Movie Review: ‘Godzilla Minus One’

‘Godzilla Minus One’ may be the Japanese monster’s most haunting, emotionally powerful movie in decades, with Godzilla itself more fearsome than ever.

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

Opening in theaters on December 1st is ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ which stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Hidetaka Yoshioka, and Munetaka Aoki, and was directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

Initial Thoughts

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

The latest entry in the world’s longest-running film franchise, ‘Godzilla Minus One’ takes the legendary monster back to earth-shaking basics for perhaps the finest movie in the series since the 1954 original. The movie not only looks and sounds spectacular, but Godzilla has rarely been this frightening. Plus the human story, in which its characters are still coming to terms with the effects of World War II, is emotional, involving and as gripping as the admittedly riveting monster mayhem.

Story and Direction

(L to R) Director Takashi Yamazaki and Ryunosuke Kamiki discuss 'Godzilla Minus One.'

As ‘Godzilla Minus One’ opens, it’s the waning days of World War II and kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lands at an airbase on Odo Island, claiming he’s having problems with his plane. In reality – and to the scorn of chief mechanic Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) – Kōichi has found himself unable to complete his mission of self-sacrifice.

Already humiliated by his apparent cowardice, Kōichi is shamed and horrified even further when a giant, dinosaur-like creature appears on the island, and Kōichi freezes up instead of firing the 20mm gun on his plane. The monster ends up killing the entire team of mechanics but leaving only Kōichi and Tachibana alive, with Kōichi even more guilt-ridden over his inaction.

Kōichi returns home after the war is over to find his parents dead and his village destroyed. But out of the rubble comes Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a young woman who has also lost her family but is taking care of an orphaned infant named Akiko. The three form a family of sorts, although Kōichi can’t help but feel like he should be dead as well, and denies himself any attempt at love or happiness.

Kōichi finds work aboard a minesweeper boat amidst evidence that the same creature that attacked Odo Island has been mutated into an even more powerful beast by U.S. atomic tests. After the monster destroys both U.S. and Japanese warships and heads for Tokyo, it’s left to the Japanese people to defend their country and very existence against the wrath of Godzilla – even with no military force and barely any weapons.

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

Just as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki pervaded the original 1954 ‘Gojira,’ the specter of war and its existential threat to any country hangs over ‘Godzilla Minus One.’ Directed and written by Takashi Yamazaki – one of Japan’s most acclaimed genre filmmakers – the film is emotionally and thematically grounded in its lead characters, easily among the most well-developed in any sci-fi movie, let alone a Godzilla film. Kōichi, despondent over his inability to sacrifice his life and despairing over his future, personifies Japan itself in the aftermath of the war, with Godzilla acting as a metaphor for whether Japan will even continue to exist after its defeat.

It's the character drama in the foreground that gives ‘Godzilla Minus One’ its emotional heft, providing a narrative in which the magnitude of the stakes and the characters’ personal investment in them are palpable. Yamazaki guides his excellent cast (Kamiki, Hamabe, and Aoki are all outstanding, as is Hidetaka Yoshioka as the nerdy scientist who formulates the eventual operation to destroy Godzilla), while wisely doling out the title monster’s appearances for maximum impact.

And make no mistake, with Godzilla’s four or so major set pieces in the film, Yamazaki makes the beast more genuinely frightening than he’s been in years. The battles at sea are epic and exciting, while the central attack on Tokyo’s Ginza district is truly horrific. Yamazaki does not spare us the human cost or the scale of the apocalyptic destruction; Godzilla’s heat breath creates an effect very much like a nuclear explosion. This is not a Godzilla movie for little kids.

Godzilla has been through many incarnations throughout his/its long career onscreen, but diehard fans generally agree that the original movie – which was nothing less than a poignant expression of grief over the atomic devastation that rained on Japan just nine years earlier – is still the best. Expertly balancing the human drama with the monster mayhem, while giving both meaning and power, Takashi Yamazaki has delivered possibly the best Godzilla movie since the first one, and certainly the one that comes closest to the original in tone and spirit.

