The sense of awe that the director and visual effects supervisor, Takashi Yamazaki himself, clearly has for the iconic Japanese monster, is not to be argued with. Oppenheimer was a flawless script so that slightly tops it but this got the runners-up Film of the year 2023 for me, that’s settled. Godzilla has always been a cautionary tale against the use of Nuclear weapons. You cannot defer damage to someone else with what you do not fully understand. That in essence has been the argument for me. The cinematic rhythm and choices are wonderful throughout. They ensure you stay locked into the themes and the characters. Human characters, ah, actually relatable people. Flawed, scared, and in desperate need of love. That ensures that when Akira Ifukube‘s main theme kicks in, you get ALL OF THE FEELS.

So, when the big bad cat finally screams like hell, you get the whole sense of, history of, wonderful destruction and mayhem. The loss is real, you lose people, you lose stability, and you lose time. Human characters have all the dimensions necessary to engage. The use of progressive trance-like music is very very tasty to me personally. Also, we all remember it won best the Visual Effects Oscar. Not that every choice is perfect but most of them are. So that’s nice to see. The choice of framing is always very very deliberate so the team could re-iterate to improve, instead of, to re-start a new scene every other time an executive suggests something stupid. There is a vision to build real suspense, real stakes and that’s probably why a lot of people have said this is the best Godzilla film of all time so for me, I sure feel like it right now. Definitely worth watching but disappointingly only illegally available. Enjoy that one.

There was a wannabe animated cartoon from the 90s movie this year. Godzilla x Kong – First of all, why x? Second of all, what the hell? Third of all, why does the director of the Hollywood production, think that scenes by the “Monsters” within the monsterverse themselves are cool? Anyway, that’s all I have to say about the Hollywood films. There was potential, yes, in the Gareth Edwards Godzilla film from 2014. But then they tried to be too smart with Godzilla. Always annoyed the viewers during their first watch by cutting away from a big fight that was teased for a large chunk of the previous sequence. And ruined first impressions rarely allow for real praise later on.