Godzilla. One of the longest-running movie franchises besides King Kong. Godzilla has been terrorizing Japan since 1954, with its very first release “Gojira, Godzilla.” For a few years, Godzilla was a villain, but after the mid-60s, Godzilla became a hero, and in the rest of the “Showa” era, he remained a good guy. In 2016, Godzilla returned to his villainous roots in “Shin Godzilla.” After that, Toho, the company behind all the Japanese Godzilla movies, went silent, not dropping another Godzilla movie until Dec. 1, 2023. This might have been one of the best Godzilla movies ever.
“Godzilla Minus One” was released on Dec. 1, 2023, and is considered the most successful and best Godzilla movie by many critics. The story follows Koichi Shikishima, a failed Kamikaze pilot who landed on Odo island, where he encountered Godzilla for the first time. At the beginning of the film, Godzilla isn’t too large. But as the movie progresses he gets massive. After the pilot survives his first encounter he is taken to a place in Tokyo, Japan. The film takes place post-World War II, so Japan is currently devastated and trying to rebuild. While in Tokyo, Shikishima finds a woman and her baby, and they join his house. But Godzilla returns and continues to wreak havoc, even larger and more powerful. It’s up to Shikishima and the Japanese army to take down this beast.
I will start by listing the negatives of this movie. Honestly, I could not find a single flaw in this film. The only flaw is that there was not enough screen time for Godzilla; there were at most 40 minutes of screen time in the movie. Even with that amount of Godzilla time, this movie was flawless.
The positives can go on and on. Even with only 40 minutes of Godzilla time, this movie was still amazing because of its human characters. It is extremely rare for a Godzilla movie to have human characters that you care about, and this movie did it so well with its main character Shikishima. He failed as a Kamikaze pilot by pretending his plane didn’t work so he couldn’t go to war. He later realizes how dishonorable he was. All he can do now is protect his friend and her child. The actor who portrayed Shikishima needs an award as he was so amazing with his performance. At one point, the character goes from a straight face to having a mental breakdown within a second, and the actor made it so believable I felt it. All the other actors and characters were phenomenal.
Now let’s talk about the real star of the show: Godzilla, the big lizard himself. The budget of this movie was 15 million dollars, which was a mere fraction of the U.S. Godzilla movie, which was over 100 million dollars, and yet they have made his design look amazing. Every moment of his screen time had me on the edge of my seat because they did not hold back with how powerful they made Godzilla in this movie. Every scene had me worried for the characters, and the atomic breath scenes were some of the best scenes in the whole movie. There were so many scenes that were so amazing.
This was one of the best Godzilla movies to date. I give “Godzilla Minus One” a 10/10.
