Godzilla Minus One 2023

This is somewhat reminiscent of the 2014 Godzilla film in the sense that it's trying to be a drama first and a spectacle second. Don't worry, you'll get more of the titular monster here compared to that film, but those who are just looking for destruction are bound to walk out disappointed. In theory this should be right up my alley for that exact reason, but despite being a relatively small Japanese production, the end result I found oddly commercial. Take the character drama, which thankfully is handled more interestingly than the Gareth Edwards film. It puts in just enough work as an analysis of post-war trauma in Japan (I like that they play up the angle of Godzilla as a metaphor for this, wish they'd pushed that a little further) and they put more effort into making us engage with the characters than a movie like this usually would. However, there's still something very calculated and safe about it. In particular, the dynamic between our main 'family' is very obvious because it uses many predictable tropes that play out exactly as expected. For example, our tortured protagonist doesn't quite view the little kid he's living with as his daughter yet (I wonder where that'll go). Moreover, there are plenty of cheesy calls, which during its worst moments lead to scenes that are straight up manipulative. Without going into spoilers, this movie has one of the most annoying final scenes I've seen in a long time, completely backtracking on a major emotional beat of the movie. It honestly felt like the movie pulling a middle finger at its audience. What doesn't help either is that the dialogue, acting and filmmaking aren't the best. Subtleties are spelled out through exposition, every emotion is underscored with generic string sections, the actors are overdoing it at points (even for Japanese standards, trust me). Long story short, the choices all feels very ... Hollywood. I'm not expecting Grave of the Fireflies here, but why focus half of your movie on this aspect when it isn't anything special. The action bits I found slightly better. This movie generally has decent direction, with some design/effects work I'd genuinely call excellent. The fact that they made this with less than 1/10th of the budget of Godzilla vs Kong is really funny to me. Still, the sequences with Godzilla aren't visionary enough where they'll leave a mark on my brain, which is something you really need when you're working in the big monster/disaster genre. Going back to the 2014 film, that movie has a very distinct atmosphere with a very memorable finale. The camera placement and overall presentation here are much more on the functional side. Entertaining enough, but also very reliant on convenience and cheesy, ridiculous moments. For instance, I dare anyone not to laugh at the news crew standing on the roof when Godzilla attacks the city. It's so stupid, but played completely straight. Overall, while I expect a lot of people who think they're cultured for liking Hollywood movies that aren't made by Hollywood will like this, I thought it was the usual middle of the road same old, same old.

5/10

Even though kaiju films can be entertaining when they focus entirely on absolute destruction, I usually prefer the genre representatives that have interesting human characters at the center. "Godzilla Minus One" is exactly that kind of movie. The eponymous monster does make a few memorable and destructive appearances, but the focus of the story is clearly on ex-Kamikaze pilot Shikishima, who survived World War II and has to come to terms with his survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of the war.

The setting is also one of the reasons why I like the movie. As a German, I am familiar with many aspects of post-war reconstruction, but the situation in Japan was undoubtedly very different, especially given the use of atomic bombs. The special circumstances of Shikishima's survival only make the story more interesting. I would definitely say that the era has been captured in an informative and interesting way. The monster effects are also good. Of course, the visual quality doesn't come close to big-budget Hollywood blockbusters, but the monster design is great, and the destruction is impressive despite some visual shortcomings.

I don't have many complaints. The only criticism I have is that some of the supporting characters aren't quite as well fleshed out. Furthermore, the "plan" by which Godzilla is to be defeated at the end is very far-fetched. However, these are minor flaws that do not detract from the fact that "Godzilla Minus One" is unquestionably one of the best films in the franchise.

I've seen a variety of Godzilla films from every era and Minus One is hands down the best Godzilla movie I've seen yet. The visuals are spot on, they got the classic look of Godzilla but added all of the gravitas and feeling of weight that the guys in suits were always missing.
The music is on point and they make great use of the Godzilla main theme to punctuate certain scenes.
The story is just so good, we really felt the emotion you were meant to feel in each scene. There were moments where my husband and I were both crying in the theater (he was trying to be so stoic but I saw the wiping of manly tears), and then other points where I could see him about bouncing around in his seat with childlike joy at seeing Godzilla being a bad ass on screen. We really appreciated the setting too, post WW2 Japan and seeing the scars and brokenness that left on the people and then to have them face Godzilla in that state of brokenness made the story and the actions of the humans feel even more heroic and meaningful.
This movie will definitely be a must buy for me when it comes to DVD.

If I counted correctly, the big guy shows up four times in this movie, and that is a-ok. The primary focus is on the human story here, with Godzilla being a driver for trauma and representative of the aftershocks of World War 2 on Japan (his atomic breath is more like an actual atomic bomb here). While I wish the writing was a bit more engaging, it’s still interesting enough that I never truly got bored - just excited for Godzilla to appear again. It asks what we really owe to our legacy, those we love, and even those that we don’t.

The action scenes are great; my favorite was a relatively pulse-pounding sequence reminiscent of Jaws, where Godzilla pursues a boat woefully unprepared to meet him as he dwarfs the vessel in frame. There are a few implausible things here (like some physics and survivability questions), but then again, we’re talking about a movie featuring a giant monster rising up out of the ocean. So I don’t judge too harshly.

One of my favorite things about Japanese Godzilla films is that they seem to treat the monster reverentially, portraying him almost as a sort of god or awesome, terrible divine power on Earth; and that makes him indescribably more scary. I say this in opposition of the American adaptations, which tend to commercialize and anthropomorphize the monster by grafting a sort of teammate-to-humans layer onto him. This is another great addition, and I highly recommend Shin Godzilla from 2016 as well if you’re in the monster mood!

