‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ Review: What Happens When The Monster Takes A Nap

Takashi Yamazaki had a nearly impossible job after ‘Godzilla Minus One’ won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects on a budget that looked tiny beside Hollywood’s. ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ opens in Japan on November 3 and in North America on November 6 through GKIDS, and it is the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX.

The story picks up in 1949, two years after the first film, with Koichi Shikishima and Noriko now married and raising their adopted daughter Akiko. Hidetaka Yoshioka’s Noda runs a disaster response bureau, and a dragon like creature named Ghidorah is tearing through Japan. Godzilla himself is nowhere to be seen for a good long while.

That absence is the most interesting choice Yamazaki makes, and also the biggest gamble. For the first half this is really a Ghidorah movie, and I missed the big lizard more than I expected to. Still, the new monster earns its screen time, thanks to a clever plan from meteorologist Makoto Aoyama, played by Masami Nagasawa, who turns lightning into a weapon.

The sequence where Koichi flies over the fields of Nagano with Ghidorah on his tail is the best thing in the film. The effects have real weight, the creatures seem to have skin and muscle and breath, and the camera drops you into the chaos without ever making the geography confusing. Naoki Sato’s score thunders underneath it all.

Yamazaki also refuses to let the destruction feel like fun. This is the first Godzilla film to carry an R rating, and the bloodshed in hospital wards and ruined streets lands hard, with the atomic shadow of the war pressed closer to the surface than before. Min Tanaka’s biologist Murakami carries much of that grief, and his storyline gives the human drama its sharpest edge.

Where the film wobbles is focus. The cast is bigger, so the Shikishima family feels a little further away than before, and the themes of duty and responsibility are underlined far more often than they are explored. Akiko’s tearful scenes tip into syrup, and the melodrama will test the patience of anyone who came only for the roaring.

Even so, the second half pays off. When Godzilla finally returns, the stakes turn personal again and the closing clash is a brutal, ground shaking spectacle. I walked away impressed by how much feeling Yamazaki can wrap around creatures this enormous.

In my book, ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ is a bigger and bloodier sequel that trades some of the first film’s intimacy for scale and ambition. The visuals are exceptional, the Nagano flight is unforgettable, and the heart still beats under all that spectacle even if the story loses a little focus. I give it 8.5 out of 10.

Tell me in the comments whether you agree with my verdict on ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ and whether Ghidorah stole too much of the spotlight from the King of the Monsters.