I have yet to see the newest Godzilla movie but I thoroughly enjoyed Brad Warner’s review of it in the context of kaiju movies and the history of Godzilla films.

What makes the new Godzilla film so great is that director Gareth Edwards understood what Godzilla is and what a kaiju (Japanese monster) movie is. Emmerich and Devlin thought Godzilla was a big animal. Godzilla is not a big animal. He is the mythic representation of forces beyond human control and human domination. In the 1998 film, Godzilla is killed by a couple of missiles. GODZILLA CAN’T BE KILLED BY MISSILES! GODZILLA LAUGHS AT MISSILES!