I dragged my whole family to this on Christmas, and even though they're not the most adventurous film goers (probably the first foreign film most of them have seen in theaters), they all had a good time. This is an old-school crowd pleaser that deserves all the love it's receiving. You might be able to tell where the story is going well in advance, but that's exactly where you want it to go and you can't help but smile as it takes you there. I don't know if the budget numbers floating around are accurate, but if this was made for $20 million, Hollywood needs to get their head out of their ass, because this would have cost them five times that and it probably would have looked worse. Talking about the film with my brother afterwards, we started to realize that there are plenty of potential nitpicks and extreme gloss overs, but the movie swept me up enough that they didn't bother me in the moment. Watching my sister in the seat next to me get pumped as the soundtrack kicked in during the final confrontation is what the movie going experience is all about. In fact, I just pulled up that song while I'm writing this review because we could all use that level of hype in our lives.

Godzilla vs Kong was a fun, mindless time, but this movie showed me the power Godzilla has as an allegory and terror. Godzilla here is a force of nature and tragedy, a representation of a war and atrocities that took so many lives for no good reason at best and a litany of horrific ones at worst. This movie is about the human nature to not just survive but live in the face of it. It’s about moving forward. It’s about loving when you’ve lost so much and about not just defending your home but refusing some ideal of sacrifice and choosing to live in it after it all.

The cast all deliver. Kamiki shines as the lead, selling his guilt and anguish and making the soul soar when he’s finally overwhelmed not by despair but by euphoria and love. With him Yamada, Yoshioka, and Sasaki all share an engaging and warm bond, with Yoshioka having an especially charming and human presence. And Hamabe gives a performance that immediately makes you root for her and love her, and represents the emotional core and ideal of the theme of love and moving forward. Even smaller parts like Aoki’s I couldn’t look away from. In the modern Godzilla movies I’ve seen, the humans felt passable at best and boring, lifeless distractions at worst. Godzilla Minus One proves it doesn’t have to be this way. The human cast can shine as much if not more than the monster himself if you put the work in to truly synergize them so they strengthen each other rather than distract or detract from each other. It’s the unity of the human and monster element that leads to such emotional catharsis.

The ending left me a mess, obviously. But even beyond the seamless and heartfelt writing, I was completely taken aback by what also left me with chills and tears. Godzilla tearing through that first military ship and his rampage through Ginza was awesome in the purest sense. The weighty and believable special effects, the divinely and majestically chilling score, the scope of the directing and cinematography to make you really feel both Godzilla’s size and horrible capacity fir destruction and all the homes and lives crushed in his uncaring wake… all these elements and more were in such a perfect unison that I got choked up in a way I don’t know I ever have at a movie. In today’s cinema landscape cities are destroyed as a given, explosions commonplace, beams shooting into the sky a fixture of the skyline. Here it felt like it mattered. Here every movement and every piece of destruction felt weighted and real, never forgetting the lives that would be lost or irrevocably changed.

I feel like I understand Godzilla and his cultural weight and legacy so much more now. This film shows why he’s lasted almost 70 years now. It makes me want to check out the original Godzilla, Shin Godzilla, and more. The strength of Godzilla Minus One is that it conveys that Godzilla has an infinite amount of possibility, if you’re willing to go into the depths to experience it.

This movie reconfirms that Japanese cinema just gets Godzilla movies, this should not be overly surprising but with all the recent western movies it's easy to forget what a Godzilla movie can be.

This is a movie that somehow, where every western attempt has failed, makes you care about the protaganist/human story. I think the use of the flow of time genuinely gives the characters a chance to breathe and learn their stories which helps you care about what's happening.

And then the tension and dread and awesome score when they are building to the mighty Godzilla, you know the stakes and are somewhat invested in the characters survival. But there is still some great action sequences but they have a vastly different tone to the more recent western entries with almost feeling like less action is more, but also having more humans present and relevant increases the scope and magnitude.

Obviously it's one, if you can catch it on the big screen. I think if you love the western versions, you might not love this as much, but if you're in the same camp as I am where you enjoyed them fine enough but always thought they could be better, this is better.

World War 2 is ending. The Japanese are desperate to turn the tide of war. Shikishima, a Japanese Kamikaze pilot, does not have the will to ram his plane into an American ship in a suicide run. Instead, he chooses to live by diverting his Mitsubishi Zero to a nearby Japanese airbase on Odo Island. There, he runs into Godzilla, who destroys the base, leaving Shikishima as one of the few survivors. He returns home to a Tokyo that was firebombed by American bombers, leaving his family dead. He runs into an orphan baby and a lady, Noriko, who is caring for the baby, and he takes them in. A year later, Godzilla reenters the picture once again. With America at odds with the Soviets over the Cold War and the Japanese fleet disbanded, the Japanese public has to stop Godzilla with what they have at their disposal before he continues his rampage.

This film delves into the human aspect, which is deep. Other Godzilla films before this had no feel over tons of remakes. In all those decades of remakes, they somehow missed one of the most crucial things to a good story: character development. The characters were shallow, lifeless, underdeveloped, and present to only prop up Godzilla. This film took a different, fresh approach. In this one, the human aspect is central to the film, at least concerning the main characters and as crucial to the story as Godzilla himself, which is refreshing. The acting, story, special effects, cinematography, and pacing are very well done. There are questionable moments you can nitpick about, but overall, nothing is worth complaining about. I will add the film is in Japanese, but with English subtitles. You get used to it without feeling like you are missing details.

Would I recommend this? Yes. I have not seen most of the Godzilla films, but the few I have seen were disappointing. I can’t recommend any other Godzilla film or TV show until ‘Godzilla Minus One’ came along. This is perhaps the first Godzilla film to date that I would consider a quality film.

8/10