Review by C.J. Bunce
You’ve heard all the recommendations. The Academy Award winner for best visual effects, Godzilla Minus One has been celebrated as the latest reboot of the famous kaiju monster hero in 70 years of Godzilla movies. It’s from the same studio as the first–Toho Co. Ltd.–adding to the catalog of 32 Japanese films that came before. At last it has arrived on Netflix for everyone to check out. So what really makes this entry different?
First, Godzilla Minus One is a better drama than previous entries. Skip the dubbed version as the language is part of what makes these films feel authentic. The film focuses on a Japanese kamikaze pilot named Koichi Shikishima, played by Spirited Away, The Great Yokai War: Guardians, and Suzume’s Ryunosuke Kamiki. The audience catches up with him toward the end of the war. He gets the shakes and is unable to fulfill his suicide mission. In short, kamikaze pilots weren’t expected to come home. But writer, director, and effects creator Takashi Yamazaki doesn’t wait to bring in the other star of the film. Godzilla attacks the town of Odo, where Shikishima is at the airbase. He has another chance at saving the troops, but blows it again, and Godzilla kills all but him and an engineer, leaving Shikishima with a double-case of PTSD, decades before the illness had a name.
When Shikishima returns to his hometown it’s just as bad, as his parents are dead, killed from the Allied air attacks–not Godzilla, who is still unknown to most of Japan of the 1940s (this is about five years before the first movie would introduce him on a wider scale). Shikishima is derided by neighbor Sumiko (played by The Great Yokai War: Guardians’ Sakura Andô), whose three children and husband were also killed. He soon meets a street thief/urchin who drops a baby in his lap. This is Noriko (Shin Kamen Rider’s Minami Hamabe) and baby Akiko, who he invites into what is left of his house.
Over the next few years after the war Shikishima, Noriko, and Akiko almost become a family, and this is tested when he takes a job to get more money as a high-risk minesweeper on a wooden government boat. This boat is key to the excitement of the show, as it mirrors both Para Handy and the Orca from Jaws, a small crew of quirky types doing something quite perilous. Soon they encounter the same clues that arrived the last time Godzilla appeared and barely make it away alive. And that’s just the beginning.
If all you know about war movies comes from Christopher Nolan, get ready for something more authentic. Most of the movie rates with the best war movies of the past 25 years. Godzilla is really secondary to the drama, just the hook to get theater-goers. So the great visual effects that won the Oscar are really recreations of the remainder of the Japanese naval fleet and vintage World War II aircraft.
Is this a great Godzilla movie? Sure, mainly because Godzilla appears less than usual, a bit like the shark in Jaws. It also lacks the melodrama of most Godzilla movies. But it also has more than 45 minutes of dry drama, consisting of men explaining attack plans to each other. Even with a movie coming in at less than two hours, it lacks the action–and fun– of the typical Godzilla movie. That 45 minutes would have been better used with a side plot or two. Also, despite marketing to the contrary, we never get any explanation for Godzilla showing up now, no explanation for his ability to retract his tail spikes, no explanation for his sci-fi power of launching a nuclear bolt on a whim to wipe out a city.
Where are the women? Besides Hamabe and Andô, the movie is composed of dozens of men who get the action and dialogue.
Kôzô Shibasaki deserved much of the credit for the most striking feature–the film’s subdued tones and military footage that recreates the look and feel of Victory at Sea.
Godzilla is the longest running continuous film franchise in the world, going back to the original movie Godzilla, which premiered in 1954. You haven’t really watched a Godzilla movie until you’ve seen the kaiju–giant monsters–produced with that unique style only Japanese filmmakers have captured. Audiences haven’t seen a live-action Japanese Godzilla movie since the 2016 film Shin Godzilla (which we previewed here at borg), a gritty film with some of the best scenes yet designed to look like “found footage.” Shin Godzilla was part reboot, part homage to classic Japanese productions. The visual effects in that movie are actually better, but the word of mouth of Godzilla Minus One likely pushed the Academy to recognize this effort. Should Godzilla Minus One have received the same award given to Jurassic Park, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Alien and Aliens? It doesn’t really compare to so many landmark effects movies. But it also had little competition this year, and has more to offer than winners of the award in the past decade.
The film’s title is a play on the “rubbing salt into the wound” saying. With the atomic bombs Japan had already been reset to zer0; Godzilla ratchets Japan’s efforts to reboot itself back even further. That’s not all that clear in the movie.
The dry second half is made up for with a surprise twist ending. Overall the plot is far more loyal to the anime tradition than the typical Godzilla yarn. For an anime-type plot the story works well enough.
Of the actors, Minami Hamabe and Ryunosuke Kamiki have some believable chemistry, and Kamiki’s put-upon survivor will be someone you won’t soon forget. Hamabe’s heroine is a high point. Other good performances are provided by Nelson Lee, Greg Chun, James Kyson, Munetaka Aoki, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.
The wait is over. Godzilla Minus One is now streaming on Netflix.
