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It is under these circumstances \u2013 or should I say restrictions? \u2013 that Godzilla Minus Zero enters the ring. As the sequel to the much-praised Godzilla Minus One<\/u> from three years ago \u2013 a picture that dealt with, among other things, notions of survivor\u2019s guilt, hope in the face of hopelessness, found family, and more \u2013 Minus Zero is on the ropes from the start. Can returning writer-director Takashi Yamazaki wring even more out of his characters, who have already been to hell and back, while also blowin\u2019 up stuff real good? In a word, no.<\/p>\n
The film takes place two years after the events of Minus One, with Ryunosuke Kamiki back as K\u014dichi Shikishima and Minami Hamabe returning as Noriko. K\u014dichi, as fans of the Oscar-winning previous movie (for Best Visual Effects) will remember, is the former would-be kamikaze pilot from World War II who was instrumental in defeating Godzilla the first time around. Now married to Noriko, the woman he took in after the American air raids on Tokyo, the pair have also adopted Akiko, the orphaned baby they had cared for after that same disaster. Living happily together as a family, there\u2019s only one thing that can ruin this idyllic picture\u2026 well, two things, since not only is Godzilla of course back, but there\u2019s a new monster on the scene as well.<\/p>\n
Minus Zero opens with a sequence of devastation, as this new critter lays waste to countless helpless civilians as they flee in the streets, avoiding both falling rubble from the buildings crumbling around them and lightning breath from the creature\u2019s mouth. Yes, as fans have already figured out and as the marketing for the film has teased<\/u>, this is Ghidorah, also known as King Ghidorah in the larger Toho mythology, and generally the archnemesis of the big guy for whom we have all gathered once again. (Ghidorah has also been referred to as \u201cMonster Zero,\u201d which helps to explain this film\u2019s title.)<\/p>\nThe scenes of destruction and terror are breathtaking.
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nThese scenes of destruction and terror are breathtaking, with Yamazaki and his team of visual effects maestros once again managing to keep their creatures from feeling like CGI monstrosities. No, rather, Ghidorah, and Godzilla when he eventually shows up too, just appear to be real <\/em>monstrosities \u2013 humongous, slow-moving, reptile-like, and all-the more terrifying for it. Ghidorah also distinguishes himself from his counterpart with his scary yet herky-jerky, almost cat-like mannerisms.<\/p>\nSo as soon as that first-round bell rings, the movie has already proven its VFX bona fides \u2013 to no one\u2019s surprise. But it has also confirmed that a Godzilla Part 2 inevitably means more monsters. And look, none of this is to say that there\u2019s anything wrong with a movie where Godzilla has to rip his own arm off because his foe\u2019s teeth are sunk so tightly into it. We all love monster-on-monster action, but there\u2019s no denying that the more of a mash a monster movie becomes \u2013 be it of the Toho, Universal, Alien\/Xenomorph, or whatever else variety \u2013 the more it loses its edge as the human characters and their emotional baggage run the risk of looking puny in the face of these god-like creatures.<\/p>\n
Remember what Bogart said in Casablanca? \u201cIt doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.\u201d Yes, I\u2019m quoting Humphrey Bogart in a Godzilla review, but if there\u2019s an issue with Minus Zero, it\u2019s that the travails of K\u014dichi, Noriko, and little Akiko just pale when considering the scope of destruction that Godzilla and company are capable of. Whereas the first film framed that destruction through the lens of the trio\u2019s trauma, not just in regards to the giant monster but also specifically around what they went through in the war, that resonance is missing here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nIn fact, the most interesting character in Minus Zero is perhaps the most under-served. Kanji Murakami, played by Min Tanaka, is a scientist whose work is key to battling the monsters this time around. He\u2019s also kind of warped, with Tanaka getting one scene in particular that is a bit too spoilery to describe here, but is also a highlight of the film. As with K\u014dichi and Noriko, and indeed every character in the film, the war irrevocably changed his life, and the scientist is still struggling to cope with that reality while he works to prevent a pair of living A-bombs from doing even more damage to humankind.<\/p>\n
Speaking of which, a much ballyhooed sequence first glimpsed in the trailer last spring involving Godzilla and the Statue of Liberty<\/u> is certainly something to behold here. Toho has asked critics to not reveal the specifics of this particular scene in reviews, but suffice to say that it is both everything you\u2019ve imagined and theorized about, and at the same time none of that at all. It does connect back to Tanaka\u2019s character in one of his darkest moments, and as a result is one of the film\u2019s most memorable incidents of Godzilla-on-human action.<\/p>\n
But that brings me back once again to the feeling that kept bubbling up for me while watching Godzilla Minus Zero. Even as Godzilla sets upon what looks like Spider-Noir\u2019s version of New York City, the whole emotional underpinning of the scene is tied to Tanaka\u2019s Murakami. Unfortunately, the character\u2019s true motivations and how they\u2019re ultimately resolved in the film play as more of an after-thought than Minus Zero\u2019s thematic or emotional core, and for that film suffers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nThe most interesting character in Minus Zero is Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka), a warped scientist whose work is key to battling the monsters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
If there is a central theme at work here, it\u2019s the idea that no matter how hard we as a species try, we can\u2019t outrun our own mistakes \u2013 and we\u2019re gonna keep making them over and over again, despite the efforts of the best among us. Minus One ended with a hint of what was next for Noriko; while she miraculously survived a Godzilla attack, she also now bore a mysterious scar on her neck from the experience. It\u2019s no surprise to learn in Minus Zero that it was no mere scar, and that in fact Noriko is now also a very important player in the fight against the monsters. But she, like K\u014dichi, is also a pawn in a greater game that\u2019s happening on the world stage involving the monsters. The regular folks on the ground are the ones bearing the trauma of the battles that have been fought, but the powers that be don\u2019t seem to care\u2026<\/p>\n
By the final act, you know where this is all going, and that\u2019s fine. Monsters must brawl, and as with Minus One, the period setting of this film really adds to the luster of the visual effects and action scenes. Seeing K\u014dichi back in the pilot seat, this time of 1949-era fighter planes, is thrilling, and the various schemes concocted by the returning Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), now the head of the \u201cLarge-Scale Disaster Response Bureau,\u201d are often ingenious and satisfyingly crunchy in their attempts to slow down and ultimately stop Godzilla and his enemy.<\/p>\n
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Read Full Article At Source <\/a>This review is based on a screening timed to the New York Film Festival. Godzilla Minus Zero opens in theaters in Japan on November 3…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[8829,28],"class_list":["post-88232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-godzilla","tag-review","wpcat-32-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/88233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}