Wrenage and myself have done a double review of Godzilla Minus Zero; as we have both seen it and just thought it was easier. Wrenage wrote his up first, and I’ve just read it now. Here is my take first.
Boba Phil Review Godzilla Minus Zero
As you know, I just reviewed Minus One, and I loved it. I’m still going with the original movie is one of the best things to have no come out of Hollywood in years. Does the sequel live up to the original? No, not quite.
The Story
Both I and Wrenage don’t go into big spoilers in this review, so here goes.
With Godzilla ‘defeated’, everyone goes back to tidying up the mess that was left behind. However, there is a new threat in tow: Ghidorah. This new winged threat is now doing what Godzilla was doing, and laying waste to everything in its path. They have dealt with one monster; they can deal with another.
The gang get back together, with Noda (the curly-haired guy) heading up a new task force. When they learn of Ghidorah, they have to try and save the day again. They come up with a plan to kill it, but sadly, that’s just the start of their troubles.
Where is the man in the suit?
For a Godzilla movie, there isn’t much to see of him. Everyone thinks he’s dead, until he turns out, about two-thirds of the way through, and has to face off against Ghidorah. When that happens, the movie turns it up to 11 and kicks more ass than Jackie Chan in a dodgy neighbourhood. The fighting is epic, like the original movie.
However, as my learned friend Wrenage goes on to say, there is more human interaction than monster interaction, and I just didn’t care enough. In the original movie, you were behind everyone, 100%. In Minus Zero, there is much more about Koichi and Noriko, and little Akiko. In fact, not spoiling too much, at the end of the movie, after all the dust is settling, there’s a scene that is more about emotional blackmail than anything else. I found it to be pointless, as it made no sense, and then ends the way you expect it to.
Overall from Boba Phil
As I said, this isn’t a patch on the first one; it’s good, but just not great. It made me think of Avengers: Age of Ultron; there is nothing wrong with that movie, but it just wasn’t as good as Avengers: Assemble. Everyone was expecting a new ‘Empire Strikes Back’, but it just wasn’t as good.
Minus Zero is the same; I was expecting a kick-ass monster movie, which is in there, but just not kick-ass enough. They could have cut a good 30 minutes of screen time out of the emotional side of things, and it would have made a tighter, just better experience.
So, overall, just having come out of the cinema, I’m a little disappointed. I wanted ‘Empire Strikes Back’, but didn’t get it. I got more of a ‘Revenge of the Sith’; far from perfect, but enjoyable enough.
Rating
Technically, the movie is excellent, with a couple of dodgy CGi moments, weirdly, with humans, but the rest of it is as epic as th first.
I’m the same as Wrenage with the popcorn score; it just wasn’t as good. When it kicks off, it kicks off, but in between those moments, it’s just filler.
Wrenage Review Godzilla Minus Zero
Takashi Yamazaki is not a brand/model of a motorcycle (probably). He’s the guy who made Godzilla Minus One. Now he and his crew are back to try to make Hollywood look the fool again by producing a big monster movie on a fraction of the budget. What Takashi spent on Godzilla Minus One is less than what Hollywood typically spends on the production assistant SA settlements of a single movie (probably).
Did Takashi succeed? Sort of…
This time Takashi ups the ante by adding Ghidorah to the proceedings. Godzilla fans are familiar with that name. Ghidorah is that one kaiju (use that term around Stark as often as possible; he loves it) with the three heads and wings that screeches.
“Ah, yes, that one,” everyone sagely says…
And, really, that is all that needs to be said. A Godzilla movie is about as easy to review as a movie gets, at least for a “tourist” of the genre. I’m sure hardcore fans can happily dive into the minutiae of the franchise, but I’m a fan strictly at the surface level. I’m here for the giant monsters beating each other up. If any Japanese girls show up waving swords, that’s just a bonus.
Godzilla Plus Or Minus Zero
From a technical aspect, Godzilla Minus Zero is excellent. The performances are good, and it looks great. The CGI effects are maybe not quite at a Prometheus level, but they are close.
Post-World War II Japan is wonderfully realized. I could watch Japanese Scientist Men turn dials on tube electronics and Japanese Pilot Men fly A1-Skyraiders as they battle giant lizards all day long.
My favorite part of the movie was a 30-second scene where a Japanese Scientist Man becomes unhinged as he imagines leading Godzilla to New York City with a seaplane to get revenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, Godzilla Minus Zero should have been that movie. You got a villain, high stakes and high destruction potential.
But…
The challenge with movies like Godzilla Minus Zero is to get the balance between human drama and monster madness right. Unfortunately, the scale is broken here. The bulk of the movie is human drama, and not enough story is present to support that much human drama. The viewer is continually primed to get back to the monsters, and the movie keeps refusing to go there.
When Godzilla and Ghidorah do engage in mayhem, the flick is great fun. I also would have liked to see more body horror weirdness from the girl with the Godzilla disease. Instead, Godzilla Minus Zero is mostly content to follow humans around as they wrestle with various emotional struggles related to moral quandaries.
It all balances out to a number that is not a big positive or a big negative. How much value the viewer gets out of Godzilla Minus Zero will depend on their personal preference for the human drama/monster madness ratio. It wasn’t quite right for me.
Rating
Five stars for the quality of filmmaking:
Two and a half popcorn buckets for the limited fun factor…
