Godzilla Minus Zero isn’t quite as impactful as Godzilla Minus One, but it’s a different kind of Godzilla movie. Minus One tried to conjure some of the feelings from the 1954 original: a world where Godzilla doesn’t exist, and then he does, and everyone has to deal with it, just like living in the post-bomb world.
This one is more like an elevated 60s or 70s Godzilla film, where Godzilla is battling another monster. Elevated is probably the best way to describe it. With Shin Godzilla, they tried to make an elevated Godzilla film. This is an elevated Godzilla-versus film.
Now, I’m not a hardcore Godzilla fan, and I’m not somebody who lives and breathes Godzilla. But like most people my age, Godzilla was part of my childhood. I watched those movies on UHF TV, mostly from the late 60s and 70s, where Godzilla is the protector of the Earth and he’s fighting whatever monster of the week is coming his way. The tropes from those movies got squeezed in here (the artillery, the machines, the scientists, the government officials), so in a way, it’s a love letter to those films. The acting is much more realistic and human, though, much less stilted and stiff.
The visuals are astounding. Minus One used low, sweeping shots of Godzilla moving through the water, and Minus Zero does the same with Ghidorah snaking his way through the water. It’s a really effective shot that gets across the scale of these monsters, but also how fast they can move. Being giant kaiju, you’d expect them to be slow, but they move sleekly, like an animal, like a snake or a lizard.
It’s not a visual treat in the sense of a big blockbuster, like Star Wars, but everything feels cohesive, and you actually feel that the monsters are real. I saw it in IMAX, which was loud, and the scenes shot for IMAX were worth it.
Spoiler warning: from here on, this review discusses major plot points, including the ending.
I love the family, and I’m glad to be back with Kōichi Shikishima, Noriko Ōishi and their adopted daughter, Akiko. Being an adoptive parent, the first movie hit me really hard. The horrors of World War II and the atomic bomb are used to great effect, and for me, it’s really the first Godzilla world I’ve been in that feels like it could be real. The characters in the earlier films are superficial, but with Minus One, I would have watched a movie about the people even if Godzilla was not in it. Godzilla Minus Godzilla. I still think it would have been captivating.
Kōichi and Noriko both want to protect their daughter, but they’re also in positions where they can help fight Ghidorah and Godzilla. And they feel like they have to. There’s constant friction over how they’re going to make sure Akiko is cared for, and how they’re going to take care of each other.
Leaving Akiko at the home for war orphans hit hard. The family has turned “come home safe” into a kind of spell, a promise that protects whoever’s leaving. When her parents go, Akiko is crying, angry and hurt, but she says it anyway. The camera lingers on her, and then her parents swoop in and hold her. I thought they’d leave it there, ambiguous, but they don’t. By the end, the three of them are on the run together, and they’re happy. Honest to God, I was holding back tears.
As a foster and adoptive parent, separation is always the fear in the back of your mind. I went into fostering expecting to keep the kids, so there’s always the fear of loss. And for personal reasons I won’t go into, I thought about JC a lot during this movie.
I’m glad it ends happy, and Minus One did too, with Noriko alive when you’re sure she’s gone. It’s a nice parallel.
This time around, Godzilla isn’t really the focus. It’s almost a Ghidorah movie, and I understand why they did it that way. Just like the world changed after the Hiroshima bomb went off, Japan lives in a world where Godzilla happened, so everything’s changed, and everyone has to live with that. Godzilla is front and center in everyone’s lives, even though he’s not there in the flesh, because they all think he’s dead until somewhere between halfway and three-quarters of the way through.
And I think it actually works better for Ghidorah that way. Like Godzilla in the first film, Minus Zero is about evolution. Ghidorah arrives as a meteor, basically an egg, then becomes a kind of protoplasm that absorbs Earth’s DNA and grows into whatever it needs to be, and by the end, it has even evolved Godzilla’s healing ability.
When it looks like Ghidorah is about to wipe out everyone, Godzilla shows up. Not as protector, but basically as a rival. It was really exhilarating, and I felt my pulse quicken. That was my favorite moment of the movie. The use of the 1954 Godzilla theme throughout was great, too. Honest to God, it made me want the Stern Godzilla pinball machine even more.
I wanted more Godzilla, because it’s a Godzilla movie without a ton of Godzilla, and at times he almost feels like an afterthought. The fight is epic, but it should have been longer, with more detail and more Godzilla.
We also never see Ghidorah die. He’s basically pushed off screen, Godzilla swims off, and you have to assume he’s vaporized or something. With Ghidorah evolving Godzilla’s healing powers, it’s ambiguous whether he survived. In Godzilla’s history, there’s never really been a need to preserve a monster from film to film, because they can always spin up a new one. So it’s a little curious why Ghidorah was left that way.
The subplot with the Americans was clear enough, but I would have liked them to either leave more of it off screen or explain what they were working on a little better. The friends I went with had a little bit of confusion here and there.
I loved it, though it’s not as good as Minus One. The hardcore kaiju crowd has probably seen it already, but Minus One fans may hesitate at the R rating, which is for “some violent content/bloody images.” To me, the violence is realistic, not gratuitous, but you see the aftermath of nuclear devastation, and it is painful.
It’s an extremely good kaiju film, good enough that people who don’t usually like kaiju movies will probably enjoy it. And if you loved Minus One, you need to see it.
If there’s a third film, I don’t need Ghidorah back, but I’d like to see the family settled somewhere safe and secure, not on the run. They are my favorite part.