Godzilla Minus Zero

After reimagining Godzilla with the brilliant Minus One, anyone would agree that Takashi Yamazaki deserved a break. Instead, he returns with a follow-up as daring, rambunctious, and chaotic as the first, even if it doesn't hit every high note of its predecessor.

Set two years after the end of the Second World War, Godzilla Minus Zero finds Japan at its lowest. The country is reduced to rubble, and the effects of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have left wounds that will never heal. Those who fought Godzilla in the past have gone their separate ways, each trying to rediscover purpose and meaning in their life. Then, out of nowhere, a new threat emerges, one that threatens to drive Japan to the brink once more.

Minus Zero picks up mid-conversation and never stops to catch its breath. Yamazaki, again handling writing, editing, and effects, orchestrates a seamless and dizzying escalation that consistently impresses with its vision and scope. And while the excitement of discovery is lacking this time around, Yamazaki understands how to toy with our expectations when it comes to a kaiju movie. Godzilla himself stays remarkably hidden for much of the film, until a breathtaking finale where Yamazaki brings together every trick in the book. Yet despite the long wind-up, it never feels like Yamazaki isn't in total control of his material, teasing his viewers with the promise of thrill and destruction, only to pull back and reveal the devastating cost of such highs.

His returning cast, especially Ryûnosuke Kamiki as Shikishima and Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda, are as tremendous as ever, fully selling the vast wonder and terror this world of monsters has brought before them. Yoshioka, in particular, remains the heart and soul of the franchise as Noda, the scientist who once helped develop weapons of mass destruction, and now seeks any means possible for salvation.

The great Min Tanaka, as Murakami, the traumatized scientist who survived Hiroshima, brings extra gravitas to the proceedings as he pitches a completely different approach to this new threat alongside Godzilla. As ever, Godzilla and the new alien threat aren't just ghosts of the immediate past; they're an amalgamation of all misdeeds that humanity has brought upon itself, from climate change to switching allegiances in global power dynamics. In Minus Zero, Yamazaki explores this dichotomy even further, asking whether humankind can ever move on from past failures, as each step forward requires the kind of forgiveness we're usually incapable of.

Minus Zero tackles these topics in a more melodramatic manner than its predecessor, and the results aren't always as impactful. Though the budget isn't that much bigger, there's a sense that Yamazaki and the crew have more freedom to play in their sandbox than before. As a result, most of the brilliant practical effects from the first film are now gone, replaced by notable digital backdrops and CGI replacements that give the movie a 50s disaster-flick-style feel. Some, like a stunningly bad backdrop replacement for a flying sequence, are so egregious they pulled me right out of the otherwise convincing illusion that Yamazaki has once again crafted elsewhere. It's an odd two-handed approach where half the film is sombre and sincere, while the other half is deliberately goofy and broad.

But then, just as I feared that Yamazaki had lost the touch that made Minus One such a revelation, Minus Zero switches gears into the second half of the film, where the mismatched group of heroes has to come together again, and the picture soars to similar heights as its predecessor. The final hour, where Godzilla makes landfall against the threat from space, is as daring and uncompromising as Minus One, which is no easy feat.

Once again, Yamazaki's eye for destruction is almost clinical in its matter-of-factness, similar to the grand brutality of Hideaki Anno's Shin Godzilla and his work on Neon Genesis Evangelion before that. In one of the most arresting sequences in the film, Yamazaki lifts an entire village into the sky, as all laws of nature cease to apply, and it's one of the most horrifying spectacles you'll see in cinemas this year.

Minus Zero is an odd sequel because it feels more like an epilogue than a full-hearted continuation. Like the Hammer films it emulates, Yamazaki's movie is less interested in bringing anyone new along for the ride than it is in continuing a conversation that began years ago. The most dedicated will love it for that; others might be at a loss as to what the big deal is.

And yet, when it draws to a close, Yamazaki peppers his fantasy with enough highlights that a third instalment in the saga wouldn't go amiss. Combined with cameos from other monster maestros, Hideaki Anno and Jordan Vogt-Roberts, fans of creature features will go home satisfied.

It isn't a modern masterpiece like Minus One, but very few are. Minus Zero is simply a very good Godzilla movie, and as the 39th addition to the monster saga, that's not bad at all.