Without getting too spoilery, Shin Godzilla (2016) is a stand alone Godzilla movie from Toho Studios that is not a sequel to any other Godzilla movie. Here Japan has never been menaced by a giant monster before. Godzilla has also been given an entirely new origin story and biology. He's a self mutating creature generating four forms in this film, and hinting at a truly horrifying fifth. He also demonstrates some jaw dropping upgrades to some of his more familiar abilities.
A lot of people disliked the film because of the long monsterless scenes of government officials taking meetings and making decisions on how to deal with this new threat. Yes, there is a lot of this, but it's presented in such a fast paced manner, that I didn't find it boring. The procedural material was similar to what was presented in Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion (1996), showing the bureaucracy necessary to be able to deploy Japan's Defense Forces. The film doesn't waste any time getting started and is told in an almost documentary style putting the viewer right in the middle of events as they unfold. The Godzilla scenes are tremendous, from his unexpected, weird fish-eyed forms to his unstoppable fourth mutation. The creature, awesome as he is, always appears to be sickly and corrupt.
Toho was originally going to produce a sequel, which I would have liked to see, but have apparently shelved plans for that movie, instead planning to return to a shared universe that would feature a more traditional looking Godzilla pitted agains his familiar kaiju foes.
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