Godzilla Minus One: The Epic Blockbuster Hollywood Can't Make

Godzilla Minus One is the newest Toho Godzilla movie. While Hollywood is busy trying to make a Godzilla universe work with The Monsterverse, Toho continues to make Godzilla movies to this day, starting with the original from 1954. Godzilla Minus One stars Ryunosuke Kamiki as Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot dealing with survivor guilt when his town is devastated after a Godzilla attack. Koichi starts to look after a child with a woman who is also a survivor of these attacks. The film shows them struggle to survive while Koichi also teams up with a few experts to kill Godzilla and stop the devastation

Godzilla movies are a mixed bag. Sometimes they can be harrowing and epic and sometimes goofy and campy. Godzilla enthusiasts like myself like both categories of films. While there is a certain harrowing sensation that makes the 1954 original a beloved classic, it is fun that we also have goofy Godzilla movies where Godzilla just destroys stuff and we can eat popcorn and laugh. Godzilla Minus One attempts to make a Godzilla film grounded again, with relatable human emotion with an allegory for post-war anxieties. This reminds me of what Garreth Edwards tried to do with the American Godzilla film in 2014, where he made a Godzilla movie about the post-9/11 trauma that American still faces to this day. In Godzilla Minus One, a lot of the commentary is about the sanctity of life and how so much of our war efforts go into just winning the war and not thinking about the lives it leaves behind and the horror that the survivors will have to carry. That is what grounds Godzilla Minus One and makes it a great movie with genuine emotion. Elements of the film take its time and play out similarly to a Rysuke Hamaguchi film. We get so much time with characters just learning how to survive and adapt that was riveting. The characters here are the most well-fleshed-out and empathetic characters I've seen in a Godzilla movie. It helped keep me engaged in the entire film and not just entirely check out when Godzilla wasn't on screen.

However, when Godzilla is on screen, the film becomes so large and epic. The motifs from the original 1954 film are throughout the whole film and the use of the classic score has a great effect. The special effects here are just stunning. Godzilla is intimidating and so cool to watch in action just demolish a town. However, there is more of a sense of urgency for the destruction he is causing this time around, making the action spectacle even more riveting than a typical Godzilla film. We also get plenty of Godzilla action, this film isn't wary of showing the monster and his scale. While there's a lot of genuine human drama at the surface, this never takes away from the spectacle. This is pretty much the perfect match of stakes and spectacle that fans have been wanting from a new Godzilla film for years and I am so glad this movie exists. This is genuinely one of the best blockbusters I've seen in theatres in a long time. It is the movie that Hollywood is scared to make right now. One that is patient, thoughtful, thrilling, and grand in scope and scale. It takes imagination, care, and love to make a film of this size and make it work as well as it does here. It's one of my favorite films of 2023.