Godzilla Minus One is a brilliant reckoning for the king of monster allegories

Even as Godzilla, the kaiju, has been reimagined as a baby, a Westernized egg-laying creature more akin to a dinosaur, and a metamorphosing terror from the sea, Godzilla as a concept has never really lost its connection to its original allegorical self. By fully embracing Godzilla’s ability to exist as both a literal monster and a lens through which storytellers can explore humanity’s capacity for monstrosity, Toho has been able to give its iconic creation a kind of immortal life at the center of a sprawling franchise.

Recent Godzilla movies’ depictions of the present day have been interesting largely because of the way modern filmmakers are more able to create spectacular scenes of large-scale destruction. But rather than focus on how far the king of monsters has come, writer / director Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One turns back to the titan’s origins to tell a devastating story that lays bare the original myth’s brilliance.

Set during the very tail end of World War II after the nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla Minus One tells the tale of how a devastated Japan is mobilized back into action by the sudden arrival of a 164-foot-tall reptilian behemoth that breathes atomic radiation. As Minus One opens in 1945, kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has no way of knowing how imminent Japan’s surrender will ultimately be. But from the moment Kōichi decides to touch down on Odo Island rather than sacrifice himself to the war, he knows that — in a very profound way — the life he’s known has come to an end, both because of the conflict itself and because of the guilt that will follow him to what remains of his home.

Though Kōichi’s survival instinct keeps him alive, in the eyes of other soldiers and civilians whose lives were upended by the war, the truth of his actions would mark him as a coward, which is why he hides it in Minus One’s opening act. But as hopeless as Kōichi already feels about the future, he’s even more traumatized when Godzilla attacks Odo Island, leaving only the deserter and former Navy service member Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) as survivors.

Beginning with the original film, most Godzilla stories have framed their titular monster as an embodiment of the nuclear horrors wrought upon Japan by the United States as part of WWII. But because it takes place a bit earlier than the original, and focuses on the story of how a pilot reluctant during the war then rises to the occasion when Japan is imperiled by a new external threat, Minus One feels like a film that’s also interested in exploring the complicated feelings of resentment that come when a nation’s people are conscripted into global conflicts.

People might have a hard time buying the idea of a monster lizard killing a platoon of soldiers after crawling out of the ocean, but everyone Kōichi meets as Minus One unfolds knows how they were all pushed to their breaking points by their government’s decisions. And while some shun Kōichi for his moment of hesitation, others like Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) understand that banding together in the wake of tragedy is the only way people can ever hope to truly start rebuilding their lives. As Minus One adds figures like engineer Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) and captain Yōji Akitsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki) to the picture, you can feel the film emphasizing how a community’s resilience is rooted in interpersonal relationships rather than the power held by any governmental or military body.

But as Godzilla begins to surface more frequently, Yamazaki uses his hulking, visceral take on the monster to remind us that nothing unites people quite like a common, unmistakable adversary. And while Minus One’s human heroes absolutely put up a tremendous and ingenious fight that’s captivating to watch play out, the movie also features some of the Godzilla franchise’s most arresting depictions of the epic beast.

Vivid memories of Godzilla haunt Kōichi all throughout Minus One in a way that provides some excellent close-up shots of the monster and evokes the post-traumatic stress disorder soldiers are often plagued with after war. Godzilla never quite looks or feels “real,” per se, but rather like an uncannily realized nightmare made flesh — one whose crushing footsteps leave the camera rattled as helpless humans run for their lives in abject terror.

Though this Godzilla is massive, Yamazaki puts emphasis on the creature’s aquatic grace and unimaginable physical strength in scenes set on the high seas where countless sailors meet their bitter ends. But it isn’t until the Minus One’s fully evolved Godzilla makes landfall that you can see how, for all of its modern filmmaking sensibilities, Yamazaki has still made a spectacular disaster movie in Toho’s classic style that blends digital, practical, and sometimes cheesy effects together to create a finished product that feels more than the sum of its parts.

There are so many new, forward-facing riffs on Godzilla and a pantheon of fellow titans out right now or on the horizon that Minus One might initially strike some as a tamer, less-timely feature that’s primarily focused on tapping into nostalgia. But as much of a throwback as the movie is, it’s one worthy of standing alongside the original as a seminal piece of the Toho canon.

Godzilla Minus One also stars Sakura Ando, Mio Tanaka, Yuya Endo, Kisuke Iida, and Sae Nagatani. The film hits theaters on December 1st.