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Apologies for the rather crass metaphor, but in 2023, Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One hit cinemas like a nuclear blast. Not only did robust box office and Kaiju-sized adoration follow in its wake, but the king of the monsters also managed to score himself an Oscar for visual effects which, considering his beloved suitmation roots, is something of a major miracle. While the Americanised Monsterverse was content to play into the sillier aspects of Godzilla’s past, Yamazaki instead focused on an aspect of the franchise that the original, 1954 movie fully embraced and previous films have struggled to match – the human aspect.
Setting the film at the end of the Second World War, Minus One zeroed in on a patchwork family trying to find their way in the post-war ruins of Japan and as a giant, irradiated lizard emerged to kick the country when it was down, themes of survivor’s guilt and community helped make the film to be arguably the greatest Godzilla film ever made. However, Yamazaki has returned to set the clock from Minus to Zero – can he do the impossible once more and deliver yet another Godzilla for the ages?
Two years have passed since a war torn Japan managed to vanquish the massive destructive force known as Godzilla. However, while former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima, his now-wife Noriko and their adopted daughter, Akiko, have found their lives finally reaching some kind of normalcy after a World War and a monster attack, it seems that Japan’s giant creature problems aren’t quite over. A new monster has risen in the form of a giant dragon dubbed Ghidorah that spits golden lightning, and Kenji Noda, now the head of the government’s Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau, is scrabbling to come up with a counter attack the same way he formulated a plan against Godzilla. Despite being a crack pilot and having previous monster fighting experience, Shikishima is reluctant to lend his talents to help his old friend due to his love for his family – but when he’s inevitably brought into the plan, Japan discovers that this Ghidorah has a few tricks (and a couple of extra heads) up it’s sleeves.
Defenceless against a mutating, evolving creature that can sprout new heads, absorb bolts of lightning like shots of expresso, and manipulate gravity to devastating effect, there seems to be only one path left open to them – to manipulate the recently resurrected Godzilla to fight Ghidorah. But to do that will mean placing yet another member of the Shikishima family at risk. You see, after somehow surviving Godzilla’s blistering attack on Ginza, Noriko has been hiding some worrying side effects from her ordeal, side effects that could be used to draw out the radiactive reptile. However, while Professor Kanji Murakami seems confident that his plan to lure one kaiju to the other will work, he has secret plans that could put all and sundry at risk. Two Kaijus? City wide devestation? Secret plots? America breathing down their necks? Never mind Godzilla, it’s the Shikishimas who can’t catch a fucking break.
While you’d think the greatest obstacle for Godzilla Minus Zero to overcome is a giant, golden, triple-nutted, space dragon, a far more imposing issue ends up being that Takashi Yamazaki has the unenviable task of following-up a film that I generally believe to be a near-perfect movie. Godzilla Minus One was a Kaiju movie so good, it was a film you could recommend to people who didn’t like Kaiju movies and much in the same way Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight became the comic book movie for people who didn’t like comic book movies. Yamazaki pulled off the same trick with jaw dropping results. However, while it seemed he was destined to fall short with his bigger, bolder sequel, that doesn’t mean he still hasn’t worked himself to the bone to deliver a spellbinding Kaiju experience that’s still better the 90% of the genre.
While the touchstone for the previous movie was to fully flesh out the beleaguered and tormented human characters in the aftermath of WWII, here we find that with the war even further away, the plot retracts a little into a more classic monster movie approach, hurling a proto-Ghidorah at us mere minutes into the film and giving him an origin right out of his 1964 debut, that also cross-pollenates with The Blob. But while the links to the war are slightly less felt here, what Godzilla Minus Zero clings to most is the spirit of Ishirō Honda’s original and the notion that certain sciences and discoveries probably should be shit-canned before greater problems strike. With the discovery that the survival of Minami Hamabe’s Noriko wasn’t as miraculous as we’d first thought, it brings not only an aspect of body horror to the franchise, but gives certain characters a way to manipulate, or weaponize Godzilla like never before and it feels like Yamazaki is invoking the 1954 plotline of Dr. Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer in some of his themes.
However, while the continuing trials and tribulations of the Shikishimas can’t quite match the furious plucking of heart strings that was performed by Minus One, Yamazaki also doesn’t make it particularly easy on himself when it comes to the brawling monsters either. Limiting Godzilla’s screentime in order to make Ghidorah a more formidable antagonist is a bold move, but some of the initial awe of seeing Godzilla’s most persistent foe rendered in CGI is reduced thanks to its thunder being stolen by the fact that the space dragon was also in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters seven years earlier.
However, despite these issues, where Godzilla Minus Zero fully comes alive is with those monster sequences that not only recapture the heart-in-the-mouth experience of the previous film, but actually exceeds it. The Jaws inspired boat chase from before is expanded on in a stunning sequence that sees a midair containment attempt that sees jets try to corral a wayward Ghidorah in the sky and when the golden bastard starts levitating houses with his funky rays, we realise that this movie is operating on an entirely different level visually speaking. The final fight is brutal and punishing and sees the literal chunks being ripped out of both creatures and it mirrors the harrowing multiple visions of injured humans that ensure these super-sized smack downs carry the appropriate emotional weight that the more cartoonish Monsterverse frequently tends to overlook.
So unfortunately, Yamazaki hasn’t quite managed to pull off the impossible and equal his flawless, modern classic – but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t delivered a remarkable cinematic experience that effortlessly guarantees itself a top five spot (at least) of greatest Kaiju films ever made.
While the movie struggles to equal the emotional wallop of its game changing predecessor, Yamazaki comes armed with IMAX quality carnage to ensure that the visual fireworks are noticably more spectacular. If Toho bequeath the director a much-deserved third crack at the King Of The Monsters, hopefully we can get more Godzilla, a lesser utilised foe, and a chance for the poor, put upon, Shikishimas to get an actual happy ending for once. But what the Hell would you call it? Godzilla Plus One? Sounds like he’s been invited to a damn wedding…
Where to watch Godzilla Minus Zero: