Godzilla Minus Zero Review

“Have a safe trip.” – Akiko

Sometimes, I watch a film and it just doesn’t live up to whatever absurd expectations I’ve built up in my own whimsical head. Sometimes, the opposite happens and everything I want to see in a movie is blown out of the water and expanded upon majestically. This is one of those latter times.

Godzilla is one of the most polarising characters in film. Over the years, I’ve noticed that he is a character cinema audiences either absolutely love, or they absolutely hate. That’s true, I guess of all Japanese kaiju films. Cards on the table, I am a die-hard Godzilla fan, with a full set of all 31 previous movies in my collection. More if you count the Hollywood Monarch Monsterverse franchise. But there’s no doubt that the REAL Godzilla films are Japanese in origin, produced by Toho Productions. And this is the latest – with no relation or continuity to the Kong/Godzilla/New Empire/Monarch films. This follows Godzilla Minus One which I reviewed here.

Given the quote I’ve used above to open the review, you might think that this is a return to the jolly, child friendly Godzilla of the mid-late sixties, where the films would end with laughing children waving Godzilla off with a hearty “sayonara Gojira” as he paddles off into the sunset. (I say paddling because he’s upright, not swimming and he’s not tall enough to reach the sea bed from the middle of the ocean – so he HAS to be paddling, yes?) Back to the point. The quote has a much more heart wrenching meaning in the context of this film. We’re still in the realm of Godzilla being a destructive, feral force of nature, true to his origins in Gojira (1954) and the aforementioned Godzilla Minus One.

Minus One was essentially a reboot of the Toho films. It told the story of Japan’s first encounter with Godzilla after WW2, from the point of view of a disgraced ex-Kamikaze pilot seeking a form of redemption.

At the end of the film, Godzilla was literally blown to pieces with those pieces sinking to the bottom of Sagami Bay – but he slowly started to regenerate in the final frames. Now, it’s two years later – 1949 to be precise.

Quick catch-up. Japan is still recovering from the double catastrophe of losing the war and the onslaught two years after by Godzilla. Although not an anti-American movie by any means, there are references to the Japanese resentment at the post-war American occupation which gives the film a historical authenticity that resonated without being overpowering and distracting. The Japanese are forming a disaster response force to try and deal with any future attacks. Former Kamikaze, now redeemed hero Kiochi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has since married Nokiro (Minami Hamabe) and they are living with adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani). But the events of the past have a habit of re-manifesting themselves in the present. Nokiro survived Godzilla’s attack on Ginza, and she has started to show some physical symptoms of a mutation due to her exposure to Godzilla’s cells.

It’s not long before the Large Scale Disaster Response Bureau are put to work.

A flying dragon attacks Matsumoto. This thing flies and fires electrical charges out of its mouth. They call it Ghidorah, and thanks to the discovery it can be tracked because it’s attracted to electrical storms, it’s destroyed. But it’s far too early in the film to stay down for long. Like Godzilla, Ghidorah can regenerate into something bigger, better (or worse, depending on whether you’re in his path of destruction) and angrier than it was before. Now sporting an additional two heads, a split tail and golden skin this is now King Ghidorah and Japan’s problems have gotten much, much worse.

However bad Japan’s situation is, they have no idea that underwater, Godzilla has completed his regeneration and he is massive, making landfall at Kozu-Shima, as the classic Godzilla March swells up in the background. As there are now TWO monsters, the plan is to lure them both to the ruins of Ginza and have them destroy each other in battle.

The film is somewhere beyond epic, we’re about as far away from seeing men in rubber suits stomping miniature sets of Tokyo as you can get, despite the CGI Godzilla and King Ghidorah looking like their classic incarnations – only better. The effects are stunning throughout the film, there’s a dogfight between some fighter aircraft and Ghidorah, with is among the best aerial sequences I’ve seen. And somehow, Toho manage to produce their visual effects at a very small fraction of the cost of Hollywood’s. The budget for the whole film was between $13-18 million. That’s the FX budget alone for some U.S. movies. It’s not even Robert Downey Jr’s asking fee for Doomsday.

The human story is as compelling as it was in Minus One, following the characters as they’re now dealt new, bigger problems to cope with. But as much as I was engrossed in the family’s story, Godzilla movies are mainly all about the spectacle – and there’s plenty of it to be enjoyed here, and I’d recommend seeing this on as big a screen as you possibly can, with as mighty a sound system as your hearing can cope with. There’s nothing that can compare to hearing the Godzilla roar surrounding you.

I’ll share some out of context favourite scenes to give you a taste. They’re out of context and order so they’re not spoilers – but if you’d rather not, I’ll put them in The Spoiler Zone, okay?

But before that, if you’re a Godzilla fan, you’ll see everything you’ll ever want to see in a Godzilla movie. If you’re a hater, best stay away – the Godzilla fans are legion, and they’ll outnumber you.

Before I wind this thing up, I was planning to going through all the previous films in the series chronologically in the new year. But now, I’m also considering writing a retro feature on each one as I go through for a new section for the site. Would anybody out there want to see a Kaiju section added to the site? Let me know.

Okay – Rob Rating time. Pretty predictable, I’m afraid. But I did have a happy, goofy smile on my face throughout the film’s running time.

Rob Rating = 10

Now, you know how The Spoiler Zone works – right? I’ll do a countdown to the spoilers so if you don’t want to read them, this is where you stop reading.

Still here?

1 – Final Warning.

0 – You are in The Spoiler Zone!

So, my favourite scenes of Kaiju Chaos… here goes.

Godzilla’s appearance out of the ocean behind a bomber.

Godzilla casually nudging the Statue of Liberty out of his way.

The fury preceding an all-out radioactive blast.

Ghidorah becoming King.