MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Godzilla Minus One
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
This afternoon’s movie…
“Spider-Man, Daddy. Spider-Man and Hulk.”
“Which one? Do you want the one where they have Hulk’s birthday, the one where Rhino pretends to be Hulk, or the one where Hulk counts to five?”
(long pause)
“All of them, Daddy. Please!”
Review: Spidey and his Amazing Friends teaches life lessons about loads of different things. Don’t be a meany. Don’t build and control a robotic dinosaur to terrify people at an organic food market. Stop wearing ear buds in a location that is frequently attacked by super villains (a trope I wish producers everywhere would learn, please). And that counting to five is a good way to calm down, especially if you’re an enormous green rage monster.
There’s also an episode where Green Goblin mind controls a bunch of pigeons to do… something. All I remember from that episode is how hard it is to put socks on someone who does not want to wear socks.
The evening review…
GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2hr 4mins)
Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki
Featuring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki
Synopsis: A kamikaze pilot, guilty over his inability to die for his country at the tail end of World War 2, travels back home after his first encounter with the titular kaiju. After more events that are out of his control, he must help his friends and country confront the monster.
Review: As a relative Godzilla novice, I can’t help but compare Godzilla Minus One with its American namesakes. But this would be redundant. The American versions are monster movies, plain and simple, with stock humans pulled out of storage every so often as the giant beasts we see onscreen fight, usually with Godzilla as our protagonist after a bit of friction at the start. Sometimes a giant monkey shows up.
Godzilla Minus One, on the other hand, is a revelation.
This Godzilla represents inextinguishable destruction.
This is not just a monster movie. This is a heavy movie, with real emotional weight to it and themes that are as relevant now as they were back when the original Gojira came out in 1954. Back then and now it is about the metaphorical and literal fallout from America’s use of nuclear weapons, with this year’s version also tying into what happens when useless, indiscriminate destruction is left to run rampant.
The title alone is a masterstroke as it, all at once, suggests that we’re going back in time to before many of the other movies (whilst still recognising and respecting these movies); it’s also apparently a statement about where Japan was at the end of World War 2 (already at zero, before being hit with two nuclear weapons); it is simultaneously a statement that the film makers are taking away anything superlative and getting to the root of what Godzilla represents. All of that from three words.
This Godzilla represents inextinguishable destruction. It is not a coincidence that the creature makes its first appearance immediately after the line ‘A new Yankee weapon?’ Unlike the Americanised versions, which would probably find it impossible to align these heavy themes with any self-reflection, Godzilla Minus One reuses this metaphor to great effect. This is not an overused metaphor, such is its power.
This is a film about shell shocked people. When we see Shikishima (Kamiki) arrive home, people are stumbling around ruins of their old lives before a slight time jump and the same people are making the best of a bad situation. Indeed, it could be argued that this is a movie about people trying their best, even if their plan is unlikely to succeed, and choosing to do the best with what they have. Despite the scale of the problem facing them, in a way this is a film about positivity and doing your best to get back up.
It also deals with the theme of duty versus practicality. Numerous characters give their own asides to Shikishima, their own opinions about what he didn’t do during the war. Some deride him as a failure, proclaiming that he should be ashamed to show his face, whilst others quietly agree with the idea that it’s better to live than to give your life for a truly useless cause. The film does struggle somewhat reconciling this with the positivity mentioned earlier. But this is a film trying to also reconcile the philosophy of the old Japan versus what was the new, a philosophy that is happy to question rulers out in the open as opposed to in secret.
As said, this is a Godzilla with real weight and that applies to the monster as well. On the big screen, its vastness is terrifying and there were numerous moments where I found myself staring, as wide-eyed and unmoving as the characters. The movie does a fantastic job of balancing the spectacle with the existential.
Godzilla Minus One has turned out to be one of the surprise sleeper hits of the year.
There is no forced turn to make Godzilla a hero halfway through. This is a monster that deals in destruction and nothing more, and we feel the consequences of its nature. As a father of a young child, the scenes featuring a young girl being told that her mum ‘had to go away for a while, for work’ before she bursts into tears were genuinely emotionally affecting. This is the same for every character who appears. We’re terrified when they are, we smile when they smile and we weep when they weep.
There aren’t any stock ‘bad’ characters who try to arrange for plans to go wrong, or try to control the creature. There also isn’t any judgement by the movie of the characters. Whether you think Shikishima was a coward in the opening sequence or simply a pragmatist is entirely up to you; the same with other characters who choose not to help fight the creature because in all likelihood they are going to die doing so. It’s an amazing accomplishment that this is a movie about a fire-breathing monster that feels real.
The ending does threaten to ruin things, jarringly moving into fairytale territory. What came before, though, was just the right amount of melodrama and reality that means at the end it was obvious why Godzilla Minus One has turned out to be one of the surprise sleeper hits of the year. Hopefully, like its title character, the movie continues on its rampage through the box-office, because it is nothing short of spectacular.
As of writing, Godzilla Minus One is out in cinemas and should be seen on the big screen to be believed.
