'Godzilla Minus One' (2023), Take Two

I didn't see Godzilla Minus One on this screen, but it sure would've been nice! Photo by Brett Homenick.

After seeing Godzilla Minus One (2023) on opening day, I had no plans to see it a second time. But then Toho Cinemas made me an offer I couldn't refuse: A couple of days ago, select theaters around Tokyo started showing the movie with English subtitles. It was such a unique opportunity that I just couldn't pass it up. 

So, tonight (Saturday, November 25), I went to Toho Cinemas Hibiya to see the movie again. The screen on which I saw it was one of the smaller ones, so it was hardly an IMAX experience, but it was sufficient for my needs. Anyway, I was more interested in filling in the blanks of the story than experiencing bigger and louder explosions.

So did my opinion of the film change at all?

In a word, no.

In three words, yes and no.

In six words, yes and no. But mostly no.

This time around, I didn't feel the use of Akira Ifukube's music was as bad or out of place as I originally thought. The inclusion of it during the Ginza attack was basically tolerable, but I could see why I felt it didn't work during the climax. It does feel a bit awkward there, as it seems to fly in the face of the downbeat and dour atmosphere of the rest of the movie. I suppose it's supposed to highlight the sense of teamwork and camaraderie among the volunteers who are working together to stop Godzilla, but I still think it creates some tonal issues with the rest of the film.

On the other hand, I found the overall spectacle of the CG was less impressive this time. In a lot of ways, that was to be expected. Most movies simply don't hold up on repeated viewings. Once you know what happens, there's a lot less to hold your attention. That was certainly the case here. Once you knew what was coming, there just wasn't a whole lot else there to keep you engaged.

The characters talk a lot about the war and the hardships they experienced, but we never see it. We hear about loved ones who were killed offscreen, but we know nothing about them. We never see their faces. But it's supposed to add depth to the characters that they've experienced these losses during the war. If you're going to go there, movie, then go there. We need to see that. Lines of dialogue and exposition aren't enough to invest the audience. 

We are told how Japan lost everything during the war, but what we are shown is that Japan is quick to get back on its feel, and, by about the halfway point, Ginza looks like a pretty happenin' place. So which is it? If we're being totally honest, the title should really be "Godzilla 0.5" or higher.

On a related note, one of the characters delivers a speech about the importance of humanity, but this was again something I wanted to feel, not hear. We don't see the consequences of Godzilla's attacks in any detail. When a character is killed, it feels more like the deletion of computer-generated pixels rather than the loss of a human life. Ishiro Honda conveyed more about humanity with a single shot of a Geiger counter than that dude with the wacky-scientist haircut possibly could with 200 pages of exposition. 

I suppose my biggest takeaway from my second viewing was just how boring the climax is. There's no tension to the proceedings, as it's all a foregone conclusion that the whole thing will work on the first try. (I mean, we're way too close to the end credits for the characters to start kicking rocks back to the drawing board.) 

The method of defeating Godzilla is also pretty underwhelming. I don't know why director Takashi Yamazaki insisted on implementing a (relatively speaking) real-world solution to the problem of a living, breathing amusement park ride attacking the city. I mean, Godzilla can instantaneously regenerate any damaged body parts and can fire a beam that blows up entire districts in a single go, but it's a bridge too far to create a sci-fi superweapon like the Oxygen Destroyer? Anything beats a droning lecture on Freon gas.

Overall, I still wouldn't say the movie is bad, but I do think it's mediocre. The movie lacks memorable (and even sympathetic) characters. I can't say I was rooting for any of the characters to succeed. At best, I was indifferent to them. At worst, I genuinely didn't like them. If anything, I wanted Godzilla to prevail, but he couldn't even catch that rickety old fishing boat he was chasing for five minutes, so he deserved to get his head blown apart. Serves him right for being so lame.

With all that said, it seems inevitable that this is what's in store for Godzilla's future: Every few years, another "mad genius" director will come out with another Godzilla remake, reboot, or regurgitation, and American fans will ChatGPT out a bunch of hyper-enthusiastic essays, comparing it to Godzilla (1954) sight unseen. I'd rather vote for Kayoco Anne Patterson for president. 

'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.

Seeing 'Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster' in 35mm!

Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1964) at Ikebukuro Humax Cinemas. Photo by Brett Homenick. 

On Friday, September 29, I attended a special screening of Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster (1964) in 35mm at Ikebukuro Humax Cinemas. It was, as you'd expect, part of the promotional push for the upcoming Godzilla Minus One, which comes out in just over a month from now on November 3. 

In fact, Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki was on hand for the festivities. Director Yamazaki was joined by kaiju suitmaker Keizo Murase, who was assisted by Daisuke Sato. Murase-san shared his memories of working with Eiji Tsuburaya, as well as working on the suit for King Ghidorah.

Photographs of the guests weren't allowed, so you'll just have to take my word for it that they were there. After their Q&A, Ghidrah was screened to a packed house. To be honest, I was surprised at how many people showed up for the screening.

The print was in overall pretty good shape, although a few flaws were evident. The biggest one I noticed was a jump at the end of the opening credits. Otherwise, however, I was more than satisfied with it. And how cool was it to watch the movie on such an enormous screen.

One fun detail I noticed is that Shigeo Kato can be spotted as an extra in the Ueno Park scene when Akiko Wakabayashi is getting heckled for claiming to be a Venusian. Kato-san, of course, has a couple of lines a bit later in the film when he plays a tourist on Mount Aso just before Rodan appears. (In the English version, he's the one who quips, "Well, that's goodbye hat!"

One other slightly interesting note is that the "monster talk" scene elicited a few guffaws from the audience, who were otherwise silent during the screening. Obviously, that part of the movie is quite silly, so a reaction like that is to be expected, but I thought I'd point it out here. (Interestingly, when I saw Ghidrah screened at a theater in the L.A. in the summer of 1998, I don't recall any laughter during that scene. That L.A. audience was actually rather well behaved, which was a pleasant surprise to me at the time.)

Overall, a fun evening at the movies. Well, I've seen many Godzilla movies in theaters during my years in Japan, it's not all that common to see them projected on a screen of this size, so I welcome any opportunity I can get. Let's do it again!

Godzilla vs. 'Ghost Book' in Hibiya?!

"There's Godzilla!" the ad reads, but certainly not in this movie! Photo by Brett Homenick.

While in Hibiya today, I spotted this ad for director Takashi Yamazaki's latest movie Ghost Book, which opened in Japan last month.  

It caught my attention for fairly obvious reasons, and, considering that Yamazaki is in the process of making the next Godzilla movie, perhaps it's a bit of foreshadowing. In any case, they can use Godzilla's name all they want; I'm still not seeing this flick!