I liked it about as much as Shin Godzilla, which I liked quite a bit. I'm not really big on giant monsters duking it out - show me humans realistically dealing with the problem! The rest of my thoughts will include spoilers for both films.
spoiler
The soundtrack was epic. Way better than Shin Godzilla which just relied heavily on (good) remixes of "Decisive Battle". Visuals were good too. Loved Godzilla's atomic breath and the explosion it causes. The scenes at sea were awesome, too. And when criticizing CGI, remember that this film and Shin Godzilla managed what they did with like one-tenth the budget of Marvel films which don't even look any better.
Politics wise... well, the floor is pretty low. Ultimately, the film rejects human sacrifice and makes it clear that we should cherish human life. There is a lot of criticism against both the wartime and post-war Japanese governments for disregarding human life. Godzilla is defeated by a "civilian" response, but in reality these are just ex-Navy guys. So as several other people online have pointed out, you could say there's a bit of "Clean Kaigun".
There were a bunch of things that annoyed me, though. Just fucking take cover, Noriko! My goodness!!! Also, are Godzilla's atomic breath explosions likewise atomic? Because that fight with the Takao should have killed everyone then. Earlier in the film, it is made clear that Godzilla is a deep sea diver that can ascend pretty darn quickly. So it was dumb for the supposedly smart scientist to try to kill Godzilla that way. Buuuut it did make for a really cool sequence... Noriko's survival was also unbelievable. Some people don't like how there was no government/international response, but I for one am thankful the US didn't intervene. I don't want bad international acting again like in Shin Godzilla lol. And Shin already covered the government response angle really well. Since it's immediately post-war, it's pretty believable that they're near useless, anyway. Finally, the very end was cheesy. Godzilla regenerates and contaminates Japan (Noriko is shown to be contaminated). Just like Shin Godzilla. You thought you won? Nope, Japan is screwed! At least it was kind of original when Shin did it. I think. I haven't seen enough Godzilla movies.
I liked it about as much as Shin Godzilla, which I liked quite a bit. I'm not really big on giant monsters duking it out - show me humans realistically dealing with the problem! The rest of my thoughts will include spoilers for both films.
spoiler
The soundtrack was epic. Way better than Shin Godzilla which just relied heavily on (good) remixes of "Decisive Battle". Visuals were good too. Loved Godzilla's atomic breath and the explosion it causes. The scenes at sea were awesome, too. And when criticizing CGI, remember that this film and Shin Godzilla managed what they did with like one-tenth the budget of Marvel films which don't even look any better.
Politics wise... well, the floor is pretty low. Ultimately, the film rejects human sacrifice and makes it clear that we should cherish human life. There is a lot of criticism against both the wartime and post-war Japanese governments for disregarding human life. Godzilla is defeated by a "civilian" response, but in reality these are just ex-Navy guys. So as several other people online have pointed out, you could say there's a bit of "Clean Kaigun".
There were a bunch of things that annoyed me, though. Just fucking take cover, Noriko! My goodness!!! Also, are Godzilla's atomic breath explosions likewise atomic? Because that fight with the Takao should have killed everyone then. Earlier in the film, it is made clear that Godzilla is a deep sea diver that can ascend pretty darn quickly. So it was dumb for the supposedly smart scientist to try to kill Godzilla that way. Buuuut it did make for a really cool sequence... Noriko's survival was also unbelievable. Some people don't like how there was no government/international response, but I for one am thankful the US didn't intervene. I don't want bad international acting again like in Shin Godzilla lol. And Shin already covered the government response angle really well. Since it's immediately post-war, it's pretty believable that they're near useless, anyway. Finally, the very end was cheesy. Godzilla regenerates and contaminates Japan (Noriko is shown to be contaminated). Just like Shin Godzilla. You thought you won? Nope, Japan is screwed! At least it was kind of original when Shin did it. I think. I haven't seen enough Godzilla movies.