Skip to main content

Few Marks Deducted from Godzilla Minus Zero

There is nothing fundamentally unique to the premise of Godzilla Minus Zero, which wasn’t true of its predecessor, the franchise-revitalizing Godzilla Minus One. Indeed it follows roughly the same formula that multiple previous iterations of the Godzilla universe have in upping the ante by introducing the three-headed dragon King Ghidorah as nemesis to the titular behemoth and forcing the two of them to fight. Most recently, it was the exact plot of the American Godzilla: King of the Monsters. And that is a little disappointing to see from the follow-up to a Godzilla film that felt genuinely fresh and original, hearkening back to the post-war anxiety context that fueled the very first movie as well as the rhythms of classic Hollywood blockbusters through a focus on a compelling cast of characters. There are several ways in which this movie feels like an average Godzilla flick.
And yet there are just as many ways that it doesn’t, and a big part of that does come down to director Takashi Yamazaki, once more at the helm, who at least has some interesting cinematic instincts in tackling this obvious next step in the evolution of what is likely his personal Godzilla franchise (akin perhaps to Christopher Nolan’s Batman). That human connection is still a very central part of things, as are other aspects of the political, historical context he is working within -and certainly he tries even harder at solidifying an emotional grounding.
The film is set in 1949, two years after its predecessor in a Japan still recovering from both the war and the Godzilla attacks. Pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) has settled down with his wife Noriko (Minami Hamabe) who had miraculously survived the devastation of the last film -in a beat that struck me as a last-minute cop-out- and their young daughter Akiko. Meanwhile, scientist Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) runs a new federal bureau built around responding to kaiju incidents, which suddenly has reason to exist again when a behemoth dragon attacks Matsumoto. They name it Ghidorah and begin developing ways to destroy it and save Japan further destruction -Noda eventually bringing both Kōichi and Noriko into the fold in important roles, alongside an elderly biologist and Hiroshima survivor Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka). Eventually, the discovery that Godzilla has regenerated sparks a plan to lure to two monsters into a battle with each other, where a weakened victor could perhaps be more easy to defeat by the humans.
The plot on its surface is more silly than the previous film, and certainly a degree more contrived. The manner in which Noriko is enfolded into the plot especially feels like something out of one of those more outrageous Godzilla movies, from Japan or America. However there is still some sense of interesting contextual grounding in the atmosphere of post-war Japan (and an increased American presence) and the challenges of navigating a new world order that the gigantic monsters are still in some sense an avatar for, as well as the ongoing trauma of the aftermath of Japan’s defeat. And the film is still intensely character-focused, with Kōichi and Noriko fearful of their new life with Akiko being disrupted while both are scarred (Noriko literally) from their encounters with Godzilla and the havoc he wrought. Noda also struggles with guilt, over his role in designing weapons for war and his ploys to neutralize the kaiju, each of which result in a severe human cost. He is a more present, commanding figure -though sadly his and Kōichi’s highly charismatic and foolhardy sailor compatriots from the last film, Captain Seiji (Kuranosuke Sasaki) and Shirō (Yuki Yamada) are reduced to mere cameos -as is their kindly neighbour played by the great Sakura Ando, now running an orphanage where Akiko is kept for an anxious period while both parents go off to help deal with the monsters.
Murakami however, makes for a curious addition. Brilliant but eccentric in the mold of various mad scientists from throughout Godzilla’s history, who harbours a desire for revenge on the Americans for the bomb -in the form of using Godzilla to lay waste to New York. And largely through Tanaka’s vivid performance, we are made to feel for his motivations through his horrific memories of the aftermath of Hiroshima in which he lost his entire family. Whether it is the bomb literally through devices like this, or figuratively through Godzilla and Ghidorah, the movie does an apt job in conveying the difficulty, for individuals and a society, in moving on from such travesty and pain -and especially to move on without turning pain into never-ending cycles of vengeance and hate. As with the first film, it is important that it is the people who are stressed -government never makes an appearance. It is a movie that therefore manages to have its cake and eat it with regards to the monsters being both thrillingly cool and terrifying, even Godzilla not being made into quite the ‘good guy’ of the clash that other movies have done with him.
And one of the film’s greatest strengths, as in its predecessor, is in the traumatic ways it illustrates the devastation the kaiju wreak. The people, the homes, the infrastructure destroyed is all made glaringly visceral, and in uncomfortable ways. Ghidorah has the ability to levitate objects and structures with a gravity beam, and we see this in one instance from Kōichi’s perspective in a plane -a desperate woman with her crying infant pleading for help from the porch of one house lifted high in the air before being brutally smashed back to earth. It is very intentional the hideous scale of calamity and the body count that follows each of these attacks -Yamazaki once more drawing a line back to that singular nuclear trauma on the people of Japan. It is worth noting how the Americans who appear in this film as support in some of Noda’s initiatives, are callous in their attitudes at worst, disinterested at best -and with their own designs clearly on these monsters as yet further weapons of war.
The gravity of the action only increases the stakes however. The climax is a touch drawn-out, likely due to the intensity of the film’s visual effects, which are more elaborate and largely better than Godzilla Minus One due to that film’s enormous success. The match-up is fun, occasionally even exhilarating, but Yamazaki keeps the primary focus still on his characters -notably Kōichi and Noriko, Noda, Murakami, and ambitious weather scientist-turned team leader Makoto (Masami Nagasawa). Our investment in these characters keep the proceedings thrilling (though Kamiki is once again somewhat the dull centre of the ensemble), along with the implications and larger metaphors being expressed. One of the key pieces of both thematic significance and character investment, related to Akiko (who is adorable in her every scene) is very nearly completely fumbled by the film at the eleventh hour in a beat that would have left an incredibly sour taste. Yamazaki luckily knew not to entertain it ultimately, but how far he did get with it is still concerning.
Godzilla Minus Zero proves to be a strong second entry for this renewed franchise, this in spite of the repetitive, more formulaic nature of its plot and absence of some elements of charisma and novel excitement. It keeps on the right track though of the last movie’s biggest strengths -its stark symbolism, harrowing set-pieces, and endearing characters. Godzilla is almost secondary to both movies, and that appears to be a good thing. Certainly it is more engaging and has more to say than its American cousins. Though I hope the next movie can be just a touch more inventive.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
1 comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
15 comments
Read more

A Stylish and Charmingly Reinvented David Copperfield

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)  is the most important book Charles Dickens ever wrote. It is not the most famous or influential by any means (that would of course be A Christmas Carol ), but it is the book that is the purest expression of the authors’ style, identity, and worldview. It is his most personal work, semi-autobiographical in its story of the chronology from infancy to adulthood of a character who overcomes great loss and hardships to find a fulfilling life as a writer. To read David Copperfield  is to understand Dickens himself. Armando Iannucci knew this when he decided to make a new adaptation of the novel for a twenty-first century audience. He also knew that Dickens adaptations are ubiquitous at this point. Films are a bit rarer, but every few years a new television adaptation rears its head to keep the authors’ unique world an...
Post a Comment
Read more