Category: Science-fiction creature drama
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This is how you make a movie!
It's so refreshing to see a movie that has high production values, great effects, good pacing, a plot you can follow, but also doesn't try to shove "the message" down your throat. After all the big-budget Hollywood releases over the last few years that seemed to have been made with a minority audience in mind and turned out to be lousy - be it Madame Web, Star Wars: The Acolyte, The Marvels, or numerous others - it was seriously refreshing to see a movie that shows us it's not that hard to just tell a good story.
And the reason I start my review off with on this line of thought is because it was one of the things that came to mind about 15-20 minutes in - "I'm not being preached to!" - to the point that one can't help but wonder if Hollywood, the birthplace of modern cinema, is now complicit in its death. The COVID pandemic shut productions and audiences to a halt, and we also had the writer's strike, but even with all that in mind, I personally can't help but feel that most big-budget modern Hollywood productions made nowadays are written primarily to avoid allegations of being some type of -ist (racist, sexist, misogynist, white supremacist, et al), and storytelling comes a distant second.
This is NOT how things should be. Audiences should be embraced, particularly when there are hundreds of millions of dollars on the line. The reason that movies are big business is because we love good stories being told - be it in movie form, book form, comic form, or even sitting around the campfire. We want to feel the highs and the lows and the thrills, and the best stories are ones that are told with passion and authenticity and intelligence.
So congratulations to director Takashi Yamasaki - Godzilla: Minus One has relatable characters in a relatable scenario (monsters and nuclear blasts aside).
Now, onto the movie proper - if you've seen any of other 30 or so other Godzilla movies, you kinda already know the basic outline of this one.
The movie starts off with Koichi Shikisama (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who chickens out of a kamikaze mission citing mechanical problems with his plane and lands on Odo, an island set up as a repair base. Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki), a mechanic, twigs that Shikisama chickened out, creating tension between the two. Later that night, a giant monster rises up out of the water, walks on the island and smashes everything up. During the rampage, Shikisama has an opportunity to shoot the monster with the guns on his plane sitting on the airfield, but he freezes up.
To further the tension, Shikisama wakes up from the terror and sees Tachibana preparing the bodies of the dead and on the boat back to Japan after Japan's surrender of the Second World War, Tachibana forcefully gives a package to Shikisama.
Shikisama then returns to his hometown of Tokyo and is chastised by Sumiko (Sakura Ando), a family friend who accuses the soldier of essentially causing his parent's deaths by not being willing to die for his country. Shikisama's life is then changed when he meets Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a woman whose own life has been upended when she is forced to look after an infant, Akiko (though I personally think it's possible she was the girl's mother who had a convenient out to not have to deal with the stigma of single motherhood in socially conservative Japan). Shikisama, Noiriko and Akiko start to build a life together, but without any romance whatsoever as Shikisama suffers from both survivor's guilt and PTSD.
Shikisama then takes on a job as a marine minesweeper, helping clear mines planted at sea by both sides during WW2. It is here that Shikisama gets his second encounter with the monster Godzilla as he and his crew witness the monster tear through a warship and narrowly manage to escape Godzilla's clutches themselves.
Having returned to Tokyo, Shikisama continues suffering from PTSD and still has no romantic interest in Noriko and very little if any paternal interest in Akiko. But then the unthinkable happens - Godzilla decides Japan is a nice place to visit this time of year and just happens to be headed straight towards the town where Noriko is working. Shikisama hurries to Ginza where he meets up with Noriko, only for Noriko to be caught in the shockwave of a Godzilla nuclear breath blast.
Shikisama vows revenge as the government assembles a citizen's force to tackle the issue, led by one of Shikisama's shipmates (of all people), Noda - and the citizen's force aspect is quite telling because, remember, this is post-war surrender military disarmament-era Japan, as well as beginning of the Cold War era. Even if the government WANTED to tell its citizens about the imminent danger, and even if the military WANTED to help, the military hasn't got two pistols to rub together. On top of this, the US don't want to be seen to be doing military stuff on Russia's doorstep, so bugger-all help is coming from them.
