Godzilla Minus Zero is a big deal. Big deal, as in available in IMAX, stocked with large-scale devastation, and offering a much-anticipated continuation of what began three years ago in the widely praised Godzilla Minus One, an Oscar winner for its visual effects.
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who brought One to the screen, the movie continues its bravura display of visual effects and returns important characters for a sequel that begins in 1949, two years after the first installment concluded.
Ryuunosuke Kamiki portrays Koichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot who battled Godzilla in the earlier movie. Minami Hamabe returns as Noriko, now Koichi’s wife. The couple lives a relatively normal existence with their adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani), a kid whose crying can be almost as piercing as Godzilla’s roar.
The big addition involves a new monster called Ghidorah, a three-headed, fire-breathing beast with immense destructive power. Early on, Ghidorah destroys Matsumoto, a city that was minding its own business until the flying monster came along.
If you see the film in IMAX, the story probably plays better with Yamazaki following his predecessors by linking the screenplay to memories of the decimation of Hiroshima, both in their scale and tragic consequences.
Say this: Yamazaki does monsters right, animating them with expressive force and deftly adding the gore that roots them in gooey, repellant biology.
Sadly, the human characters don’t have as much charge. Min Tanaka plays a professor whose family perished in Hiroshima. Hidetaka Yoshioka joins him as the engineer who heads the team charged with defeating the monsters.
Tanaka's embittered Kanji Murakami contrasts with self-interested US military officers who become cardboard cutouts with little regard for Japan.
The movie’s production team excels at creating post-war detail, and it can feel as if we’re watching a 1950s monster movie that has been super-charged with contemporary effects.
At the same time, the ordinary sights of Japan -- homes, laboratories, and city streets -- emit an appealing nostalgic glow.
A theme of sacrifice for the greater good emerges when Noriko, who has a dose of Godzilla DNA, is asked to serve as bait to lure Godzilla from the ocean depths. Hey, don't ask me to explain. I didn't write the movie.
This is probably a fans-only endeavor. Because we know the monsters will reveal themselves, there’s not much suspense or fear in this addition to the kaiju catalog, and Godzilla almost becomes a supporting character.
In its third act, Minus Zero falls a bit flat. Yamazaki has too many loose ends to tie up, and thematically, the movie struggles to override the revenge-motivated inclinations of one of its characters.
Considering both movies, though, Yamazaki has revived a 72-year-old phenomenon no one seems able to kill. Another helping seems inevitable.
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