Godzilla Minus One was a revelation, taking the world by storm and breathing new life into Godzilla movies that IP driven American films simply couldn’t match. It was so much of a revelation, that the budget for Godzilla Minus Zero shot through the roof, almost a blank check for Takashi Yamazaki to make whatever movie he wanted to make. Our lizard isn’t a little guy anymore: he’s all growed up and CGI radiation blasting into our hearts. Figuratively of course, or else the audiences would be dead.
Minus Zero picks up a couple years after Minus One. Godzilla is believed to be dead and deep in the ocean somewhere. But a new threat comes to Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) and the Large Scale Disaster Response Bureau. It’s a combination hydra and king flying dragon like creature, Ghidorah, that attacks Matsumoto, killing thousands of residents. The Bureau goes into action, leveling up: Kenji and scientist Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka) brings in weather whiz Makoto Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa) to help him devise counterplans against this new beast. And, Noda decides it’s time to make a call to Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), the pilot hero from Minus One, who’s living a quiet life with the recovering Noriko (Minami Hamabe), raising their adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani). Quiet no more, as you might guess.
After spending time in the sea in Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki decides it’s time to head into the air with Minus Zero. All that extra money he gets goes into Ghidorah and the sequences he crafts for his new monster. There’s a dive bomber and thunderstorm sequence that’s electric filmmaking of the highest order, with planes dipping and diving to stall/lure the dragon into Noda/Aoyama’s trap that’s just gripping hella fun entertainment. The score backs this up, with the best use of violins since Psycho, when the Response Bureau gasps in awe at the power of these god like creatures, going back and forth with shrieking violins and silence that grabs you and rises you out of your seat. The monster looks great too: when we get up close it looks like a real creature; no wonder everyone’s terrified frantically running on the ground. And when Godzilla shows up, it’s giant CGI monster fight night, with epic proportions. It’s bloody and visceral, with limbs and heads torn off, as well as nuclear blasts that give anyone who’s been to Hiroshima or Nagasaki nightmares of the power these creatures have to destroy everything around them. Godzilla Minus Zero is a visual feast beginning to end, reminding us to be scared and in awe of these creatures that have been around for almost 75 years now in the movies.
You’ll notice I didn’t mention a lot of humans in that first paragraph right? That dazzling CGI budget unfortunately takes away some of the magic Godzilla Minus One gave us because we’re so enthralled with Ghidorah. That means the human stories are a bit off to the side in this one unfortunately, and working in murkier allegory that Minus One so wonderfully executed. The focus this time is on the Bureau, specifically the triple headed brain trust of Kenji Noda, Kanji Murakami, and Makoto Aoyama and their not too subtle Cold War plight with Americans only helping with more weapons (I get it, I’m sorry). Tasked with the burden of dealing with these beasts, the consequences of their choices are literally life or death, giving a little Covid allegory for sure. Guess wrong, and bam! That’s another leveled village, with thousands of residents gone because you effed up. I was particularly interested in scientist Murakami, who’s given a truly heartbreaking backstory that makes his decisions more interesting and exciting in hindsight. Even though Kōichi our beloved ex kamikaze pilot is back, his story was done at the end of Minus One; this movie is Noriko’s where Takashi Yamazaki takes the strange choice of keeping her alive after the last movie and makes it worth it for this one with what she is forced to choose to do. So there’s still some personal stuff here, we’ve mostly left street level heroes in favor of focusing on people in power, taking a little of the soul out of Minus Zero.
But Godzilla Minus Zero is still a heck of a fun ride. I hope the eventual third film goes back to ground level a little more, and finds that wonderful mixture of human and monster that makes the Japanese Godzilla films such a joy to see at the movies. I maintain the next one should be an AI allegory, where someone in the bureau gets a big head and makes MechaGodzilla, only for it to go rogue and start killing people. Take that, Sam Altman! Maybe you should watch the Terminator more closely next time.