It turns out that there is only one fighter jet available, but it needs work and the only man Shikisawa trusts to fix it is the guy who holds a grudge against him - Tachibana. The two find each other and work on getting the craft air-worthy while Noda prepares a crafty non-ammunition plan to both sink and refloat Godzilla. And as with all well-laid out plans, something goes wrong as Godzilla turns up earlier than expected and everyone scrambles. Adding to this drama is the implication that Shikisawa wishes to treat this as the kamikaze mission he chickened out on back in the war and leaves an inheritance to Sumiko to bring up Akiko.
The final battle between the citizen's force and the behemoth starts and the plan is hatched where Shikisama lures Godzilla out to sea using some very creative aerial manouvers to a very deep ocean trench. Godzilla takes the bait and wanders out, only to be caught in the trap laid for it and takes a very quick trip to ocean floor, then another quick trip back to the ocean surface only to no-sell everything, so it is up to Shikisama to stuff a plane full of explosives into its mouth.
Shikisama ejects at the last minute and returns to find out that Noriko is still alive, prompting a rush to the hospital where Noriko asks "is the war over?", closing with a lingering shot of black nodules on the back of Noriko's neck.
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And I dare you not to cry at that last scene!
Here are some observations
About the creature:
Godzilla looks kinda derpy. From far away, holy shit, this thing is 20 storeys tall and weighs fifty kapillion tonnes and can rip apart warships like toast, but the close ups of the face really take the menace of the creature away. I get the impression that this design was built on the early Godzillas because the Godzilla of that time and this Godzilla look very clumsy in how it walks. However, nothing will match the 1998 Godzilla for sheer awfulness - that Godzilla looked stupid.
Having said all that, the way it was able to smash through cities and warships like it was kindergarten and withstood artillery was nigh-on impressive, and the skin and the way the spinal plates lit up when it was ready to shoot a nuclear beam were quite realistic.
It is also fascinating to observe this dynamic in that we know nothing about Godzilla as a character - Godzilla is a force of nature and does not care if you are male, female, hold a gun, or whatever. Godzilla will do what Godzilla will do. We don't even know why Godzilla is or what it wants. We just know it's a threat.
The social setting:
I felt there was a great level of realism in how post-war Japan was portrayed. Tokyo had to be rebuilt and the residents there have had their lives upended, so you see this struggle with the people rebuilding from nothing, as well as with the slowly increasing modernisation of their society.
There was also a great portrayal of how face and reputation play a part in the social fabric of Japan. For example, Sumiko physically hitting Shikisawa is something anyone in Asian culture will accept as normal, but may be more incongruent to western audiences.
Also, the idea that an Asian government would hide something from the public and be very secretive in its efforts while roping in its citizens is quite realistic as well.
In the package that Tachibana gives Shikisawa, we see a collection of letters and photos that actually belonged to the mechanics back on Odo Island - this reinforces the sense that Shikisawa carries the guilt for his failures to act and has to be constantly reminded that he carries their burden.
The child actress:
I get the impression that there must have been times when there was difficulty with the actress playing the young girl Akiko, because there are one or two scenes where Akiko is involved in a difficult conversation and looks almost perplexed, and then a split-second later, she bursts into tears. Despite how jarring this comes across as, I'm glad this is no fake-baby bullshit like in American Sniper.
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I personally would love to see a Godzilla made in the style of Cloverfield. The gritty realism of Cloverfield was memorable, and while it is a staple of both modern cinema and the Godzilla series to have the rousing scenes and massive set-pieces, I think storytelling and effects have come such a long way that a first-person Cloverfield-style movie would be great.
But hell yeah, this movie is great! Well worth a watch, even if monsters or sci-fi aren't your thing!
STAR RATING: 4.75/5
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