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I'm going to plug shin godzilla. (BTW in japanese it means "real" or "true" godzilla. In english it is sometimes called "godzilla resurgence.)
First off, forget every other godzilla movie you ever saw, this is a clean reboot. (If only we could truly forget the godzilla movie that must not be named....)
This godzilla is very close in spirit to the original godzilla movie, except of godzilla being a symbol for atomic weapons he's a symbol of the way government deal with nuclear wastes and disasters. Gidzilla is an unprecedented crisis that a fossilized, bureaucracy paralyzed government can't handle because it's too wrapped up in it's own red tape to do anything effective until too late/Early on the japanese government considers using the military against godzilla but has to basically decide it can because japan's constitution, written by the US, forbids it the use of military forces unless invaded by a hostile power. Eventually they decide godzilla is close enough and lets the military attack him, too late to do any good like it might possibly have done earlier.
The movie tries to put godzilla, admittedly impossible, in the real world today then paint a picture of how the real world might react. They do a good job of showing how the bureaucracy might handle a totally unforeseeable crisis.
There's a lot of real political, economic and social issues raised. Some people want to initially capture godzilla, or at least not kill it as it may be an endangered species. The effects of godzilla on japan's economy is talked about and how he could cause japan to default on it's national debt. The issue of godzilla being a threat to all humanity is raised and would the world be willing to nuke tokyo to stop it?
Also, american nuclear waste dumping is an issue. The US is not a villain here and american forces do engage godzilla, and die, trying to save japanese lives. Plus america offers full aid to evacuate tokyo and help refugees. But america is also eager to hide it's nuclear waste dumping.
There are some battle scenes in the movie and boy are they an improvement! The military can actually hit godzilla in the head now! Imagine that, a competent modern military being able to consistently and reliably hit a massive target larger than most things it's trained to hit that isn't movie very fast! And yes they aim for the damn head already!
The effects are top notch CGI and way past the rubber suit days.
This is an intelligent movie, believe it or not, and won't appeal to the "fast and furious" fanclub, but if you like intelligent people acting intelligently and dealing with a crisis, this movie is for you.
|t does drag at times and can be a bit talky and slow paced, but if you're tired of mindless action flicks give this a shot. I recommend getting a dvd, there's o much going on in this movie you may want towatch it more than once to get it all.
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