He’s also scary because this is the most vicious and evil Godzilla ever put on screen. Only the dead-eyed golem animated by the souls of dead WWII vets from GMK even comes close. Most of the time, Godzilla is just drawn to radioactivity to feed on it, or to another monster to defend his territory, and smashes some cities in the process. This Godzilla just wants to kill people and break things. His facial design is also terrifying, a rictus of pure hatred – he LOOKS like he wants to kill you for just looking at him wrong.

I’d also imagine that, if you are Japanese, it’ll have you “swelling with patriotic mucus,” to quote one of sci-fi’s greatest doctors, similar to how Independence Day (which is my all-time favorite movie) affects Americans. Like in Shin Godzilla, there is a strong sentiment of “our government sucks and is not going to help us with this problem, so us humble citizens need to take matters into our own hands.” There are rousing speeches and the ending is about as crowd-pleasing as it gets, but the important thing is that the characters EARN it. There is also a surprisingly honest assessment of Japan’s involvement in WWII and willingness to throw the lives of its people and soldiers away for no good reason. The main character is a Kamikaze pilot and that is not in ANY way glorified.

In short, go see it. Don’t sail the high seas because it’s a well-made film that is worth your time.