Since 1998’s remake, the primary question regarding any new Godzilla movie concerns its authenticity: Are we gonna get the real Godzilla? The question’s almost meaningless, considering the creature’s myriad interpretations over past 60-plus years, but people really want reassurance they won’t be wasting time on an overlong, unsatisfying, kitschy sci-fi mess—which is, of course, what real Godzilla movies often are.
So yes, Virginia: Japanese studio Toho’s latest reboot, Shin Godzilla (which can be translated as “True Godzilla”) is a real Godzilla movie.
It’s real talky, like most of Godzilla’s filmography: These films are almost never pure orgies of rubber-clad stuntmen powerbombing each other through pressboard skyscrapers. Shin Godzilla has less in common with the works of Ichiro Honda (the 1954 original) or even Gareth Edwards (2014’s American attempt) as it does Armando Iannucci—it frequently feels like a flat episode of Parks & Recreation, but with an atomic monster instigating bureaucratic freakouts instead of Li’l Sebastian.
