Godzilla Minus Zero review – All hail the king!

If I had a dollar for every time a Godzilla movie made me cry in the last three years, I would have two dollars… which isn’t a lot but it’s still weird that it happened twice! Unlike the first incident during writer/director/VFX artist Takashi Yamazaki’s 2023 Oscar-winning masterpiece Godzilla Minus One though, this latest torrential outburst was not just the result of emotional drama as hotly anticipated sequel Godzilla Minus Zero also subjected me to audio trauma.

Natively shot and mastered for IMAX (the first Japanese film to do so), the awkwardly subtitled Minus Zero is a dwarfing audiovisual experience in every sense of the word. Despite sitting in a usually optimal seat just over halfway back in the cinema, I still felt Godzilla towering over me impressively as the biggest of big screens was utilized to the max. The downside to this though, is that to read the English subtitles for the Japanese dialogue, I had to actively look down and then back up to catch any action. Slow readers be warned.

People with hearing issues, really be warned: This is officially the loudest movie I have ever experienced! Hearing a monstrous roar, accompanied by Naoki Satō’s highly effective score as destruction rains down felt, like my skeleton was being liquified inside my flesh. If the intention was to make the audience experience the sensory assault of what it would be like to be in the centre of a giant kaiju attack, then mission accomplished.

But bombastic IMAX sound and awe-inspiring visuals (once again Yamazaki delivers a stunner on a shoestring VFX budget) is not all this movie brings to the table. While recent Hollywood efforts in Legendary’s Monsterverse are brightly coloured over-the-top popcorn blockbusters for the whole family, Yamazaki’s two Toho Studios-produced films hark back to Godzilla’s original, far more serious appearances over 70 years ago. In fact, Minus Zero is the first entry in the franchise to ever receive an R-rating as it tackles some seriously dark subject matter in places.

Set in 1949, it’s been two years since Godzilla was stopped and killed by a ragtag team led by ex-kamikaze fighter pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and former weapons engineer Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka). Shikishima is now married to Godzilla attack survivor Noriko (Minami Hamabe), with the pair having adopted young war orphan Akiko (Sae Nagatani), while Noda is now the director of the Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau.

The latter is called into action when the city of Matsumoto is suddenly devastated by a flying dragon-like creature with an electric attack. A scientific team led by biologist and still-traumatized Hiroshima-bombing survivor Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka) barely make it out to provide Noda with evidence that the creature – soon dubbed Ghidora – crashed to Earth in a meteorite as a gelatinous blob before seemingly evolving by absorbing traits of various animals in the area. With the assistance of Makoto Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa), a meteorologist riddled by guilt for not saving lives in an earlier natural disaster, Noda and the Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau stage a plan to stop Ghidora.

With skilled volunteers in short supply due to them having seen the death toll exacted from stopping Godzilla, Noda is forced to turn to Shikishima and their other former comrades for help. Unfortunately, calamity strikes, and all their efforts merely escalate events in nightmarish ways. A glimmer of hope emerges though as “King” Ghidora’s swath of destruction across Japan draws the attention of an unexpected combatant: Godzilla, somehow reborn, and looking to assert some kaiju dominance!

Yes, it’s the old “Let them fight!” scenario again, but Yamazaki makes sure to not let his film just devolve into CGI beasties smashing into each other (although there’s plenty of that, when needed). Just like with Minus One, Minus Zero never forgets that monsters are monstrous. Yamakazi does a devastating job of showcasing the raw, helpless terror experienced by the average person as they are reduced to nothing more than collateral damage in a titanic war. And then, to drive home the point for those that missed the metaphor, the filmmaker reminds us that humans can be equally as monstrous with a sequence set in the wake of the Hiroshima bombing that completely silenced our cinema.

But while Yamazaki and co. pull no punches in the first two acts, the final third of the film features a few puzzling narrative choices. Character arcs don’t quite follow through to their most effective resolutions, moments of plot armour creep in, and the film’s climactic emotional payoff – which seriously got eyes leaking in my screening – takes a very contrived route to reach its destination. Combine that with a few fleeting moments of comically amateurish acting by the film’s tiny contingent of non-Japanese actors, and it all adds up to leave Minus Zero’s human element just a step behind its predecessor.

Fans of Godzilla himself may also feel a teeny bit shortchanged as Big G is off-screen for large parts of the film. Luckily though, Minus Zero’s “plus one” is a true star as King Ghidora is electrifying and comfortably carries the kaiju responsibilities on his own when needed. And that bodes very well for this franchise and its future. While nothing official has been announced yet, given the critical and box office reception for Godzilla Minus Zero thus far, I would be very surprised if Yamazaki wasn’t allowed to take his kaiju vision even further. I can’t wait to see what monstrous movie magic he can cook up next time. Maybe just turn the volume down a notch.

Godzilla Minus Zero is in cinemas – including IMAX – now, having debuted on 6 November.