‘Godzilla Minus One’: A Godzilla Movie For Giant Lizard Cynics
Stomping cities without breaking new ground
Quality Godzilla movies are elusive. In fact, many might even say that they’re non-existent. In a franchise stretching back almost 70 years, there are even more movies in the greater Godzilla franchise than there are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And perhaps more impressively, the series boasts even less diversity of plot.
With 38 separate movies, some of which sport titles like Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, at times even the titles ring of movies hardly trying.
Of course, much of my perception of the greater franchise is defined by the era in which I was born. It’s hard sometimes to be fully affected by the cinematic techniques of yesteryear. Though there was a time when these films broke new ground, seeing the world through that lens is a challenge for most modern viewers.
In plots as simple and formulaic as in these films about megalithic monsters destroying cities, special effects are arguably more important than in the most outrageous Marvel movies. Even the action-packed superhero franchise has its more introspective moments and projects that stray away from spectacle almost completely. Godzilla movies, though, are spectacle incarnate. The reason to see one of them has always been the strangely sadistic joy in seeing cities trampled. It’s in being removed from the world around you by the pounds of a colossal, deep sea-born abomination.
Even when the effects within Godzilla movies were confined strictly to the practical, the narrative depth was still restrained. The odder entries went some pretty fantastical directions, but caring for the characters within each almost always required a certain feat of mental gymnastics.
The series never attempted to offer much in the way of personality or character development in the lulling periods between conflagrant clashes. But being movies so simple in nature, this is an approach that’s often worked well. They’re exacting and they excel within their confines. They’re Cocaine Bears before Cocaine Bears. They hardly need to do more other than feature their titular characters in a bombastic series of altercations in order to shine. They’ve paved the very way for comical odysseys like Cocaine Bear, Snakes on a Plane, and Violent Night to be succinctly summarized by their very titles: a bear… on cocaine; snakes… on a plane; Santa… but violent.
But for Cocaine Bear to be anything more than a movie about ursids on amphetamines is an unexpected bonus. Those who see it will largely be able to revel in getting exactly what they paid for. Those who don’t enjoy it can’t exactly be angry when they haven’t found critical perfection in the movie called… Cocaine Bear. Godzilla films aren’t typically the places you go if thought-provoking is what you’re looking for.
In the case of Godzilla Minus One, though, it’s accomplished the laudable feat — for a city-trampling action blockbuster — of being praised as one of the greatest films of the year. It’s arguably the first in the sprawling franchise to fully attempt to breathe life into its characters. 2014’s Godzilla featured glimmers of the emotional intrigue one of these movies could conceivably offer, but by the final act it’s one that’s been muddled and squandered in a precipitous plume of smoke and raining ash.
This latest installment, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, takes that emotional intrigue from the 2014 film’s opening and carries the torch all the way into its climactic conclusion. And while the plot remains something of fairly surface level depth, it drives home a digestible allegory about the horrors of nuclear war in this Japanese family’s story of survival through similarly testing times. It doesn’t demand a complex array of metaphors to be great.
But it’s in drawing life from its characters and keeping that energy alive that the film succeeds where each other entry in the franchise before it fell a little flat. It causes you to care about the combatants of this otherworldly battle. It doesn’t relegate the destruction of cities into a mere spectacle; they’re moments that carry a righteous feeling of consequence. We feel for our protagonists and see them as something more than piddly pawns caught up in a game of city-toppling laser beam boxing between aimless, dinosaurian colossi. The eponymous lizard giant alone in this installment is more than enough to cement the movie with an unremitting air of consequence.
One of Godzilla Minus One’s most notable achievements is how well this captivating thriller was realized at a fraction of the cost of its blockbuster competitors. While She Hulk — likely Marvel’s most reviled series of all time — reportedly cost a staggering $25 million per episode to produce, Godzilla Minus One director Yamazaki and his team are claimed to have completed the project for under $15 million.
“I wish it were that much!” stated Yamazaki during a panel at the Tokyo Comic Con in reference to the $15 million figure, according to the article. He declared they were able to achieve the gargantuan-sized cinematic feat through skill and thoughtful shooting alone.
Score composer Naoki Sato, creates a masterful orchestral backing to the film that provides audiences with a nearly ever-present feeling of foreboding throughout its two hour run time. An impending tidal wave feels around the corner at every moment and it’s nerve-wracking. The expert deployment of silence during the film’s reprieves, too, helps to drive home a plain and palpable suspense.
While character depth is still somewhat limited, what’s visible from the surface is well embodied by Minami Hamabe, Ryunosuke Kamiki, and Sakura Ando. The characters are tropish caricatures of war-weary citizens, but they’re more than enough to drive home the feeling of stakes that color the movie. To include much more character development between these giant monster battles would feel almost unwelcome.
Godzilla Minus One is also a movie that puts in a rare argument for the virtues of 4DX screenings. Though still a novelty and different enough to give more classic cineastes pause, seeing this latest Godzilla entry in one of these immersive screenings heightened the experience more than I might have expected.
The most notable application of the 4DX technology for me was in the way in which the seats subtly rocked back and forth in tandem with waves in the ocean during suspenseful aquatic scenes. It’s effective but unobtrusive. It allows the audience to vicariously experience the sensation of being on a boat at sea as the forbidding giant of the deep approaches.
In a couple of the 4DX screenings I’ve been to, it was clear that the experience wasn’t well-calibrated to the movie at hand. In Ant-Man: Quantumania, the 4DX effects were jarring enough that I would have plainly preferred a regular screening. But in both Avatar 2: The Way of the Water and Godzilla Minus One, it’s been clear to me that there’s a real argument to be made for this more modern take on a trip to the movies. If immersion is the aim, 4DX is unlikely to detract from this latest Godzilla experience for the majority of carnivorous colossus connoisseurs.
While Godzilla Minus One certainly won’t go down as the nuanced and metaphorical masterpiece of a generation, for a movie about an oversized, city-trampling, fire-breathing iguana, it could hardly be better. It’s a movie that doesn’t think outside the box, but knows its parameters and eviscerates everything inside of them.
I saw this movie, and was excited after reading the many positive reviews, but I was disappointed.