So there’s this phenomenon of movies that get heavily nerd-hyped, because they’re a) often legitimately good, but b) good in ways that are easily legible to a nerd audience and which lend themselves to hour-long YouTube video analyses. I usually end up a little disappointed by these movies, because the ways in which they’re good aren’t the ways I care about. And so despite hearing lots of great stuff about this movie for years, I put off watching it; but it turns out that this is one where I really do love the ways in which it’s good.

What the movie is giving us here is a Godzilla story from the perspective of the people in charge, who are consistently portrayed as completely hapless — bureaucratic and ineffectual and more interested in crafting a narrative for the public than in actually figuring out what’s happening or what to do about it. What this means in practice is that we get a Godzilla invasion as seen through… a bunch of meetings.

This doesn’t sound like it’s the most interesting angle for such a thing, but it tbh is. Usually in a monster movie, you’re on the ground, with the people who are encountering the monster and have to like fight/repel/whatever it physically, and who often get orders from higher-ups about their goals. Here, we’re with the higher-ups, and we get to see that they have absolutely no clue at all what they’re doing, but still go out and give confident press conferences and confidently announce task forces and what-not. The whole movie is a crystallization of the horrifying realization that there are no grown-ups in charge, and it’s all just a bunch of people making it up as they go.

But it’s not 100% meetings, there is a Godzilla in here, and it’s a really cool Godzilla. When it comes out of the water the first time, it’s weird. Like, I legit laughed, and I think you maybe are supposed to. The creature changes over the course of the movie, and of course ultimately it’s going to be something pretty close to the familiar stompin’ lizard we all know and love, but it’s a more interesting take than usual.

Up until now, I would have said that GvK was the best Godzilla movie just for the audacity of its over-the-top fantasy world. But in a way, a movie focused on bureaucrats and meeting rooms is even more audacious, and this is my new favorite Godzilla movie.