PLOT: A few years after the apparent destruction of Godzilla, a new monster begins terrorizing Japan.
REVIEW: I’ll admit that Godzilla Minus One took me by complete surprise when I saw it a few years ago. I’m a very casual fan of the Godzilla movies. I’ve seen the American MonsterVerse ones, which were OK, and as a child I loved the Toho movies, but I haven’t kept up with the newer ones that are coming out. But when word got out about how good Minus One was, I checked it out and found it to be one of the better blockbuster monster movies in recent years—and it killed what they’re doing in the MonsterVerse.
Godzilla Minus Zero is another slam-bang blockbuster, done on a scale that puts many American movies to shame. The Oscar-winning effects from the last film were taken to another level, with the movie introducing another classic Toho monster—Ghidorah—with action sequences shot in IMAX that are dazzling.
The film picks up right where Minus One left off. Following the first film, Dr. Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) is now the head of a disaster response bureau, and in literally the first scene of the film, we see a village being decimated by Ghidorah, putting him back at work to try and deal with this new threat. While the Americans have offered weapons and planes, they are refusing to provide pilots, so Noda is forced to recruit Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), the heroic former kamikaze pilot who defeated Godzilla. He’s leading a quiet life with his now-wife, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), who is still suffering from being exposed to Godzilla’s radiation, and their adopted daughter, Akiko.
The action sequences in this are pretty stunning, with the highlight being a mid-film set piece where Shikishima leads an airplane assault on Ghidorah, with the VFX, editing and score by Naoki Satō putting pretty much any American blockbuster that’s come out this year to shame. And it’s only the beginning, with some full-on monster brawls happening in the second half because—wouldn’t you know it—the presumed-dead Godzilla is back.
While movies like this can’t help but be familiar, director Takashi Yamazaki, who also wrote the script, continues to find ways to ground them, with the second film—just like the last one—relating to the scars left behind by the Second World War. What’s particularly potent is when a new scientist, Murakami (Min Tanaka), is brought in who survived Hiroshima and harbours a twisted revenge scheme towards the Americans, whom he blames for the death of his family. Yet nothing really goes the way you think it will in Yamazaki’s movie, with all of the characters fleshed out and avoiding cartoonish stereotypes. They also grow, with Shikishima no longer as shell-shocked and brooding as he was in the last film, with him more of a contented family man and confident in his near-Maverick-level flying skills. I also liked the way Noriko is brought into the action in the second half, with the physical trauma she survived in the first movie central to her growth here.
While Godzilla Minus Zero probably does have a little too much melodrama at times, with perhaps too many moments where young Akiko is wailing in distress, that’s part and parcel of what the Godzilla movies are. To lose the melodrama would be to lose the franchise’s identity and be too much like the MonsterVerse films. Godzilla Minus Zero really is a total blast, and just about as good as the last movie. Yamazaki is a real talent as far as these movies go, with him giving them new life. I hope the franchise continues with him at the helm. The stuff he’s able to pull off with a budget a fraction of what the American MonsterVerse movies get is jaw-dropping.
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