Written by Cameron Geiser

Toho Studios’ latest Godzilla film, Godzilla Minus One, had its release timed to celebrate the gargantuan lizard's seventieth anniversary on the silver screen (well, sort of, they skipped straight to the seventieth even though the first film was released in 1954), and what a celebration it is! Godzilla Minus One is unique among the G-canon as it’s the only period piece film among the bunch, specifically the film takes place in the waning days of World War Two and into the following two years. The film also takes huge strides in characterization as this is the first (only?) time I can remember actually caring about the cast of characters in a Godzilla film! In the past, Toho Godzilla characters have had about as much depth and personality as wet cardboard, so I was quite surprised to find the core cast of people inhabiting this movie to be surprisingly layered individuals. By pairing the time and place that the movie exists in with a protagonist who is defined by his failures, the film leans into this exploration of shame and guilt like no past Godzilla film ever could. Besides all of the inevitable citywide destruction that comes with any Godzilla film, Godzilla Minus One asks you to wallow with it in the exploration of internal, inescapable, devastation and crushing loss.

Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) begins the story by landing his fighter plane on Odo island, retrofitted as an intermediary runway for repairs. Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot who fled his wartime duties, stays with the fellow melancholy mechanics overnight as they knowingly discuss the fate of the war. It isn't long before a pre-irradiated Godzilla wanders ashore at night and brutally attacks the makeshift airport with Shikishima and only one of the mechanics making it out alive. Cue more guilt and shame aimed at Shikishima as the only other survivor blamed him for not having fired on the creature when he had the chance. There's even more piling on of this sort once Shikishima returns to Tokyo to find it and his home destroyed while also learning of his parents’ death in the fire bombings.

*Godzilla Minus One* is a more-than-welcome entry to the beloved franchise.

Once afoot in a makeshift abode Shikishima, sort of.. stumbles into a found family of fellow Tokyo Citizens when Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a young woman with a small child in tow, sees that he wouldn't abandon the young Akiko (Sae Nagatani) when he easily could have. They decide to work together for Akiko's sake, as Noriko isn't even their mother. Fast forward a year and the trio are somewhat stable, but anxiety brews once more when Noriko discovers that the lucrative job that Shikishima landed is the sea mine retrieval program. Which leads to my favorite sequence in the film that harbors some serious Jaws vibes. Once Godzilla inevitably reappears he is, well, he's outstanding. Frankly, the Minus One rendition of the King of The Monsters is one for the record books. The design is phenomenal, his personality lives within that specific tonal space that only Toho Godzilla films seem to be able to execute perfectly. He's just one big angry sea kitty, and he does not mess around.

There are also a handful of specific shots in the film that feel directly inspired by Yasujiro Ozu's infamous static, low-level, tatami shots. On my next watch of the film, I will be keeping an eye out for Ozu's famous red tea kettle. I doubt it's there, but the composition of a few shots had me thinking that someone involved with the film is an Ozu fan. The brutal emotional drama that unfolds in the film harkens back to the best parts of Ozu's family dramas. Between these slight nods to Ozu and the sea mine sequence pulling directly from Jaws in the best of ways, I did a little digging and the director, Takashi Yamazaki, is indeed a fan of early Spielberg films as well. I will definitely be checking out his previous work in his trilogy of films Always: Sunset on Third Street.

As a longtime Godzilla fan, this film is a triumph. However, as a sci-fi genre movie about a giant monster, I have genre expectations that this film fulfills. This may not work for everyone, however. I found the cast of characters and the downtime in between Godzilla attacks to be fully engaging and a turn in the right direction for the franchise- but the group I went with thought these sections of the film were, to be blunt, boring. The plot is definitely predictable and yes, there are some moments of over-the-top acting that wander into schmaltzy territory- but whereas these aspects worked for me, they may not for you. As far as Godzilla films go, this is certainly one of the best. Check it out!

Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.