Godzilla Minus One: A Review - The Glories and Horror of the God Encounter

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. As good as it gets in terms of Godzilla moviemaking. Not just a great Godzilla movie, but a really fantastic film all its own.

Language: Japanese with English Subtitles.

Godzilla Minus One, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise, and the 33rd film produced by Japan’s Toho Studio, the place where Godzilla got his start back in 1954.

That original Godzilla movie, aptly titled Godzilla, wasn’t just the birth of the great kaiju film in modern cinema, it was also a truly fantastic piece of cinema. Every Godzilla movie since has paled in comparison, even the good ones, and there have been plenty of good ones…at least from Toho.

Godzilla Minus One is a reboot of the franchise and a remake of sorts of the first Godzilla movie. It tells the origin story of Godzilla and his first foray into his favorite sport…destroying Japanese cities.

The film is set at the tail end of World War II and in the early post-war years and it follows its protagonist, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), as he tries to integrate back into civilian life after a deeply traumatic war experience.

Shikishima is a failed kamikaze pilot who ditched his suicide mission on the pretense that his plane malfunctioned. He ends up on a small Pacific Island used for airplane maintenance by the Japanese. It is here that Shikishima is confronted by not only his cowardice, but by a youthful and spry, mysterious sea monster the locals call Godzilla.

After the war, Shikishima is haunted by his shameful wartime cowardice, which he wears like a scarlet letter. He tries to build a life in the ruins of Japan and his mental state, and becomes a step-father and de facto husband to a young woman, Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and the infant child she rescued during the war. He also gets a job aboard a ship that must destroy mines in the Pacific left over from the war.

While working this job, you’ll never guess who he runs into…his old foe Godzilla. But this time Godzilla is bigger and badder than ever thanks to the testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific by the U.S., which triggered Godzilla to grow bigger and stronger and angrier.

What makes Godzilla such a compelling movie monster is that he is, as Jungian psychology would describe him, the “God encounter”. Godzilla is, to quote the Bhagavad Gita and Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, quoting the Bhagavad Gita, “death, destroyer of worlds.” Godzilla is the void. He is both the immovable object and the irresistible force. One cannot help but feel insignificant and helpless in the face of such astonishing, horrifying destructive power.

In terms of the mythology of Godzilla, the foundation of it is that Godzilla is born both as a symbol of the dangers of the atomic age as well as the manifestation of Japan’s guilt and divine punishment for their aggression. In other words, he is God’s revenge on mankind for deploying nuclear weapons on earth, and hubris for Japan’s imperial ambition and heinous war time behavior.

The original Godzilla film resonated because it understood this mythology. As the Godzilla franchise has moved along over the decades, that mythology has been watered down if not entirely neutered, turning Godzilla into some sort of cuddly friend, or fierce environmental warrior.

Godzilla Minus One makes no such error. Here, Godzilla is not cute and cuddly, or friendly in the least. He is a dead-eyed and destructive killing machine that cannot be reasoned with, only endured.

The politics of Godzilla Minus One show a Japanese people exhausted by war and the malignant government that got it into one, and the incompetent government that survives after war. In this vulnerable state, the people of Japan are forced to do for themselves in the battle against Godzilla.

I won’t go into too much detail in order to avoid spoilers, but I will say that Godzilla Minus One is easily the second-best Godzilla movie ever made, behind the original – which is only the best in this instance because it is the original.

The sequences where we see Godzilla in action are spectacular, and considering the film had a budget of a measly $15 million, which is just 10% of what the most recent American Godzilla movie cost to make, is remarkable.

But this is exactly how you make a monster movie. You give people what they want…namely Godzilla wreaking havoc, and doing it in a realistic setting, with real-world consequences, inhabited by complex yet compelling characters. In other words, take the Godzilla subject matter seriously, something the recent spate…hell…ALL OF, the American Godzilla movies have failed to do.

Ironically enough, while reading the news this morning I read that the Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer will finally be released in Japan after months of controversy. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, is not exactly a hero in Japan, where his handiwork slaughtered roughly 225,000 Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Oppenheimer famously does not show the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor does it show their gruesome aftermath. When Godzilla comes to shore in Godzilla Minus One and makes his way through a Japanese city, what happens, and its aftermath, are undeniably evocative of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the hell on Earth that Oppenheimer’s genius unleashed.

Accordingly, I think, as odd as this sounds, that Oppenheimer and Godzilla Minus One would make for a splendid double feature, as the former sets the stage for the death and destruction in the latter.

Take away the psychological musings, and as a pure piece of entertainment, Godzilla Minus One still works incredibly well. I went to the film with my wife and young son, who is too young to read the subtitles quickly enough – but he saw the trailer and wanted to see the film. My son had a few questions about the plot throughout, but not that many, and he could understand what was happening for the most part without reading the subtitles. He absolutely loved the film…for the same reason I grew up loving Godzilla…because Godzilla is awesome in the truest sense of that word.

Watching Godzilla unleash his destructive powers and fury onto the world is both horrifying and highly entertaining, and the fact that it is treated seriously and that characters you care about are in great peril when Godzilla rampages, makes that rampage all the more compelling.

In terms of the filmmaking, Yamazaki does a stupendous job directing this film. Godzilla Minus One pays homage to the original Godzilla in numerous ways, and does the same with a diverse array of films, from Jaws to Dunkirk.

The cast are terrific, without a bad note among them. And the special effects are better than anything I’ve seen in recent years from any of the American studios.

If, like me, you’re a huge fan of Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One is a dream come true, as it’s not only a great Godzilla movie, it’s a fantastic film in its own right.

If, like my wife, you couldn’t care less about Godzilla, you should still see this movie, as she didn’t just endure Godzilla Minus One, she actually enjoyed it.

At a time when blockbuster filmmaking from American Studios is at an all-time, ghetto-dwelling, nadir, Toho’s Godzilla Minus One is a glorious, shining city on a hill. Of course, that city is shining because Godzilla just stomped all over it and set it on fire with his atomic breath.

Godzilla’s back, baby!!!

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