By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Takashi Yamazaki
• Starring Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki
• PG-13

70 years ago, Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (or Gojira as it’s sometimes called to differ it from some later entries with the same title) changed everything. While monster movies had been around for awhile, Godzilla‘s revolutionary “suitmation” practical effects combined with it’s genuine thematic depth surrounding post-war anxieties suddenly made the kaiju genre into a viable outlet. 70 years later, it still holds up as a magnificent piece of cinema with it’s dark, oppressive atmosphere, it’s striking black and white cinematography, and grim look at the effects of nuclear annihilation still striking a cord with an audience. The key to it’s success was realizing that the monster itself wasn’t the core appeal – it was the heart at the center, the human story, that audiences gravitated towards to.

Of course, there have been 37 Godzilla films since then, all made with varying levels of quality and tones, and it’s difficult to remember a time when there wasn’t a film with everybody’s favourite giant lizard in production. The latest however, Godzilla Minus One, is the first in a while to remember that human drama that was so key to the original’s success. Aided by that, or more likely because of that, Godzilla Minus One strikes a deep cord beyond that of a normal kaiju film.

The praise is real guys. Godzilla Minus One is so unbelievably fucking good that it’s impossible to really put into words. The best live action version of the character since 2016’s equally transcendently good and subversive Shin Godzilla (or hell maybe the best since the 1953 original), Godzilla Minus One reinvents the monster as more then just a metaphor for the nuclear bomb, it’s testing, and the inevitable environmental effects that it will have. It’s still there obviously – and in some cases even more literal then prior entries – but instead finds the monster as a more personal threat on purpose. This is a Godzilla that is fueled by the regret and shellshock that Japan felt in the wake of it’s losses in the war, one that comes back to haunt them in a very literal, destructive way.

And those sequences are bombastic, magnificent, and gigantic. Beyond the scale of Godzilla being emphasized, the terror that his singular steps and roars covey is enough to send chills down your spine, especially as the music swells and Akira Ifukube’s original score comes in at the perfect times. This is a mean, petty Godzilla, and he is out for blood – both a territorial monster and a genuine force of nature that only collective action from the citizens can hope to defeat.

But while those sequences are masterful, it’s ultimately the on the ground drama that’s the most compelling stuff here. Koichi is a man without a purpose – a kamikaze pilot who fled his suicide mission and is now reliving the war daily in his head and dreams. It never ended for him, and he can’t move on. And as Godzilla grows more and more powerful, his trauma eats away at him. If only he could have done more. If only he could have died for his country – the same country that was willing to throw his life away anyways for a war they knew they were losing.

What could have turned into overt nationalism (something that plagued director Takashi Yamazaki’s prior fighter pilot film, the controversial The Eternal Zero) is instead turned into a story about the nation of Japan itself, one that found solace through it’s people and not the government that turned it’s back on them. And while it’s not as pointed as Shin Godzilla, it doesn’t need to be as it’s more humanistic approach to the material means that it’s really the character drama that takes center stage. And once the triumphant finale hits, Godzilla Minus One has built the cast so well that you genuinely feel for each and every one of them and hope they don’t bite it.

Fans will debate on whether or not this is the best Godzilla film – for my money I feel like this, the original, and Shin are in a close, tight race – but when it comes to sheer propulsive setpieces and blockbuster thrills, it’s very much the best kind of it’s year and one of the best monster movies made in a very, very long time. Just utterly fantastic, and a must watch.