Godzilla Minus One

Godzilla Minus One

The worst despair in the series' history strikes Japan! After the war, Japan has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state. The most desperate situation in the history of Japan. Who? And how? Will Japan stand up to it?

  • Released: 2023-11-03
  • Runtime: 125 minutes
  • Genre: Action, Drama
  • Stars: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Sakura Ando, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Yuya Endo, Kisuke Iida, Saki Nagatani, Mio Tanaka, Mio Tanaka
  • Director: Takashi Yamazaki
 Comments
  • ignacioazurdiacr - 4 July 2024
    Why all the hype with this movie? Yeah, Godzilla looks (inconsistently) cool, but the story is poorly written melodrama.
    First of all, are the visual effects that great to win an Oscar over movies like Guardians 3, Mission Impossible or Napoleon?

    Because Godzilla looks cool on (or under) water, but then looks like a cheap AI creation when he walks on land (including its goofy movements).

    Plus, the worst part isn't the lack of consistency in its CGI. The worst is the poorly written characters, their stories and convenient (but non-believable) melodrama.

    Besides, there are plot conveniences (or plot armour) all over. Like, how the hell Koichi (the main guy) gets his life constantly spared by Godzilla? And, also, how did he conveniently finds Noriko (the main girl), seconds before disaster, within a huge crowd of people running for their lives in a big city like Tokyo?

    And then, in that same sequence, what's the reasoning in Noriko's mind to push Koichi to safety and then let herself go to her "death"? It doesn't makes sense at all. She could have jumped with Koichi and covered herself along with that dude behind the huge wall... unless she had suicidal thoughts (caught like a disease for living with a failed kamikaze).

    Yes, I get it, the script needed to give Koichi some motivation to be the kamikaze that he was meant to be, looking to avenge Noriko (cause we know he didn't care about his adoptive daughter -just remember who's picture he had on the plane's cabin-). But then, that was the whole point of Noriko's existence? Just to be a clutch for Koichi's hero's journey? What about her own life story and arc? Again, poorly written characters.

    That's precisely the main weakness of the movie, that the emotional tribulations (and, therefore, motivations) seem forced and non believable just to drive the audience to the big bang that the writers want at the end.

    An end that, with a cliched motivation, needed a stupid plan -that doesn't work- thought by the "intellectual" to defeat a nuclear and self healing beast (including a surprising appearance of an "army" of tugboats to apparently save the day while Godzilla waits patiently submerged for them to pull the ships with magically fast arranged ropes), for -then- the "unexpected" hero on the plane come save the day; whom I assume was just flying around, waiting for his moment to shine and wasting fuel he didn't have to spare (remember what they took off the plane for it to be a kamikaze's bomb?).

    And -of course- the ejecting of the plane "twist" lead by the "deep" and confusing (for everyone -including the audience-) emotional tribulations, for him to be a dad for a little girl he really didn't care about, but being surprisingly rewarded with the survival of his real interest in the end.

    But, hey, the movie looks cool (in some scenes). So, if you want to love it, you can just forget the stupid backstory and enjoy looking at the angry, freakishly slow, but scary heat thrower Godzilla; cause I just can't.
  • drqshadow-reviews - 28 June 2024
    Breath of Fresh Air That Stumbles on the Home Stretch
    Following the critical success of 2016's Shin Godzilla, which documented the government response to an evolving reptilian natural disaster, Godzilla Minus One shifts the spotlight to a much finer point. Set in the aftermath of World War II, as a comprehensively defeated population struggles to cope, this film's best moments examine the devastating private ramifications of an up-close encounter with the beast.

    Failed kamikaze pilot Shikishima had a chance to machine gun Godzilla during an attack on a remote military outpost and couldn't pull the trigger. Although we're later shown that such a weapon would've probably been useless, he considers the inaction an indictment and adds it to his laundry list of dishonorable personal failings. Racked by survivor's guilt, he's shunned by the community and succumbs to a miserable few years in the Tokyo rubble before a high-risk gig aboard a civilian minesweeper provides an unexpected opportunity for redemption and, perhaps, revenge. At that point, it becomes just another monster movie.

    That first hour is brilliant, though. Exactly the kind of Godzilla movie I've been waiting for: a dense, powerful character study that concentrates on human pathos while casting the ten-story kaiju as an abstract, instigating force. The metaphorical obstacle that's far too heavy for one man to challenge alone. Shikishima's journey is about more than just floating mines, suicide missions and thunder lizards, but it can be enjoyed on those merits too. The loss of that duality is what makes the home stretch such a letdown. It's not bad - I've always got time for giant lizards boxing dirty with warships, and the visual effects deliver as much with appropriate power - but man, it really seemed primed to become something completely different.

    I appreciate the daring Toho's shown in toying with their formula over the past decade. Sooner or later, they seem bound to produce something revelatory. Godzilla Minus One comes awfully close.