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GODZILLA MINUS ZERO
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Writer: Takashi Yamazaki
Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Min Tanaka, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Masami Nagasawa
An absolute beast of a sequel.
For something with such a huge name attached to it, it’s hard to imagine Godzilla Minus One as an underdog, but as an overtly Japanese take on a brand that’s been well and truly co-opted by Hollywood, that’s precisely what it was. Of course, Godzilla has always been Japanese at heart, but after the various mega-budget American takes on the character, returning the iconic kaiju to its roots made perfect sense. This, however, came with a huge risk that few outside Japan would really care. But care they did.
With a near perfect Rotten Tomatoes score and a huge $116m box office return on a tiny $10m budget, it’s safe to say Minus One delivered. Balancing wild, smashy-crashy action with an admirable level of character work and real-world grounding, it’s almost like Toho Studios got tired of Hollywood screwing around with the kaiju they built and decided to show everyone how it’s done.
But after the incredible success of Minus One, can its sequel continue this forward momentum and continue to show everyone how Godzilla is done?
War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it into minus. Two years have passed since then, and the country has faced agonising struggles to achieve recovery and finally reclaim its daily life. However, just as humanity managed to cling to a hard-won peace, a new threat strikes, crushing hope in an instant. There is no third time. Everything ends here.
For any sequel, let alone a Godzilla sequel, the temptation will always be there to up the ante. The desire to take the action to the next level, especially with an increased budget and scope, is an understandable one, however, there’s a thin line between ramping up the action to fit the expanded story and blowing it all up entirely.
This was always going to be a key concern for Godzilla Minus Zero, but if there were any initial worries that the sequel might blow itself out of the water, they are immediately quelled. This is a film that understands the need to up the monster ante on its predecessor, however, at no point does it forget what made Minus One such a success.
It’s no real spoiler to say that Minus Zero makes the decision to throw another kaiju into the mix alongside Godzilla. In doing so, Minus Zero immediately ramps up the stakes to even more heightened levels than the first film, yet, despite the increased action and threat levels, its dedication to getting its characters and story right, while also continuing to tie it all in to very real-world horrors remains admirable and keeps the film refreshingly relatable.
Not only matching its predecessor’s visual effects but taking it all several kaiju steps further, Godzilla Minus Zero’s visuals are utterly superb. Blending practical effects work with notably improved CGI, Minus Zero is a clear step up from the first film while remaining tactile and impactful in a way that the soulless Hollywood efforts just aren’t.
The smashes and crashes are more extravagant and brutal than they’ve ever been, while the action scenes between the humans, Godzilla, and his new kaiju adversary are fist-pumping, heart-pounding, and gleefully crowd-pleasing, yet, despite this, there’s something distinctly tangible and pleasingly grounded about it all. For something as big and as overtly ridiculous as a Godzilla to land on an emotional level is no mean feat, yet Minus Zero’s dedication to its craft, its characters, and to the world around them allows even the most outlandish monster moments to deliver emotionally.
With several characters and their stories bleeding over from the first film, Minus Zero and director Takashi Yamazaki remain utterly committed to their humans and to ensuring that they’re far from the weak, wafer-thin ones we’ve seen so many times with the Hollywood Godzillas. Oddly, it’s always been assumed that it’s impossible to make audiences care about humans in a Godzilla movie, yet Minus Zero proves this to be nonsense as it delivers characters you can easily invest in, embedded in a world full of terrifyingly relatable tragedy.
And it’s precisely this tragedy that ensures Minus Zero lands in the devastating manner that it does. Continuing to use the trauma of post-WWII Japan as it’s real-world foundation, the film takes all the big kaiju action and destruction that may otherwise come off as weightless and meaningless and makes sure to show you the direct, brutal consequences of it all.
As Yamazaki has proven already with Minus One’s direct addressing of the war and Hiroshima, these are not films that shirk history’s horrors, and we are very much in that space once again as Minus Zero approaches the horrifying consequences and trauma of its subject matter head-on. However, for all its grounded, real-world brutality, it’s the film’s ability to balance this bleakness with the classic Godzilla silliness that makes it tick.
Nimbly navigating the thinnest of tonal tightropes, Minus Zero skilfully balances horror, humour, and big kaiju-whomping thrills to magnificent effect. Any Godzilla movie worth its salt requires at least some level of goofiness to work, and Minus Zero is only happy to oblige, yet it never once allows its levity to overpower the gravitas and dramatic impact that continues to set these films apart from the franchise pack.
Good god(zilla)! Toho and Takashi Yamazaki have done it again. As with its predecessor, Godzilla Minus Zero is a triumphant balance of character, real-world horror, and badass monster action. Nailing its characters in a way the Hollywood Godzilla films just can’t, while never once taking its eye off the need to quench our thirst for blockbusting kaiju carnage, Minus Zero is terrifying, horrifying, thrilling, and admirably silly in precisely the way you want these movies to be.
