Godzilla Minus Zero

George Carmi4.5

3rd act flow state hit me like a magnitude 9 earthquake.

davidehrlich3.5

Asked to explain the goofy title he gave to his globally successful 2023 kaiju smash “Godzilla Minus One,” writer-director Takashi Yamazaki explained that it was meant to convey two co-equal things: 1.) That the movie took place before Ishirō Honda’s original “Godzilla,” and 2.) That “people rise up from a postwar Japan that is at zero, and then Godzilla arrives, making the situation even worse and more tragic.”Continuing the story of its Oscar-winning predecessor while also doubling down on everything that made it the most acclaimed film in its franchise since the King of the Monsters first lumbered out of the Pacific Ocean in 1954, Yamazaki’s thunderously loud and frequently spectacular direct sequel has in turn been saddled with an even sillier title: “Godzilla Minus Zero.” To paraphrase the scene from “Sideways” where Paul Giamatti’s character reveals that his novel is called “The Day After Yesterday”: Isn’t that just… “Godzilla?”Yes and no. Sure, the title is absurd on its face, but — in keeping with Yamazaki’s logic — it also rather eloquently speaks to the premise of a film about a fragile people who are struggling to maintain (and build upon) the new equilibrium they’ve fought so hard to achieve in the years since their country became the epicenter of Earth’s nuclear era. Another mid-century melodrama with very occasional monster sightings, the more thematically coherent and emotionally affecting “Godzilla Minus Zero” expands on the naive grassroots nationalism of its predecessor by reframing that movie’s characters from victims to survivors, an emphasis that forces ex-kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and his friends to confront a series of impossible questions. How do you balance grief with growth? Vengeance with peace? Self-sacrifice with self-preservation?~this review continues on IndieWire~

Brandon Streussnig5.0

Not gonna say anything, you can read my interview with Takashi Yamazaki in Fangoria when it hits NEWSSTANDS, just kinda wanna brag because it'll probably be the first and last time I can say this: I was one of the very first people in the world to see this back in August and then went to Japan to talk to its director. It all resulted in my first cover for a magazine I've read my entire life. Lifetime highlight kinda shit.(5 stars for the experience)EDIT: seeing it with a roaring crowd at its world premiere was pretty overwhelming. Cool stuff.