I’m a Godzilla casual. An awful lot of movies take up mental real estate in my head, and it must be said, movies featuring Japan’s large reptilian son aren’t really among them. Nothing against the Big G! The first appearance of the iconic kaiju in 1954 is absolutely a classic. 2016’s Shin Godzilla is beloved by me since it merges giant monster action with a clever satire of inefficient bureaucracies. As for the rest?

For the most part, my belief was that Godzilla movies were disposable fluff. In the old days, you’d stick people in uncomfortable rubber suits, have them stumble through a cardboard mockup of Tokyo, then call it a day. Later, CGI wizards took the place of the suits, but the song remained the same. Big monster, unsuspecting urban area, cardboard characters and cityscape, wash, rinse, repeat.

There’s more to it than that, and there’s a reason Godzilla has been rampaging through movie screens for nearly seventy years. A wide variety of stories can be told featuring him, some of which can have an emotional impact that hits with the force of atomic breath. Don’t believe me? I direct your attention to Godzilla Minus One, a kaiju movie with equal amounts of heart and spectacle.

In the closing days of World War II, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has decided not to die. He’s a fighter pilot, a skilled one, yet he’s been assigned kamikaze duty. So he lands his plane at an airbase on the remote Odo Island and tells the men there of mechanical issues. They can’t find anything wrong with the plane, and they suspect Koichi is a liar and a coward.

They have bigger problems. Overnight, it comes ashore. The locals speak of it in whispered tones, a creature the size of a dinosaur. They call it Godzilla, and when it attacks the men, Koichi has a chance to kill it. He freezes up. Fails. When Koichi awakens the next morning, he learns that Godzilla has disappeared into the sea after slaughtering most of the men. The only other survivor is Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki), who burns with hatred toward Koichi.

Two years pass, and Koichi returns to the ruins of Tokyo. He learns his parents were killed in a firebombing. He has nothing, like so many others, and shame follows him like a shadow. Life moves on, and so does Koichi when he meets Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe), a young woman who has vowed to care for a young child (Sae Nagatani). The two of them join Koichi and, over time, they build something that looks like a family.

Then, America tests an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll. The bomb works. So does the radiation, which mutates the formerly dinosaur-sized Godzilla to skyscraper heights. The creature destroys a number of battleships as it makes its way to Japan. It’s an unstoppable force that must be stopped, and it may be the means for Koichi to achieve redemption.

I try to admit when I’m dumb,* and try to learn and grow beyond my buffoonery. One way I’ve been dumb is the assumption that a Godzilla movie is a showcase for stuff getting wrecked and nothing more. It’s true that Godzilla Minus One does have some jaw-dropping moments of mass destruction. Director Takashi Yamazaki had a budget of around $14 million to make this film, and the end result looks as if it cost ten times that. He was quoted as saying, “…the staff and I have worked together to create a setting where Godzilla looks as if “fear” itself is walking toward us, and where despair is piled on top of despair.” That’s accurate since this is the first time I can recall Godzilla being scary. Instead of us seeing a giant monster wrestle another giant monster, Yamazaki shows us a force of nature, an earthbound god that exists beyond human concerns. 

But where my assumptions are elegantly proven wrong is in Yamazaki’s script. He does the impossible by writing a Godzilla story in which we deeply care about the human characters. We’ve got an effective drama about people rebuilding their lives in post-war Japan, about the effects of PTSD and survivor’s guilt on soldiers and civilians. Wisely, time is spent getting to know these people and their lives. That means when Godzilla stomps ashore, it matters what happens to these characters. It was so effective that when a major kaiju attack took place, I was genuinely worried that Koichi and Noriko’s little handmade house would be destroyed. Consider that if you removed the Godzilla parts, you’d still have a damn fine movie.

I wouldn’t want to be an actor on a project like this. It feels tricky, since you’d need to balance the usuals (staring into the sky awestruck, running, screaming) with the creation of a lived-in character. To be sure, there are some stereotypes here (the tormented veteran, the supportive pseudo-spouse, the scientist with theories nobody believes), yet the cast pulls it off with aplomb. I liked Ryunosuke Kamiki very much as the damaged Koishi. He does a cool thing with his performance where we’re initially meant to think he’ll die heroically to make up for his actions on the island, then he shows a change in Koishi. We see him discovering that he has things to live for, people to fight for, instead of a fiery death in the name of honor. It’s a performance that’s both smart and subtle.

Godzilla Minus One is one of the strongest blockbusters of 2023, a movie I could see easily smashing its way onto my best of the year list. Are there other Godzilla movies out there as skillful as this one? I have no idea, but I’m pleased and kind of stunned that we have this one. Do yourself a favor and see this on the biggest screen possible.

 

*I’ve had so much practice.



Tim Brennan
Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.  
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