Godzilla Minus One
Have you heard about the new Godzilla movie, Godzilla Minus One? I wouldn’t blame you if the answer was “No.”
I only heard about the movie a few days ago, and I cover movies and TV shows for a living. I was confused at first. Usually there’s a big marketing push for the next star-studded, ultimately mediocre monster movie. But this one was boasting a 97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and I’d never even seen a trailer or movie poster.
This is primarily because this is not a “Monsterverse” movie. It’s a shockingly low-budget Japanese film that’s easily the best Godzilla movie I’ve ever seen. Whether it's the best Godzilla movie ever made is a bit more subjective, but as far as I’m concerned it blows everything else out of the water—something our heroes have a very hard time doing to the titular monster.
2021’s Godzilla Vs. Kong cost somewhere between $155 and $200 million to make. The upcoming Godzilla Vs. Kong: The New Empire will cost over $200 million. Godzilla Minus One had a budget of $15 million USD, and I’m still not sure how they pulled it off. The CGI is terrific, and the titular monster is terrifying and monstrous. Nothing about this film feels low-budget.
That goes especially for the script, which adds a badly needed human element to the story. This is, in many respects, a WWII character drama. It takes place in the final days of the war in the Pacific and in the following years, as Japan rebuilds from the atomic bombs.
As I sat in the theater, I thought about how Godzilla is a symbol of Japanese national trauma over the atomic bomb. Since 1954, Godzilla has represented the horror and destruction that the Japanese people suffered during and in the wake of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The film as a period piece delved into the horrors of war, the hope that reconstruction kindled, the frustration the Japanese people felt with their government and new American allies, and gave us a glimpse into the post-war days and the ways fear and anxiety fill in every crack.
The main character, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) was a pilot-turned-kamikaze pilot who abandoned his duty at the end of the war and then soon after encountered Godzilla on a Japanese outpost island. His guilt and PTSD drag him into a cycle of misery and selfishness after the war, preventing him from connecting to his new family, comprised of Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), a young woman he meets in the rubble, and little Akiko (Sae Nagatani) an infant Noriko is raising.
When he takes a job as a mine-hunter, scouring the sea for Japanese and American mines, he makes Shikishima makes new friends, but keeps everyone around him at arm’s length. For our young hero, the war never ended. He lives with his shame, but it’s no kind of life.
These relationships are what drives Godzilla Minus One, and while the Godzilla stuff is exciting and terrifying—and our heroes’ plan to defeat the monster rather scrappy and creative—it’s the script that elevates this film above all the recent attempts to bring Godzilla to the big screen. It turns out that a well-written script with complex characters you actually care about and a $15 million budget is a whole lot more effective than a $200 million movie with bad writing and generic, one-dimensional characters you forget about the moment you leave the theater. Another lesson: You don’t need big-name movie stars who cost tens of millions if you have a compelling story. There are lots of great actors out there. Maybe it’s time to end our obsession with big stars and overcooked CGI. (Hey, it worked with Star Wars!)
US studios should pay close attention. In an era of ever-expanding budgets and constant failures at the box office, punctuated by constant losses in the streaming market, it never hurts to save $185 million from time to time.
Go see Godzilla Minus One. It’s a Godzilla movie that would be great even without Godzilla in it. This is the way.
Watch my video review below:
Have you seen Godzilla Minus One yet? What did you think? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.
