Godzilla Minus Zero review: 'freakishly dark'
This sequel to Godzilla Minus One is a thing of city-stomping beauty. See it on the biggest screen possible, advises Alistair Harkness
Godzilla Minus Zero (15) ★★★★
This is how to do a giant monster movie. A direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One — Toho studio’s brilliant, Oscar-winning revamp of the Godzilla franchise it originated more than 70 years ago — Godzilla Minus Zero ramps up the post-WWII “kaiju” action in truly spectacular ways without losing the heart or political commentary that made its 2023 predecessor such a crossover hit.
Once again directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the film brings back a number of characters from the first film — among them hero fighter pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), his Godzilla-injured wife Noriko (Minami Hamabe), their adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani) and the head of the disaster response unit Kenji Noda (a returning Hidetaka Yoshioka) — and pits them against a new threat: a mutating dragon called Ghidorah who rivals the OG kaiju for wanton destruction.
Indeed, from the banshee-like soundtrack cue that opens the movie, Ghidorah is thrillingly imagined, a beast that shoots lightening from its mouth, evolves when it’s attacked and wreaks tornado-like havoc on whole neighbourhoods by whipping occupied houses into the air like a disaster-movie version of the Wizard of Oz.
As with the first film, though, this one smartly makes human suffering a key component of the story; we’re never allowed to forget that people are dying in these attacks or that there are grave consequences for survivors, including metaphorically rich body-horror style mutations that play into the plot in fascinating ways. There’s also twist late on that ties Godzilla’s nuclear fall-out origins to a revenge plot against America for dropping the bomb on Japan in the first place. It’s freakishly dark.
And what of the big guy? Let’s just say Godzilla’s return is majestic. Tactile and terrifying (and once again arriving with his own much-sampled intro music), his subsequent rumble with Ghidorah is a thing of city-stomping beauty. See it on the biggest screen possible.
Godzilla Minus Zero is in cinemas from 5 November
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