Review: ‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ Is Braver Than ‘Minus One’

Takashi Yamazaki had every excuse to play it safe after Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar and became a worldwide hit. Instead, he made the braver movie. Godzilla Minus Zero opened in Japan on November 3 and arrives in North America tomorrow, November 6 through GKIDS, and it is the first Japanese production filmed for IMAX. It is also a monster movie willing to ask whether victory ever really actually ends a catastrophe. SPOILER ALERTS The film picks up in 1949, two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One. Koichi Shikishima and Noriko are married and raising their adopted daughter, Akiko, while Japan tries to rebuild from war and monster attacks. Hidetaka Yoshioka’s Noda now works in disaster response, and a new threat called Ghidorah is tearing through the country. Godzilla, remarkably, stays offscreen for a long stretch. That absence is Yamazaki’s biggest gamble. For the first half, this is essentially a Ghidorah movie, and even devoted Godzilla fans may miss the King of the Monsters. But the gamble mostly pays off. Ghidorah earns his screen time, especially once meteorologist Makoto Aoyama, played by Masami Nagasawa, helps turn lightning into a weapon. The film understands tha...