GODZILLA: MINUS ONE is the newest addition to the Godzilla franchise and one of the highest grossing titles in the group, beating SHIN GODZILLA by a landslide. After watching the film, I can definitely understand the hype.

We begin the film by following the life of Kōichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot, as he navigates through his new daily life after encountering Godzilla on a beach and failing to pull the trigger on him, leading to the death of everyone unfortunate enough to be present at the beach. The rest of the movie shows us as Japan is completely destroyed from the war, slowly rebuilding itself as best as it can only to be destroyed once more by the wrath of Godzilla.

This movie does the perfect job of humanizing its main characters. Typically, in monster movies, the main focus is always on the action and on showing off the cool monster design, but this movie does both those things great while also giving us characters that feel so real and genuine. You can’t help but feel concern for their wellbeing, hoping they are able to successfully complete their mission and eliminate the star of the show, the main headline attracting you to come watch this movie in the first place – Godzilla. In a way, the way the human characters are written is reminiscent to the ones in the Gamera trilogy which would make sense as that was listed as one of the big inspirations for this film.

Godzilla’s presence in this film has gone back to being terrifying, leaving you stressed as to what destruction he’s going to commit next any time he appears on screen. While he is not presented as fully evil, initially not attacking until he was shot at the beach, he is still showcased as a wild animal who’s actions we cannot completely understand or predict. Every time he would begin to power up his heat ray, you were left holding your breath as you anticipated the amount of casualties and destruction it would cause. Even towards the end when he is seemingly ‘defeated’ by the large group effort, his presence still lingers on as we are shown him beginning his regeneration process and the black bruise (possibly radiation) present on Noriko’s neck in the hospital; it never ends.

This is one of the best Godzilla films to have come out recently. We are gifted with an amazing monster design, stunning visual effects and a gripping storyline with the human characters. It is definitely rewatchable, to be able to fully take it all in but I would recommend to catch this one on the big screen. You won’t regret it!

We give GODZILLA: MINUS ONE a 5/5.