'Godzilla Minus One' (2023)

I've been extremely busy since I saw Godzilla Minus One (2023) on Friday, so I've barely had a moment to stop and smell the flowers. I didn't think it would take me this long to get my review out, but I think a combination of exhaustion and indifference toward the subject matter pushed it back a few days. But I've got a moment now, and I feel slightly less exhausted than I have over the last few days, so here goes.

Spoilers are below. Proceed with caution.

After seeing the movie, I realized that the title Minus One must refer to its Dave Meltzer star rating.

After I finished Shin Godzilla (2016), I disliked the movie so much that I couldn't wait to get home to tear it apart. While I didn't like Minus One, either, it's not so much that I thought it was awful; it's that it's just sort of there. There are a a couple of minutes of nice VFX shots in a two-hour production that is otherwise mostly boring. 

Some of the problems of the movie became evident within the first few minutes. Godzilla is shoved into the story within the first few minutes without proper build-up. I kept waiting for director Takashi Yamazaki to focus on lead actor Ryunosuke Kamiki's fear of the giant beast when he is tasked with attacking it in that early sequence, but we never get it. Instead, the scene plays out like it would in any other modern-day Hollywood actioner. What happened to all that "1954" I was promised by Internet commentators who hadn't seen the movie?

The first half of the movie isn't bad, as I was intrigued by the postwar setting of the film. But, after Godzilla's attack on Ginza (most of which is spoiled in the trailers), the movie falls off a cliff. Too much focus on strategy and uninteresting human drama. 

Even Godzilla himself seems to run out of ideas. The Big G announces his presence in Ginza by tossing a train car into the scene, which is pretty effective. But, at the start of the climax, he does the same thing in the ocean with a boat. Been there, done that (40 or so minutes ago).

Truly a personality who embodies the spirit of postwar Japan.

I wasn't very enthusiastic about the casting of Ryunosuke Kamiki as the film's star, mostly due to his obnoxious appearances in recent Mitsubishi Electric commercials. I don't know about you, but Kamiki screams "postwar Japan" about as much as Keanu Reeves represented the true nature of Victorian England in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). But I tried to keep an open mind that he might impress me.

Yeah, no. While I won't say he was bad early on (he was actually pretty competent), his shouting and screaming wore me out quickly. It was almost as if he studied Haruo in the best-left-forgotten Godzilla anime trilogy for tips on how he should react to situations. A little of that went a long way.

I've read that the movie is garnering mostly positive reviews, and all I can do is guess that they were bowled over by the spectacle. And, sure, some of the spectacle is pretty nice, but I thought we were getting some humanity along with it. I wanted suspense to build, more focus on the reactions of the human characters, more of a sense of the terror they were experiencing. Given the allusions to World War II, it seemed like a slam dunk we'd get all that. Except that we don't. I still haven't been on Godzilla the Ride, but now it seems pointless because this, to me, must be the two-hour version of that.

In the row ahead of me, there was a young man who brought kaiju toys with him to the multiplex. When Godzilla used his atomic ray for the first time (in a scene, by the way, that was beyond over the top in its quest for audience-pleasing spectacle), he fist-pumped the screen from his seat in the audience. This is a movie for who those want to fist-pump Godzilla's atomic ray and pretty much nobody else. 

During the Ginza attack, there is a news crew reporting on Godzilla's movements from a building rooftop. It's an obvious Godzilla (1954) reference, but, unlike that movie, the characters don't react like real humans would in that situation; they reacted like extras in a theme park ride who were there simply in service of the spectacle. I wanted more.

Here's a grab bag of other criticisms: At the end of the aforementioned Ginza attack, Godzilla uses his atomic ray to cause destruction and then pauses long enough for Kamiki to scream and chew scenery, politely waiting for his cue to start moving again. 

In the trailers, I always thought Minami Hamabe's reaction to seeing Godzilla for the first time was silly -- would she breathe a sigh of relief if the enormous monster with the mean face coming her way that just threw a train car in her direction weren't Godzilla but instead some other giant beast? No matter. Godzilla approaches her train car and picks it up, by which time Hamabe is still calmly seated, hardly reacting at all. Was she frozen in fear? Don't ask me. The movie focuses as little as possible on her reactions. If depicting her as frozen in fear were the intent of the filmmaker, he ought to show it. Otherwise, it makes the scene look completely ridiculous.

Did I mention that Hamabe is the only passenger in her train car who manages to hang on to a rail when Godzilla picks it up and that she miraculously survives by falling into a convenient body of water right below her? Yeah, it's that kind of movie. 

Did you know Godzilla can't manage to catch up to a small, rickety fishing boat that he's chasing (for whatever reason) but has no problem pouncing on and destroying a modern battleship in the same scene? Yeah, it's that kind of movie. 

"I promise to kill Godzilla as soon as I put the groceries away."

Oh, and the movie ends with not one but two Dusty finishes. The movie tries to trick us into believing that Kamiki sacrificed himself in order to blow up Godzilla just before revealing that he miraculously parachuted out in the nick of time. And then, immediately thereafter, Kamiki gets word that Hamabe actually survived the attack on Ginza after all and is safe in the hospital. Yeah, it's that kind of movie. 

For the most part, this iteration of Godzilla reminded me more of the T-rex from Jurassic Park (1993) than, well, Godzilla. I always felt the opening scene of Godzilla 2000 (1999) borrowed too heavily -- intentionally or not -- from Jurassic Park, with Godzilla's chasing after the GPN jeep. It never works when Godzilla, a force of nature if there ever was one, goes after specific individuals. It works even less when he lets those individuals get away. That's exactly what happens here.

Ryunosuke Kamiki faces his toughest challenge since Godzilla.

As with Shin Godzilla, several Akira Ifukube cues are sprinkled throughout the movie, but they don't match the mood of the scenes and seem out of place. The movie's visuals appeared to be going for a sense of dread and doom while the audience hears peppy military marches. Maybe fan service isn't always the best idea.

Last but not least, I didn't think going for a modern, CG-based Godzilla in a period piece was a good fit. I suppose it doesn't matter since a creature like Godzilla is impossible regardless of the decade, but it took me right out of the movie. 

Overall, I'd say the movie was more mediocre than bad, and I was bored by it more than anything else. I haven't seen Shin Godzilla since I saw it in theaters, and I have a suspicion Minus One will suffer the same fate. Since it focused so much on spectacle to the detriment of everything else, I don't think there's much point to revisiting it on the small screen, anyway. 

After Shin Godzilla came out, a lot of well-meaning YouTubers and bloggers in the "kaiju community" went out of their way to explain the Japanese government to us. Now, with Minus One as their shiny new toy, I eagerly anticipate all the videos that will soon come out explaining to me how math works.

UPDATE (11/25/2023): I just saw Minus One a second time with English subtitles. Here are my updated thoughts.