Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Score: A+ (9.5/10)

Godzilla Minus One rises to great heights to deliver a story accessible and understandable to all. While it does feature the occasional story cliche, it ultimately helps create a narrative well worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

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Godzilla is the most iconic movie monster in cinema history, partly due to how long ago the kaiju monster first appeared and how audiences and production studios can’t get enough of him. However, there are two ways of looking at Godzilla: a monster and a hero. Back in his first appearance in 1954’s Godzilla, Godzilla was a ferociously terrifying beast created through radioactive material from World War II, hell-bent on decimating the homes of Japanese residents. However, as society and the film industry moved away from his debut movie and post-war messages, Godzilla became an international icon, becoming humanity’s protection against other kaiju monsters. It occurred frequently in Japan because they used Godzilla to represent the domestic struggles riddling the country. It’s how Japan consistently reboots the Godzilla franchise while Hollywood tries to make their own franchise with the kaiju as Earth’s defender. All continuities aside, Japan’s last film, Shin Godzilla, leaned into the kaiju’s horrific and terrifying roots in the fallout of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami. However, Godzilla Minus One leans into the kaiju’s post-war roots, resulting in a final product almost nobody expected.

Godzilla Minus One gets one thing straight to all languages: Godzilla is a massive and terrifying monster. The film goes to great lengths to add a sense of scale to the kaiju, allowing audiences to believe and understand what it’s like to witness Godzilla’s destructive nature through the Japanese people’s perspectives. The highly detailed visual effects also give audiences a more immersive experience of everything that transpires throughout the film, with Godzilla’s brutality through various on-screen deaths being more than apparent. Seeing the kaiju crush dozens of people, tear apart several ships, and topple countless buildings in one fell swoop in all of his rampages establishes the massive kaiju as a force to be reckoned with, especially when he brings out his heat ray whenever people anger him or back him into a corner.

At face value, the film’s a fantastic traditional kaiju movie. However, Godzilla Minus One wouldn’t be the surprise hit it was if not for the brilliantly told post-war drama when Godzilla doesn’t appear on screen. Audiences witness hundreds of war veterans fighting against a common enemy in the structural and economic fallout of Japan’s loss in World War II. Fighting Godzilla gives them a chance to right their wrongs, similar to one kamikaze pilot Koichi, the main protagonist, follows, or a way to leave the country’s wartimes behind to allow it to prosper, at one point represented by the quickly rebuilt city of Ginza. In the film, the Japanese people take pride in their redeemable acts of heroism at a time when the country needs it, allowing audiences all over the world to understand the resilience arising from total devastation. It also allows audiences to connect with the film’s more intimate moments between characters, showcasing how strong and present their bonds and emotional hardships are.

Much like many Western audiences, I did not expect to enjoy or love a Godzilla movie in the modern era. However, the post-war drama drives the narrative to a superbly well-delivered and well-thought-out conclusion. It uses Godzilla to represent the resilience of the Japanese despite the crippling home they found themselves in after World War II. The protagonists are a delight to watch as they grow as people and find redemption in such a dark period for their country, to the point where audiences may get emotional over the connection established between each of them. Godzilla Minus One rises to great heights to deliver a story accessible and understandable to all. While it does feature the occasional story cliche, they ultimately coincide with the rest of the film to create a narrative well worth seeing on the biggest screen possible–language barrier be damned.