Film Review: Godzilla Minus Zero

The monster stuff is still brilliant, but this time, the human drama disappoints

Credit: Toho

Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki set the bar extremely high with Godzilla Minus One (2023). It’s a superb piece of work featuring surprisingly poignant human drama alongside first-rate monster action. And let’s be honest: Its examination of Japanese shock in the aftermath of atomic warfare made it a much more interesting double bill with Oppenheimer than Barbie (both released in 2023). The film went on to (rightly) win an Oscar for visual effects, embarrassing mainstream Hollywood by proving you don’t need national debt-sized budgets to make a spectacular blockbuster.

A sequel was inevitable, with Yamazaki back on screenplay and directing duties in Godzilla Minus Zero. Set in 1949, a couple of years after the apparent “death” of Godzilla, former not-quite Kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who became a hero during events of the last film, has married Noriko (Minami Hamabe), and they’ve adopted Akiko (Sae Nagatani). All’s well that ends well, right? Well, script contrivances dictate otherwise, as both are drafted in to face a fresh monstrous threat. I’ll skim over the precise nature of this for fear of spoilers (I managed to see this knowing nothing about it, having not even seen a single trailer).