Shin Godzilla (2016)

Emergency response for a breach in the Aqua-Line tunnel in Tokyo Bay initially seems to be well in hand, but then there are continuing disruptions in the bay area.  The authorities scramble to try and understand what is happening: is it an earthquake?  A previously undetected thermal vent?  It couldn't possibly be a giant amphibious monster, could it?

Well, this is a Godzilla movie, so of course it is option C; an option that the Japanese authorities are unsurprisingly not well equipped to face.  They try to trying to contain the creature without endangering civilians, which as you might expect significantly hampers their efforts to face the monster, and even when they finally can unlimber the big guns, are they really equipped to deal with the threat they face?

So unless you live under a rock, you're probably familiar with Big G to some level; there have been a plethora of movies from both Japan and the US, after all, as well as at least a couple of animated TV series.  This film is a reboot of the franchise, returning after the decade-long hiatus producers Toho decided to take after 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars.  Despite being a reboot, I'm not sure Shin Godzilla would actually be a good first Godzilla film for most people.  I mean, those of us who are fans of the franchise know that most of these films contain a lot of scenes of humans standing around and talking - those are cheap to film, after all - but the focus on human drama is even greater here than usual.  Godzilla in this film exists purely as an outside threat, and the script focuses tightly on the human efforts to contain or stop him.  I personally think it executes this story-line very well (certainly much better than the average for a Godzilla film), but for anyone who is here for lots of stomping kaiju action, this is not the film you're looking for.  The most recent US offering was much more in that kind of line.

Overall though, if you have watched and enjoyed a Godzilla film before, then this is a good entry in the series, and I recommend you check it out.

For those of you who haven't ever seen a Big G film, by the by, I strongly recommend seeing the very first film as your introduction: it's a legitimately good film, though try to watch the original Japanese version rather than the re-cut US release, if you can.