Finally saw Shin Godzilla. I found it enjoyable overall, definitely one of the best films since the original, but I was somewhat disappointed.

Anno was going full force with his quick cuts and subtitles explaining who each person and piece of military equipment was, so the speed reading got kind of annoying after a bit. Especially when it was introducing characters we already met. I thought the cast was very good overall, but the English speaking scenes brought it down quite a bit. Especially Kayoco, who is not even remotely believable as a second generation American citizens. They couldn't get an actress who could speak English more fluently? But even the American actors weren't that great, though it may have had something to do with the stilted dialogue they were given that may not be bothersome to a Japanese ear.

But on to the positives, this was the most frightening Godzilla has been in a while and he looked great throughout the whole film. I especially loved his grotesque transformations, and the scene at night when he fired his iconic beam in new ways was fantastic. The nuanced portrayal of America was also pretty good. The film is obviously pro Japan and isn't going to blindly kiss America's ass and not call them out on some of their BS, but it does show the two nations cooperating effectively and still has some sympathetic American characters.

The music was kind of meh. Nothing really stood out aside from the recycled Eva tracks. KOTM blew this out of the water in terms of music.

Overall, a solid B. I'm glad I have this as an addition to my Kaiju library and will definitely have a few re-watches where I may re-evaluate my opinion. But I think I enjoyed KOTM more even if this is an overall better film, and I'm eager to see Anno go back to Evangelion already and finish that up.