GODZILLA MINUS ONE
Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yûki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Miou Tanaka, Yûya Endô, Kisuke Iida, and Sae Nagatani
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
CALEB
Minus One understands Godzilla. Director Takashi Yamazaki harkens back to the original 1954 film Gojira, telling a profound story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the devastation of war. It delivers jaw-dropping spectacle, that’s made even more impressive once you factor in its relatively small budget. Godzilla looks phenomenal, with the VFX properly utilizing weight and scale to make him feel larger than life. Outside of some pacing issues, I had very little to complain about. With terrifying monster mayhem, and a genuinely touching human story, Minus One is the movie Godzilla fans have been waiting for.
QUENTIN
For a person who is Godzilla agnostic, Minus One has essentially the same issue that every other Godzilla movie I’ve ever seen has, namely too much focus on the human characters. In this case, that extra focus makes for a movie that starts too slowly and is about 20 minutes too long (not to mention the somewhat cowardly ending). That said, when we finally get to the kaiju action, it’s remarkable, exhilarating in ways I’m not sure a Godzilla movie ever has been. It’s still a good movie, don’t get me wrong, but it was *this close* to being one of the best movies of the year.
