‘To have never gone to war is something to be proud of...’
You know that when a Godzilla film is winning an actual Oscar we are dealing with something special. This just doesn’t happen. A genre film about a huge lizard (or reptile or dinosaur depending on which Godzilla you are watching) is not normally awards fare and yet Takashi Yamazaki’s prequel has generated a significant amount of buzz. I’m delighted to report that large parts of it are utterly joyous…
The film follows Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a Japanese pilot at the end of World War II who is haunted by his aborted attempt to carry out a kamikaze mission. Still reeling from their defeat at the hands of the allied forces, Japan finds itself falling further into turmoil when the legendary Kaiju Godzilla emerges from the ocean and starts ripping shit up.
Godzilla Minus One is at its best in the three sequences in which the titular lizard appears and wreaks havoc. It’s been a long time since I’ve been wowed by visual effects at the cinema, particularly when they aren’t practical, but the CGI here is genuinely phenomenal. When watching this film, it is impossible not to wonder why the effects in most modern-day Hollywood productions look so bad. The difference between Godzilla laying waste to Tokyo and the CGI gloop that hinders most Marvel productions is stark (if you’ll excuse the pun).
The problem here if I was being churlish (and I am) is that the human element isn’t quite as compelling as the monster itself. While the acting is solid, the plotting is fairly standard action movie stuff, complete with an improbable happy ending, and there is a nagging feeling that the viewer is just waiting for Godzilla to return in all of the moments in which he doesn’t appear on screen.
Godzilla Minus One is a huge victory for genre cinema and for Japanese cinema. I don’t know if this is the best movie in the franchise (I’ve only seen the original Godzilla of the Japanese iterations) but it is certainly better than any of the eight American adaptations of the classic movie monster. Now, let’s get a sequel green-lit and get some other massive bastards involved in it. Not just King Kong. Get them all in.
