Watched it on Friday with the more kaiju loving of my kids 👍 We both liked it a lot, though the junior felt that particularly Godzilla's superfast regeneration during battle was a bit of a cheat. To be fair, that restorative superpower is a key plot point throughout the movie, but I agree that it makes things a little too easy.
The human characters have nothing but difficulties, on the other hand. And I enjoyed the scrappy ingenuity carrying over from Minus one. In the Hollywood wing of the franchise they'd have all of the armed forces mobilized and shouting tactical acronyms at each other within the first act. I like that there is less of a military perspective to this incarnation, even in the face of rather devastating destruction. Again, the post-WWII framing adds to the story!
And you feel the scale of both the monsters and the havoc they leave in their trail. I haven't had the chance to analyse the techniques, but I'd attribute it to direction, camera angles and perspective. The film feels much bigger than its Monsterverse cousins, but we know its special effects budget certainly wasn't, so my intuition tells me the sense of scale must be largely due to lo-fi cinematics, and all the more impressive for that. It's not the bloody kaiju battle in itself that is memorable, it's also the framing that feels like you're ringside for a visceral MMA match.
The human side of the story still revolves around the found family from the previous film. It strikes me, having rewatched Minus one just before this one, how much of their relationship is communicated through the character of little Akiko. Fortunately they have found a child actor who can fill that part without becoming saccharine. I may be getting old and sentimental, but she sold me on every scene she was in.
Some viewers will probably clamour for a third movie in the series, but I think these two stand pretty well on their own. We've had some interesting points about Japanese history play out through the perspective of massive kaiju destruction over two movies, let this take on Godzilla rest before the good stories get drowned out by more routine monster fare. Now, isn't it high time for a contemporary set movie with a fresh spin?