REEL TALK: Ben O’Shea reviews Godzilla Minus Zero

4 stars

Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Masami Nagasawa, Min Tanaka, Sakura Ando

Rating: M

In cinemas: Now

Though it may be tantamount to cinematic blasphemy in some circles, Godzilla Minus Zero is a better IMAX experience than The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-bound epic.

Not just because it’s more visually impressive on the medium’s largest format, Takashi Yamazaki’s sequel to the surprise 2023 hit Godzilla Minus One is just a better movie.

The truly ironic (and iconic) part of all this is Yamazaki conceived the sequel as a response to Nolan’s Oppenheimer, after the Japanese director met the famed British filmmaker when both were collecting Academy Awards in 2024.

Godzilla has been a metaphor for atomic weapons — something felt most acutely in Japan — since the first film in the long-running franchise was released in 1954.

But the latest film is the first to reference America’s A-bomb attack on Hiroshima directly, and it captures the horror of that event in unflinching detail.

The sequel picks up the action two years after Godzilla was apparently defeated by a ragtag collection of characters, including former kamikaze pilot Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki).

Koichi has since married his sweetheart, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), and the couple are raising their adopted daughter, the war orphan Akiko (Sae Nagatani).

But their idyllic existence is soon shattered by the appearance of a new kaiju, Ghidorah, a dragon-like creature capable of producing devasting beams of energy.

If that’s not bad enough it turns out everyone was a little quick to write off Godzilla because he’s back too, as predicted by top scientist, Professor Murakami (Min Tanaka).

Having been the architect of Godzilla’s defeat in the first movie, former navy weapons inventor Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) gets the gang back together for round two, but fighting a couple of kaiju is a big ask.

While it’s easy to dismiss Yamazaki’s films as creature features — judged on that scale they are among the best ever made — these movies have significant emotional depth.

Noda bears the guilt of designing weapons in the war, Murakami is haunted by Hiroshima and Koichi is conflicted by his duty to his country and his family.

Above all, these films explore the nature of heroism and honour in a way that is quintessentially Japanese, and most unlike the way the subject is treated in your typical Hollywood blockbuster.

And, oh my goodness, are the CG effects insane.

It’s all well and good for Nolan to eschew digital effects, but Godzilla Minus Zero suggests The Odyssey is worse because of it.

Not only that, there are so many individual shots in this film that are simply perfection.

BTW, Yamazaki’s Godzilla movies had a combined production budget less than a third of what The Odyssey cost. Money well spent.