Godzilla Minus One

Without spoiling anything, this movie hit different from any other. It felt much more serious and quite a bit darker at times. The movie was amazing, the effects were great. I never thought I'd see a Godzilla movie where people were crying in the theater. It was quite the experience. Godzilla was truly an unstoppable force in this movie, whenever Godzilla would show up it was hard to feel anything but futility. Even in the rare event that Godzilla was injured he was only slowed down. This version of Godzilla might be more evil than Shin Godzilla though his motives are hard to understand where shin Godzilla it became apparent.

This is an enjoyable film to watch, and if you're on the tail end of its theater run or considering if it's worth streaming, the short answer is it's worth seeing. I do feel like among certain fan circles the movie is slightly 'overhyped' but that doesn't make the movie bad, it is in fact quite good. I think the exploration of the main character's relationship with kamikaze piloting, and in turn both Japan's historical understanding of that phenomenon as well as the West's, is actually still more poignant and worth exploring than perhaps we might be inclined to give it credit for. It's hard to overstate how culturally significant the kamikaze pilots were during and in the immediate aftermath of World War 2; although we had Oppenheimer to remind us of the cultural impact of the bomb, for soldiers that lived during World War 2, it was the stories of the kamikaze pilots that left a huge impact, even for people not in the Pacific theater. Likewise, Japan has long struggled to articulate its historical relationship to kamikaze pilots, with the memorial there being a kind of hot-button issue for multiple decades now. This film perhaps doesn't offer a searing insight, but rather a kind of wishful alternate path to how Japan and the west feels about kamikaze pilots. I think what's particularly remarkable about this film, frankly, is the way it pushes against the grain--a lot of Japanese cinema, especially that designed for view by western audiences, tends toward a construction of victimhood due to the bomb. This film tries to grapple with the echoes of imperial desire both immediately after the war and, perhaps, now.

Honestly, come for the big cool depiction of Godzilla, but leave with a reflection of Japan's relationship to World War 2.

Godzilla Minus One is an amazing spectacle on a retelling of a classic Kaiju movie from the prospective of a post-war Japanese veteran who leaves one horror for the next while making an arrangement of "friends and family" along the way. The story was so compelling that it didn't feel like two hours past and I was craving for more. The classic Godzilla sounds design, masterful cinematography, along with the original score from Akira Ifukube made this movie an absolute masterpiece on storytelling! The visuals of the Godzilla update made him more memorable and menacing for the citizens of a distraught Tokyo. Highly recommended!

I'm a huge fan of Godzilla, I think the original from 1954 is a genuine classic and a great film (not just a great "monster" movie). The Heisei era is my overall favorite, and I thought Shin Godzilla was weird in all the right ways. It was one of my favorite movies from that year.

This one might be even better. You actually care about the characters. It deals with some very serious topics, such as survivors guilt and the aftermath of war violence on civilians and conflicting emotions around national pride and feeling betrayed by your government. Yet the film is also exciting and optimistic and has some of the best Godzilla sequences ever put to screen. My favorite depiction of Godzilla is as a force of nature, representing the power of the atomic bomb or the fury of war itself. That's the Godzilla you get here. I think this film can very favorably be compared to American classics like Jaws and Jurassic Park, too.

I don't want to say too much, it's best to just experience the movie for yourself. The only part that felt a little false to me was the very end, but I understand why the director wanted to do it that way. The special effects look great for the most part, but there are a couple of shots here and there that aren't perfect when compared to some Hollywood movies. However, it hardly matters. This is an incredible film.

9/10 easily, probably closer to 9.5

My current Godzilla rankings:

1) Gojira (1954) 2) Godzilla Minus One (2023) 3) Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) 4) Shin Godzilla (2016) 5) Return of Godzilla (1984)

Special mentions to GMK, Godzilla vs. Biollante, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

From the opening to the ending, I was enthralled by the whole movie. It kept everything that I loved about Godzilla, and was able to make an extremely interesting backstory with the human characters. There was a lot of things that was addressed in this movie that I had never seen before.there was so many things that people will pick apart, but that's upon reflection. I had no criticisms or a reason to dislike this movie the whole time I watched it. So, in that respect, I will give it a perfect score. And I don't go slinging those out just every review. As a Godzilla fan, this was perfection to me.