After the intention of "Godzilla Minus Zero", a follow-up was inevitable but the trick was to try to make it bigger while still pulling at the heartstrings. The first one comparably has a more existential element in who is Godzilla and his destructive power. It took a smaller story about a pilot wanting to find a way back home, especially after the war and make something better. Godzilla, as always, is a metaphor beyond anything else. His disappearance at the end of the last film is just a a matter of course since it is only a matter of time before he is brought back out. The baddie is shifted to King Ghidorah who is destroying cities. The beginning starts off showing Kanji Murakani (Min Tanaka) as a biological engineer following this new monster but Murakani's story ends up being the most dynamic because of his vendetta and his connection to Hiroshima. His revenge consciousness gives the film a weight including a very graphic dream sequence which is both jarring and effective.
However, his drama, like with the lead pilot, is a little overdone when a slight lower tone and threshold would have felt more natural (though it is likely simply a cultural thing). However this is a Godzilla movie. The effects, especially during a huge fight sequence, in a destroyed Ginza city is quite riveting. Another sequence where a plan to destroy Ghidorah goes wrong gives us one of the films most haunting images with houses with people in them flying up into the sky under Ghodorah's power and then crashing down killing them all. The filmmaker doesn’t flinch on a lot of these sequences which makes the overacting disappointing. But one can understand he is just trying to keep the story going. Minus One just had a uniqueness as a high budget Godzilla film to cross borders. "Minus Zero" is good but it just seems less despite its best intentions and some great action sequences. Two other great characters are also seen in Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda who has a great arch in the first film and is one of the few characters whose tone is pitch perfect and not overdone. His successor is Masami Nagasawa as Makoti Aoyona, a meteorologist who can help anticipate Ghidorah's attacks. The Ginza sequence was built for IMAX and one can feel the scale. "Godzilla Minus One" has a good focus and some great sequences but certain overacting takes away a bit from its intensity which was at its peak with the final sequence of the first film. 85%/B
By Tim Wassberg
