REVIEW: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Movie Reviews

Godzilla Minus One feels like the little movie that could, taking America by storm the way Godzilla takes Tokyo. It seems like a legitimate crowd-pleaser, with movie fans praising it and buying enough tickets to secure it a wider release this week. And it’s a pretty good movie to boot, with some entertaining monster attacks and a human story driving it. It falters here and there, especially at the end, but it’s a well-made horror story that understands how to generate and maintain suspense.

Towards the end of World War II, kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lands on Odo Island, claiming his plane is malfunctioning, only to be confronted by Godzilla, who kills everyone on the island but Shikishima and the head mechanic (Munetaka Aoki). Several years later, as Japan rebuilds after the War, Shikiskima has formed a loose family with Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and a child named Akiko, who was orphaned when Tokyo was bombed. Then Godzilla returns, and the War’s survivors must band together to save their country.

Like the film that introduced the giant monster, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla Minus One uses the devastation of Japan in World War II as the basis for its story. But instead of once more making him a metaphor for the atomic bomb (which isn’t to say he doesn’t still have his trademark nuclear breath), this movie focuses on what makes a war worth fighting – and, in some cases, dying in. Shikishima is a kamikaze pilot who attributes his survival to a faulty airplane, but everyone suspects he’s lying and that he was afraid to give his life for his country. Whether Shikishima is lying is not exactly a mystery; the bigger question is whether he was right to save himself. While some call him a coward, others say he was asked to kill himself for a lost cause and that living is the stronger decision, especially now that he’s got people to care for and protect.

That’s where Godzilla comes in. As per usual, Godzilla is an unstoppable force, impervious to the military’s strongest weapons and too powerful for virtually every stratagem the humans come up with to stop him. Fighting him is as impossible a task as fighting a superior military that wanted to end World War II quickly was. However, Godzilla won’t stop at unconditional surrender, and he’s escalating from destroying ships at sea to attacking the mainland. This opens the movie up to some excellent themes like the merits of sacrifice vs. survival, fighting for a dispassionate government seeking to protect itself vs. individuals fighting for those they love, and determining what makes a war worth fighting or a battle impossible to win. And these themes are rooted in character, with Shikishima at the center, dealing with shame and the fear of losing something he won’t allow himself to admit he’s found.

These themes are explored fairly well in a story that pretty much holds together. Godzilla Minus One wisely keeps its plot grounded, with the focus on regular people facing the horrors of a giant lizard emerging from the sea and crushing their city underfoot. The human toll of a monster attack is felt throughout, and Godzilla never becomes something you want to root for, like in a lot of slasher movies. There are sequences of excellent tension, and you’re genuinely afraid that some of the main characters – perhaps even all of them – won’t make it. The humans’ attempts to kill Godzilla are filmed with a frantic desperation that renders these scenes breathless, and Godzilla’s inevitable wrath at mankind’s gall at trying to stop him has the effect of a big dip on a roller coaster. The Monsterverse films of the past decade or so were never able to generate this kind of tension, and Godzilla Minus One has a leg up on them just for that.

As for Godzilla himself, he’s mostly good. Godzilla Minus One has a $15 million budget, and what they’ve achieved with that is incredible, if imperfect. Godzilla mostly looks good, but every so often, the effects falter, and he becomes cartoony, removed from the environment the way CGI often is. It’s leagues better than anything Marvel’s done lately, but not as impressive as something like The Creator (which had more money to play with). The design is great, though, a bit lither than the Legendary version while retaining some heft to make his stomping around more impactful. The atomic breath is fantastic, having the effect of an actual nuclear blast. The score when Godzilla shows up is rousing as well, mixing in bombastic pieces of old Godzilla movie soundtracks. And there are some good stagnant images of Godzilla, like one where he’s underwater as he’s charging up another blast, and the contrast between his lighting fins and the water is striking.

Then, there’s that ending. I won’t say what happens, or even what the situation is, but Godzilla Minus One delivers two big cop-outs (some may say three, but one of them was a given going in) that not only lessen the movie’s drama but muddle some of the themes. Shikishima’s arc goes from one endpoint to another, and they’re both diametrically opposed to each other, so it’s hard to say what he was supposed to learn or what the viewer is supposed to take away from his journey. There are also some very silly contrivances meant to give certain characters something to contribute, and the logistics draw you out of the story. The film is also a bit longer than it had to be, with some scenes repeating points that were already made. This isn’t a great movie, but it is good and worth going to the theater to see.