Don’t worry about the maths, just focus on the monsters in Godzilla Minus Zero.
But what are the monsters exactly and what do they mean for the people of post-war Japan, crushed underfoot by more than one colossal force? These are the kaiju-sized questions that director Takashi Yamazaki puts to us in the superb follow-up to his exhilarating 2023 blockbuster, Godzilla Minus One.
Picking up two years after the events of the first film, Minus Zero is set in 1949 Japan, which is still reeling from the destruction caused by both the war and the gargantuan creature that followed in its wake.
Those familiar with the franchise know that Godzilla is a totemic character that can function on multiple levels, particularly as a monstrous metaphor for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with the terrifying unknowability of the primordial.
As with the previous film, Yamazaki deftly threads resonant human storylines throughout spectacularly shot scenes of city-wide carnage. And now with a bigger budget and a nightmarish new kaiju to contend with, Minus Zero delivers some of the most thrillingly visceral imagery (and by far the loudest roars) in the franchise’s 70-year history.
And way down below the fighting giants the human characters grapple with more relatable problems, such as fraying ties with family, society and what it means to keep the promises we make in deeply uncertain times. By far the most devastating outburst in the film does not come from the mouth of Godzilla, but from a much smaller creature indeed.
Added to all of this is a very welcome political commentary on the military occupation of Japan. The few American characters in the film are a bit sloppy, out of shape and mostly exist to show up, deliver clunky orders and leave; adding to the humiliation and powerlessness felt by the Japanese characters who must rely on each other to survive. This subtext feels perfectly timed as we bear witness to the demolition of the international rules-based order by the same forces that built it atop the rubble of our last world war. How very monstrous indeed…
