SHIN GODZILLA

There have been countless retellings of the familiar Godzilla monster story for decades. Recently, another one produced from its country of origin, Japan, has been released.

As the movie opens, a series of volcanic eruptions have been terrifying spectators in Tokyo Bay, following other unnatural events such as water flooding into an underground freeway. The Japanese CIA, along with the Coast Guard, environmentalists and biologists discuss what has caused these events.

They quickly find a publicly recorded video of a giant reptilian tail surfacing from the hotspot at Tokyo Bay, leading directly into a giant behemoth of a lizard rampaging on his stomach through much of Tokyo. The political bodies wonder if this is all one big joke, but three hours later, a large portion of the city is completely in ruins, forcing large evacuations both in Tokyo as well as other cities across Japan.

The military then plans their move in stopping this monster. They learn as much about it as they can through their available resources. The lizard has fed off of radioactive waste tossed into the bay, leading it into a series of evolutionary stages that allow it to grow arms and legs, as well as the ability to shoot a hot beam of purple plasma out of its mouth and out of its dorsal fins. To destroy the monster, Japanese officials, working with biologists and even America, plan a complex strategy to hit the lizard at its weak points, all while protecting the lives of civilians.

SHIN GODZILLA is essentially all that you would expect from a modern monster movie. Thus, the filmmakers put more focus into the poorly constructed CGI of the badly designed monster than they do to their movie’s character development or acting quality. It’s all well-laid out and backed up with scientifically accurate logic to add some well-needed authenticity into the franchise, but in the end, it’s the same basic thing moviegoers have always seen from GODZILLA movies for decades.

Perhaps the most uplifting quality about this movie, and the entire GODZILLA franchise in general, is its great respect for the military and governing forces. Unlike many mainstream films that depict the government as devious, corrupt and even oppressive, SHIN GODZILLA shows how the government does and should protect citizens from disaster. At the same time, however, the sort of disaster they’re suggested to protect us from is subliminally darker for the Christian viewer than what meets the eye.

Historically speaking, Godzilla has always stood as a metaphor for the rise of nuclear war, and what sort of hope that the people seek after in order to protect themselves from possible nuclear war or nuclear radiation from atomic bombs. Especially in the 1950s, which was when the first GODZILLA movie was made, science fiction has stood as a very common parallel to address those types of issues. It may sound harmless at first, but when considering what this movie says the name Gojira means (literally, “God Incarnate), it becomes clear what sort of inner need this fictional monster met for audiences. If for people, “God Incarnated” looks like a giant fire-breathing, cold-blooded reptile from the deep intent on destroying the city, then that merely proves how God was, and continues to be, looked upon as the one responsible for bombing threats and nuclear war.

Thus, SHIN GODZILLA has a very strong, mixed pagan worldview. It contains strong pagan content mixed with some moral and patriotic elements, false theology and references to evolution. The movie also contains intense sequences of destruction and some scary imagery. So, MOVIEGUIDE® ultimately finds SHIN GODZILLA unacceptable entertainment.