This review is based on a screening timed to the New York Film Festival. Godzilla Minus Zero opens in theaters in Japan on November 3 and in North America on November 6.
Godzilla movies have long had a problem: What do you do after the initial thrill of a quote/unquote serious Godzilla origin story? Can the filmmakers somehow continue the deep thematic underpinnings of that first adventure, even while upping the visual ante with more giant monster action? How do you offer a probing commentary about the world we live in – which is what the best of the genre is known for – when you’ve got skyscraper-sized lizards slugging it out MMA-style?
It is under these circumstances – or should I say restrictions? – that Godzilla Minus Zero enters the ring. As the sequel to the much-praised Godzilla Minus One from three years ago – a picture that dealt with, among other things, notions of survivor’s guilt, hope in the face of hopelessness, found family, and more – Minus Zero is on the ropes from the start. Can returning writer-director Takashi Yamazaki wring even more out of his characters, who have already been to hell and back, while also blowin’ up stuff real good? In a word, no.
The film takes place two years after the events of Minus One, with Ryunosuke Kamiki back as Kōichi Shikishima and Minami Hamabe returning as Noriko. Kōichi, as fans of the Oscar-winning previous movie (for Best Visual Effects) will remember, is the former would-be kamikaze pilot from World War II who was instrumental in defeating Godzilla the first time around. Now married to Noriko, the woman he took in after the American air raids on Tokyo, the pair have also adopted Akiko, the orphaned baby they had cared for after that same disaster. Living happily together as a family, there’s only one thing that can ruin this idyllic picture… well, two things, since not only is Godzilla of course back, but there’s a new monster on the scene as well.
Minus Zero opens with a sequence of devastation, as this new critter lays waste to countless helpless civilians as they flee in the streets, avoiding both falling rubble from the buildings crumbling around them and lightning breath from the creature’s mouth. Yes, as fans have already figured out and as the marketing for the film has teased, this is Ghidorah, also known as King Ghidorah in the larger Toho mythology, and generally the archnemesis of the big guy for whom we have all gathered once again. (Ghidorah has also been referred to as “Monster Zero,” which helps to explain this film’s title.)
These scenes of destruction and terror are breathtaking, with Yamazaki and his team of visual effects maestros once again managing to keep their creatures from feeling like CGI monstrosities. No, rather, Ghidorah, and Godzilla when he eventually shows up too, just appear to be real monstrosities – humongous, slow-moving, reptile-like, and all-the more terrifying for it. Ghidorah also distinguishes himself from his counterpart with his scary yet herky-jerky, almost cat-like mannerisms.
So as soon as that first-round bell rings, the movie has already proven its VFX bona fides – to no one’s surprise. But it has also confirmed that a Godzilla Part 2 inevitably means more monsters. And look, none of this is to say that there’s anything wrong with a movie where Godzilla has to rip his own arm off because his foe’s teeth are sunk so tightly into it. We all love monster-on-monster action, but there’s no denying that the more of a mash a monster movie becomes – be it of the Toho, Universal, Alien/Xenomorph, or whatever else variety – the more it loses its edge as the human characters and their emotional baggage run the risk of looking puny in the face of these god-like creatures.
Remember what Bogart said in Casablanca? “It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Yes, I’m quoting Humphrey Bogart in a Godzilla review, but if there’s an issue with Minus Zero, it’s that the travails of Kōichi, Noriko, and little Akiko just pale when considering the scope of destruction that Godzilla and company are capable of. Whereas the first film framed that destruction through the lens of the trio’s trauma, not just in regards to the giant monster but also specifically around what they went through in the war, that resonance is missing here.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/godzilla-minus-zero-review
