Directed By Takashi Yamazaki

Starring – Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Hidetaka Yoshioka

The Plot – Set in 1949, the Shikishima family confronts a fresh catastrophe two years after surviving their previous ordeal with the legendary monster.

Rated R for some violent content/bloody images.

GODZILLA MINUS ZERO | Official 1.43:1 Trailer | Filmed For IMAX

POSITIVES

If ‘Godzilla Minus One’ was about the rejection of destructive wartime culture, than this equally impressive sequel pertains to the lingering postwar trauma and agony of survival that pessimistically limits national unity for retribution, and while the material feels a lot more introspectively profound for a kaiju action film than we’re used to experiencing from over seventy years of Toho cinema, its exceptional execution paves the way for the greatest one-two punch in the history of this franchise, providing a cerebrally enlightening experience that never relents on the emotionality of its devastation. Being that this is from the very same writer and director of that jaw-dropping original movie, the expectations were firmly in tow for this sequel, especially considering that it is the first Japanese production ever shot in IMAX, and while most audiences come for the enthralling action that never relents, it’s honestly the heftiness from the screenplay that lingered most persistently at my conscience, particularly as Yamazaki dissects the moral responsibility of supreme power that pertains to the collateral damage to both human life and the surrounding environment. Responsibly, Yamazaki once more puts a lot of responsibility and depth on the shoulders of his human protagonists, not only to surmise stimulating stakes that continuously hang in the balance of this nation’s withering optimism, but also to elicit on-the-ground insight towards the depths of devastation, which Yamazaki shoots hauntingly among the scattered ruins, granting us an unwavering look at the costs of war that hang like the heaviest burden on the psychologies of those involved. Being that this is the rare example of two Godzilla movies with connective tissue to one another, it does bring back all of the survivors from the previous film, while introducing us to several new prospects who each contain their terrifying traumas stemming from Hiroshima and Godzilla’s previous attack, where those moments away from the action flesh each of them out significantly with meticulously measured flashbacks that give us a deeper sense of significance to the shells of their former selves that they’ve inevitably become, inscribing awareness to the stakes and consequences that reside within fragility of these set pieces, with all of the lives that hang in the balance. Considering this film spends an ample amount of its 130-minute screen allowance alongside the harsh and harrowing realities of these characters, it could ineffectively lead one to believe that the movie shelves its monsters for longer than necessary, similar to 2014’s ‘Godzilla’, but the reality is it’s saved for the moments that its ground-shaking impact can be felt the loudest among massive auditoriums of moviegoers, featuring impeccable production all around to breed authenticity to its annihilation on the most massive scale conceivable. Sensorial stimulations are bred in everything from naturally reverberated sound schemes, where every step, summoned lazer beams, or deafening roars from these larger-than-life titans are emphasized alongside relative silence, in order to convey the attention-stealing magnitude of their atmospheric impacts, to the significantly escalated special effects work between its introduction of a three-headed kaiju (King Ghidorah) and massively immersive scope and scale from IMAX photography, however the true scene-stealer for me is definitely in the littered long-takes from Yamazaki, who utilizes continuous shots alongside minimalized dialogue to build heavy atmospheric tension among the intensity that feels inescapable with its sporadically sauntered edits, allowing the movie’s pacing to slow down and study the escalating political, interpersonal, and global drama that open the aqueducts of tears that flowed more consistently than I was expecting, especially during a gut-punch of an ending that certainly options finality, but in ways that are anything but convenient among its conflicted characters. On the subject of those prominent figures, the performances from everyone in the collective ensemble capitalize with the kind of grand and emotionally heavy registries that effortlessly attain empathy to their characters, with the star-studded standouts being Minami Hamabe, Min Tanaka, and even eight-year-old Sae Nagatani. Hamabe’s expanded role from the previous film finds her dealing with the lingering physical and psychological scars from Godzilla’s 1947 attack, where her character’s attempts to live a normal life are compromised by the heaviness of emotional baggage that overcomes her periodically throughout her performance. Meanwhile, Tanaka gifts an honestly gripping portrayal that equally conveys that magnitude of his own irreplicable losses, but with a darker and edgier mold that feels so unique from any other character in the film, taking him down the path of no return in exacting vengeance that eventually gets the better of him. But quite honestly it’s Nagatani’s honesty and innocence that allows her to hold the audience in the palm of her small but powerfully commanding hands, enriching the scenes she’s in with a gentleness and affectionateness that melts even the coldest of hearts during the grandest of circumstances. If this isn’t enough, the engagement is made edge-of-your-seat enthralling with composer Naoki Sato’s instrumental achievements appraising intensity to the integrity of the film’s action sequences, with a rendition on Godzilla and Ghidorah’s themes landing so resoundingly influential with their untimely intrusions upon these scenes. While I’ve sprung eagerly from my seat throughout a lifetime of hearing the ominously menacing notes of Godzilla’s accompanying theme, it’s Ghidorah’s here that feels most unrelenting on the dominance over the atmosphere, where from the opening seconds of the movie, long before the tri-headed extraterrestrial even appears on-screen, there’s grim gloominess to the enticing introduction that spells out the inevitability of what’s on the horizon for the unfortunate Japanese people, and with Sato utilizing the collective efforts of an orchestral ensemble that includes 24 trombones, 6 tubas, 32 cellos, and 8 double basses, he has no problem transpiring epically enhanced emphasis to the integrity of the enamored visuals, breeding so much energy and enticement to the inevitability of clashes that truly preheat the oven before feasting. Lastly, even the pacing of the film is kept faithfully persistent throughout its slightly exceeding two hour runtime, where the urgency and hopelessness of its human characters defines time as a necessary asset that none of them unfortunately have, featuring some meaningful movements to the consistency of the storytelling throughout that allows the minutes to flow by effortlessly in their capitalized usage. From the opening moments of the movie articulating Ghidorah’s untimely arrival, to the measurably maintained dependency on ominously anxious tone, to even the immediacy entailed in pitting these two terrifying titans of destruction together, the film never squanders any semblance of generated opportunity from the exploration to breed meaningful momentum while maintaining the tension and suspense of spontaneous attacks alike, without any individualized scene or sequence feeling like it exceeds the boundaries of prolonging or repetitious outlining, and while the second act of the previous film withered in the weeds a bit longer than preferred to track down Godzilla, the smooth seamlessness of the storytelling to this sequel allows it to never lose sight of the communal stakes at play, standing as the single defining ingredient that makes it the superior film between the two.

