Per Matt
Poor Japan. Always getting destroyed by Godzilla. For almost 70 years now, as soon as the behemoth rose out of the Pacific Ocean for the very first time, the kaiju has spawned a film franchise, as well as an entire subgenre of pop-culture celebrity. Along the way, the beast has faced some great adversaries (while appearing in some really bad movies), but somehow its popularity has never seemingly wavered.

The monster’s status may have dimmed a bit after being featured in a lineup of American coproductions, which may have encouraged Toho Pictures to release its own new series of films. Shin Godzilla, released in 2016, was the previous live-action attempt to restart the franchise, but celebrating the creature’s 70th anniversary, Godzilla Minus One made a grand entrance in 2023.

The 33rd Toho release (and 37th Godzilla film overall) feels like the best of the bunch. I could very possibly be suffering from recency bias, or this one might just live up to that hype.

This nostalgic period piece begins as WWII ends. Japan’s ruins weigh heavily on its wartime survivors and just as they pick up the pieces of the present, a new cold-blooded killer threatens their lives… Kōichi Shikishima (played by Ryunosuke Kamiki) is our protagonist, a kamikaze pilot with a conscious. Unable to give his life for his country during the war’s waning days, he’s making ends meet by working in a small nautical minesweeping operation. His discoveries at sea corroborate his military findings: Godzilla is fast approaching!

The movie brings an emotional journey of a hardened soldier suffering from PTSD, who’s fighting his own war each and every day. He fights survivor’s guilt, as well as dishonoring his home country. As a story of creation and abandonment, Godzilla Minus One brings a haunting depiction of war’s aftermath that brought me to tears with the self-sacrifice necessary to save the country and possibly the planet (well, as far as they know).

This particular depiction of Godzilla is a destructive force of nature; it’s a radioactive catastrophe with a bad attitude. The creature is a living weapon of mass destruction, which is animated seamlessly. G is a brutal, big bully, straight-up angry for existing, always looking for something to smash. I’ve never seen so much terror just coming from its tail! There’s no easy solution to stopping it, especially with its regenerative powers — I love this new wrinkle!

Featuring terrific special effects, spot-on sounds and a great score, there’s no creature costumes here (which is kind of a letdown, but not really). This one feels like a masterpiece that also happens to include a reimagined classic character. And for one week only, commemorating the film’s worldwide box office surpassing $100 million (on a reported $10 million budget), its distributor has rereleased the movie with a black-and-white print, turning a terrific film into an instant classic!

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color (or stylistically displayed as G-1.0/C) is a work of art. With no color, no spoken English and mass destruction coming from a monster in the Land of the Rising Sun? The effect absolutely makes this retro alternate history film feel like an actual old film. As a fan of B-movies and just about every classic movie that was shot on black-and-white film, the time period feels authentic, even if it was filmed in the 21st century. And I’ve got to mention the special effects look even better in black and white. The night scenes are definitely more ominous.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the original Godzilla films are simply cult classics — not including the modern-day blockbusters. There was a simple magic coming from those movies, which is rekindled here. And The Academy has taken notice, to an extent. This is officially the first Godzilla feature film to be nominated for an Oscar (for Best Visual Effects at the upcoming 96th Academy Awards). While the film was definitely overlooked in the more deserving categories because of its monster movie theme, hopefully that mistake won’t be replicated in future films.

As the highest-grossing Toho Godzilla film in the history of the 70-year Japanese franchise, Minus One/Minus Color was only shown in a very few screenings near me on the final weekend of its release (unless it’s extended, which I hope happens). And with a sequel already lined up, I expect its home video release to be massive!

I haven’t watched many of the recently released American versions of Godzilla lately, with a few of them anxiously awaiting my attention in my DVR, but I truly think the Asians can do it better. They know more about the real-life monsters that haunt Japan better than anyone else, and this one, in particular, is the best of the bunch.

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color deserves more recognition by the movie-going public!