Godzilla Minus One – Review

I’m feasting this year. Being a Godzilla fan is sort of a weird thing to put out there. A few of the films are these beautiful meditations on nuclear paranoia and fallout while most of the rest resemble a wrestling cage match featuring dudes in rubber suits. I enjoy both but I have to admit that there were only two truly incredible films in the franchise – Ishiro Honda’s 1954 Godzilla and Hideaki Anno’s 2016 Shin Godzilla.

We now have a third incredible Godzilla movie.

Taking a deep dive into the post-WWII Japanese existence, Godzilla Minus One focuses on young kamikaze Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki). The young man claimed engine failure and bailed on his suicide mission, landing instead on Odo Island. He is eventually one of only two survivors after an unknown dinosaur-like creature attacks the compound and heads back to a ruined Tokyo in shame. The city is in shambles and so is his home but he quickly takes in a young woman named Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and the orphaned child she’s protecting, Akiko (Sae Nagatani). Their peace is short-lived as Godzilla appears and begins a new reign of terror over the wartorn country.

Honda created magic in 1954 with his versatile and durable metaphor for nuclear terror. This is possibly the meanest iteration of the character I’ve seen to date, with his jutting spikes lighting up and every shot of nuclear breath beautifully frightening. It’s heartbreaking to see the fear over this creature’s violent nature as the nation grieves the destruction of two major cities just two short years prior. The legend of Godzilla has always been one of nuclear fear and Takashi Yamazaki takes that fire and reignites it. I found it very fitting and unsettling that this came out in the same year as Oppenheimer, one film complementing the other as we look at the weapon that could destroy the world and the creature birthed from that fire standing side-by-side in violently executed movies.

The family unit really helps bring heart to this otherwise frightening narrative. I’ve long found the idea of “found family” to be wonderful. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, Caeser’s tribe in the latest Apes trilogy, and countless others have all driven home the idea that family is completely what we make of it. Shikishima and Ōishi have all the romantic tension of a classic rom-com pairing, tossed into their somber surroundings with Akiko to carve out a life that none of them planned. Shikishima’s guilt over abandoning his mission even in the face of defeat pairs with the Japanese government’s continuing dismissal of its citizen’s safety. We band together in the end with a small group of citizens instead of tanks and helicopters and at the center of it all is the love of this core group.

I love the goofiness of some of the American versions of Godzilla and the later entries from the Shōwa era. However, something magical happens when we let go of the kaiju wrestling matches and embrace the terror. In a year where we are all talking about the destructive power of nuclear energy, it’s important to remember one of the biggest (and certainly one of the best) representations of that fear. Godzilla Minus One is in my top 3 Godzilla movies and is a must-see on the biggest screen possible.

The film has two more days in theatres. Go. Go now.