NEGATIVES

While the script from Yamazaki thrives in igniting the regret and remorsefulness of its many conflicted characters, it does leave a couple of noteworthy arcs feeling a bit underdeveloped in their eventual landing, particularly that of Tanaka’s grieving scientist, whose resentment towards American troops and their weight-throwing intrusion upon this conflict, doesn’t feel like it reaches the prominent pay-off to justify its inclusion to the development of the story, leaving it a wasted rare kind of opportunity that fails to take advantage of America’s villainous side to the Hiroshima bombing. Even when the movie does utilize American counterparts, they’re so uninfluential and generically one-dimensional that they feel like an afterthought on the integrity of the proceedings, possibly as a means of keeping from alienating a seismic semblance of the movie’s Americanized audience, and considering it comes at the disadvantage of one of my favorite characters for the movie, it leaves his arc feeling a bit underwhelming when held in contrast to the contextual clarity of other characters, wasting away one of the few original directions that help distinguish it from its predecessor. Beyond this disappointing arc, the only other problem that I had with the film was the strangeness centering around its expressive R-rating, where nothing about the imagery or the peril feels exploitative to the point of feeling visceral, leaving the rating feeling like a preconceived selling point for audiences expecting gruesomeness, instead of transpiring influence on-screen. Considering these movies have always been tasteful when it comes to the vulgarity expressed by its characters, it leaves the exploratory emphasis of its allowance pertaining to devastation from those caught in the crosshairs of monstrous antagonists, and with so many of the deaths transpiring off-screen, as well as the grotesqueness of one character subtly depicted, there’s simply not enough tangible evidence to illustrate its enhancements, where a PG-13 rating would essentially initiate the same experience, without anything sacrificed from the experience.

OVERALL
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ is a jaw-dropping spectacle of epic proportions that not only effortlessly immerses audience in the disparaging depths of a war-torn Japan on the cusp of financial and sociological collapse, but also high-stakes intense kaiju action that is tangibly realized as disarmingly authentic and enthrallingly impactful as ever, with varietal special effects work that should duplicate its Oscar in the accomplished category. As the second film of a specific story, Takashi Yamazaki has restored roar to this aging franchise, surmising two films of equal and exceptional value that legitimizes its legion of faithful fandom, allowing lightning to strike twice for the uncontested king of monsters.

My Grade: 9.0 or A