaiju excellence crushed my hope of what could have been, leaving just the adequate wreckage of his encounter.

Things I liked :

• The reflections of war for the Japanese, especially post WWiI culture & perspectives

• young Godzilla and his evolution

• The look of Godzilla's destruction and the scale at which it occurs. So much of the anarchy and carnage really worked, often showing things from a ground level where they could be felt rather than overseen. There are scenes, especially with boats, that are extremely similar to KvG, but I found these much more interesting and arresting.

• The ingenuity to try and defeat Godzilla, especially with the tools at the disposal of 50s Japan

• Fascinating politics at play, within the context of the film and on a deeper allegorical level.

What I did not care for:

• The soap opera melodrama. It is wholly beneficial to have the focus on one-to-a-few humans, their lives and struggles, and their intersections with Godzilla, But Japanese Job puts that to the test with overwrought and nigh-sappy emotional prodding. It detached me more than pulled me in.

• Child acting is difficult but this little girl was poor

• There is a struggle with modern Godzilla films - it is hard to disassociate from so many decades of cultural impressions and connections. Godzilla is a devastating force of nature that is a murder machine and wreaks havoc, but we also have grown to an  engrained version of him as the protagonist, fighting other huge monsters ostensibly or outright for humanity's welfare. To thrust him back as the antagonistic object of mortal fear, aiming to end his existence, puts our internal expectations and storytelling necessities at odds. Doubly so when the excitement we derive from the feature is seeing his maelstrom and devastation rendered so vividly and voraciously.

I like this film more as I have thought about it, but I did not love it as so many vividly did. It was good-ish, but overtaxed by its aims rather than a holistic heartiness.