The Big Green Guy

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

Godzilla has gone through many different visualizations during his nearly seven decades onscreen, from the original, stocky man-in-suit of the early films to the ill-advised walking iguana of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 misfire. In ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ he hews closer to the classic look: with short(ish) arms, thick legs, and a stocky body – at least in his final version. He’s a little more reptilian and perhaps agile when we first meet him, although he mutates throughout the course of the film into the much larger, more powerful, stand-up-straight iteration that dominates most of the movie.

This is one angry Godzilla, perhaps the angriest and meanest of them all. The King of the Monsters has evolved over the years from nuclear terror to kid-friendly superhero to reluctant protector of Earth and back again, but the G-beast we meet in ‘Minus One’ may be the most ruthless of them all. Just one look at his blazing eyes says it all. And his atomic breath this time – in which the plates on his spine and tail not just light up but emerge out of his flesh – is less like a living flamethrower and more like a concentrated burst of lethal energy that erupts into an unmistakable mushroom cloud.

By the way, the VFX in ‘Godzilla Minus One’ are remarkable, and the film itself reportedly cost the Japanese equivalent of $15 million. That’s the catering bill for most Hollywood tentpoles, and yet Yamazaki and his team make this movie look like eight times more than its actual budget.

How does ‘Godzilla Minus One’ fit into the existing canon?

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

The ‘Godzilla’ franchise, which turns 70 in 2024, encompasses some 37 films, including 33 produced by Japanese studio Toho and four produced in Hollywood (one by Sony and three from Warner Bros., with a fourth on the way from the latter). The main Japanese series is broken up into different eras, and each era is more or less self-contained, with a basic continuity. Each new era has pretty much rebooted the monster and the series.

So where does ‘Godzilla Minus One’ fit into this? It’s part of the ‘Reiwa’ era, which as of now only contains three animated films and two live-action: this one and ‘Shin Godzilla.’ Both live-action entries are standalone features, and ‘Godzilla Minus One’ is set in the late 1940s, several years earlier than the very first movie, ‘Gojira,’ which was released and ostensibly took place in 1954.

Yet ‘Minus One’ is not a prequel, although with a little bit of strained retconning, it could perhaps serve as one. Instead, it could be seen as a self-contained semi-reboot of the Godzilla origin story, a second story adjacent to the original film, or perhaps even a loose remake of the first film. Its mood and themes echo those of the original – focusing on the grief, shame, and anger of post-war Japan – yet it tells the story in its own fresh way while paying vast amounts of respect to the original movie, right down to the use of Akira Ifukube’s classic Godzilla theme. And the door for a sequel is wide open.

Final Thoughts

'Godzilla Minus One' opens in U.S. theaters on December 1st.

While the original ‘Gojira’ is one of our favorite science fiction/monster movies and there are many worthy entries in the series overall (including a couple of the American ones), ‘Godzilla Minus One’ is the first in our view to have the same impact as the 1954 film that kicked the entire franchise off. It’s not perfect, of course – there are spots where it’s a little too sentimental or melodramatic – but this is a movie that not only delivers on the kind of giant monster action we all want to see, but gives us three-dimensional human characters we care about and a central premise that carries real gravitas. This is the Godzilla movie that we’ve been waiting for.

‘Godzilla Minus One’ receives 9 out of 10 stars.

Godzilla Minus One

"Postwar Japan. From zero to minus."

PG-132 hr 5 minDec 1st, 2023

Showtimes & Tickets

Watch Godzilla Minus One Online

What is the plot of ‘Godzilla Minus One’?

Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, 'Godzilla Minus One' takes place just after World War II, when Japan has no self-defense force and no armaments. The movie asks the question: What happens if Godzilla comes to Japan while it is completely disarmed? Meanwhile, after losing his honor in the war, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) creates a surrogate family with Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) just when Godzilla attacks again.