Godzilla Minus Zero Review

Godzilla Minus One was the most successful Japanese Godzilla film. It made 16 times its budget at the box office and won the nuclear-powered kaiju an Academy Award for Visual Effects. The sequel sees Godzilla face one of his most powerful enemies.

Two years after the apparent death of Godzilla, Japan finds itself under attack from another monster. This time it’s a dragon-like creature that can shoot lightning. Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), the director of the Large-Scale Disaster Response Bureau, leads the country’s efforts to find a way to defeat this monster and is given access to American equipment and weapons to do so. However, the emergence of this creature awakens Godzilla.

Godzilla Minus One set a high bar. It was a special effects-heavy blockbuster that had the emotional and thematic heft to back it. The film has been considered one of the best in the Godzilla franchise. It was one of my favourite films of 2023. This success has led to Godzilla Minus Zero having a wider release in the West. It has topped the North American box office on its first weekend. At my local cinema, there were more showings than usual for a foreign-language film, and commemorative popcorn and drink containers were on sale.

Godzilla Minus Zero did come out swinging. It started with the new monster attacking Matsumoto City. There wasn’t any build-up; the film started with the monster in the middle of its attack as civilians ran away from the destruction and two men tried to record it. The first half of the film was about the Bureau trying to figure out a way to kill it, leading to a fantastic aerial battle as Japanese airmen try to bomb the creature before fighting for their survival. Godzilla Minus Zero followed the typical monster movie story where two behemoths have a climactic showdown, which was as spectacular as a kaiju fan would want. Godzilla Minus Zero had an estimated budget of $13-18 million, and it put most Hollywood blockbusters to shame. It will get an Academy Award nomination for Visual Effects.

Godzilla Minus Zero’s story felt like it was influenced by the first two MonsterVerse movies. Or to be more precise, the filmmakers saw Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters and thought ‘we’ll show Hollywood how it’s done.’ Godzilla (2014) aimed to be a more grounded take on the famous monster and how the destruction of kaiju battles would affect ordinary people, whilst Godzilla: King of the Monsters was an overindulgent film that brought together many of Toho’s most famous monsters for a cinematic banquet that even the most gluttonous king would struggle with.

Godzilla: Minus Zero showed the impact of the kaiju battle on people. The hospitals in Tokyo and Nagano Prefecture were overwhelmed with the number of casualties, combined with the destruction inflicted on the areas. It was like the Korean monster movie The Host and The Impossible, a film about the 2004 Tsunami. Also like The Host, Godzilla Minus Zero showed the United States display duplicitous behaviour towards one of its allies.

Godzilla Minus Zero compared the kaiju attacks to the bombing of Hiroshima because there were unprecedented events that caused mass casualties and were impossible to respond to. It stood in contrast to the Godzilla vs Kong movies, where the destruction of Hong Kong and São Paulo was treated as no big deal.

The marketing went to great pains to hide who Godzilla’s challenger was, at least until the last minute. However, to continue this review, I have to reveal who he is. King Ghidorah was the big bad monster in the film. He had more screen time than Godzilla. He was literally a force of nature because thunderstorms followed wherever he went. Godzilla Minus Zero avoided the mistake King of the Monsters did, which was overloading the film with weather effects. Godzilla Minus Zero went for a less-is-more approach, which was more impactful because the action was clearer. Due to King Ghidorah’s effects on the weather, his movements could be tracked, which made Godzilla Minus Zero the second film of 2026 to feature meteorology as a plot device. The other was Pressure.

Godzilla Minus Zero even borrowed a plot point from King of the Monsters because the Bureau planned to get Godzilla and Ghidorah and needed to send a signal to attract Godzilla. I wish this film had cast Ken Watanabe just so he could have said ‘let them fight’ in Japanese.

Godzilla Minus Zero was aimed to be a weightier film because of the horrors of the disasters; it wasn’t as impactful as its predecessor. Godzilla Minus One’s heart came from Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot who bottled it, and his journey was to prove his bravery and to accept Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and Akiko (Sae Nagatani) as his family. His character had no room to grow. None of the characters had as much to do, and they felt thinner. Noriko had a big dilemma, but that was resolved quickly. Godzilla Minus One had a great theme about how the Japanese wartime government had failed its people, and it was up to the citizenry to stop Godzilla, so it made the ending a triumphant experience.

Whilst the tone of Godzilla Minus Zero was mostly serious, it did have some more outlandish elements, even for a film with giant monsters. One of the plot elements involved survivors of Godzilla’s attack mutating, resulting in them growing lizard scales and developing a psychic connection to the big radioactive lizard. The main human villain went full pantomime when they revealed themselves to be a mad scientist.

Godzilla Minus Zero provided plenty of blockbuster spectacle and shows how a special effects-heavy film should be made. However, it did not match Godzilla Minus One on a story or character level.