Godzilla Minus One (2023)

The only Godzilla movie I'd seen before was the 1954 original, which my dad and I found surprisingly serious. Most of the rest sounded schlocky, and Pacific Rim confirmed that I had little interest in kaiju. But GMO (heh, appropriate initials) got such a warm reception that I had planned to see it in a theater, only to discover that I'd waited too long. Once I saw that it was on Netflix, I pounced.

The story is really about Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a World War II pilot who first cheats his way out of a kamikaze mission and then is too scared to shoot the titular mutant dinosaur during an island rampage. He goes home to face poverty in a bombed Tokyo neighborhood where neighbors tend to blame his cowardice, tho one Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and an orphan in her care, Akiko (Sae Nagatani), shack up with him to improve their chances. He gets a job sweeping for naval mines -- and then sees that Godzilla has gotten even larger in the wake of Bikini Atoll experiments. As further devastation ensues, Shikishima and his compatriots (among them Hidetaka Yoshioka, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Yuki Yamada, and Munetaka Aoki) can see that the world's governments aren't helping, so they take it upon themselves to try to kill the beast.

I shouldn't be surprised that Godzilla, while the main draw, is not the main character. We know so little about it, including its sex if any. It shows no sign of being more intelligent than the average reptile. It doesn't eat people, so why does it come out of the water to attack cities? Sheer misanthropy?

I appreciate the makers getting back to the franchise's roots as a war metaphor. The "minus one" refers to things going from bad to worse. There's no lack of pathos herein. Of course, there's no subtlety either. I wouldn't call the plot stupid; it's about as credible as the subgenre gets, and one of the plans to take out Godzilla is actually pretty clever. But things are still simple enough for a third-grader to follow. And rarely unpredictable.

You might like the depiction of Shikishima's guilt, as well as the way he, Noriko, and Akiko become a de facto family despite his hesitation to marry. I just wish it were clearer when he transitioned from tolerating to loving them. Then again, that might take a while, and few enough of the 125 minutes are devoted to Godzilla-based mayhem as it is. Perhaps the best thing about the human focus is that it increases our urge to root for the monster's defeat.

This is probably the only Godzilla feature ever to win an Oscar. I must admit that as odd as the creature's design looks (particularly when charging up an atomic breath blast or healing rapidly), the CG is convincing. Some of the close calls in action are exciting. And keeping the old roar was a good move.

I watched with both dubbing and subtitles. If you choose one, I recommend dubbing. It has almost all the same words and fewer errors.

Would GMO have been worth my money to see in the theater? Maybe with the right crowd, but I think it's just as well I waited. It's adequate for engaging the heart, not the brain.