Summary
- Godzilla Minus One is being hailed as one of the best Godzilla movies ever, thanks to its powerful human narrative.
- The film stands out from its American counterparts by focusing on the emotional and personal journeys of its characters.
- Unlike other Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One strikes a balance between a relatable human story and thrilling kaiju action.
Rotten Tomatoes score has broken records for the franchise, and has been called not only the best Godzilla movie ever, but one of the best overall movies of 2023. Critics and fans alike have praised the quality of the film's acting, direction, score and action, but there is one element that truly sets it apart from its American counterparts.
Legendary's Monsterverse has certainly been successful at the box office, but some of the shared universe's entries have suffered from a critical perspective. Many of the Godzilla movies that have come before Godzilla Minus One suffer from a common problem that has plagued the franchise over the years. Godzilla Minus One not only corrects this major flaw, but does so in a near-perfect fashion.
Godzilla Minus One's Best Feature Is Its Human Story
It's driven by an emotional and powerful narrative for its human characters.
Godzilla Minus One is driven by a powerful narrative that concentrates on the people of Japan as they deal with the fallout and trauma of World War II. The action follows Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot who elects to forgo his self-sacrificial duty at the end of the war. Upon returning to Tokyo, Shikishima takes in a young woman, Noriko, and an orphaned baby, Akiko, and begins to build a life with them, all while attempting to deal with his own guilt and trauma at having survived both the war and a previous Godzilla attack.
Shikishima's journey to conquer his past trauma is at the center of Godzilla Minus One's narrative, and is emblematic of the struggle all of Japan underwent after WWII. That level of character depth is nowhere to be found in the Monsterverse. So far, most of the characters have changed with each movie, with the only real carry-over being Millie Bobby Brown's Madison Russell. Many of the one-off characters act as comic relief, or as sources of exposition with no actual character development. Godzilla Minus One blows all other Godzilla movies out of the water in this regard, and that's a big reason why the movie's reviews are so good.
Why Godzilla Movies Struggle So Much With Human Characters
Godzilla movies understandably focus on Godzilla, but at the expense of human characters.
Godzilla Minus One succeeds where so many other Godzilla movies fail simply due to the time and attention it spends developing its human characters. Director Takashi Yakazami uses Godzilla sparingly, which not only makes his appearances more effective, it also allows for a narrative to develop independent of the giant lizard's presence. Godzilla enhances the already-ongoing stories around him as opposed to driving them. His attacks, both on Odo Island and in Tokyo, are devices used to deepen the trauma and survivor's guilt of Shikishima, strengthening the human character with the monster as opposed to the other way around.
To be fair to Legendary's Monsterverse, the movies never claim or aim to develop human characters; quite the opposite, in fact. The Monsterverse has largely been content to allow its human characters to act as little more than devices to tell the greater story of the kaiju in each movie. This peaked in Godzilla vs. Kong, in which the main character was arguably Kong himself. The movie was intended to further develop the Hollow Earth, the backstories of Godzilla and Kong, and feature a ton of monster-on-monster fight scenes, which it did to great effect.
Even in doing so, Godzilla vs. Kong still managed to highlight the need for human stories. The reason that Godzilla vs. Kong worked was because, in place of a quality human narrative, it provided a relatable human narrative around its most intelligent and anthropomorphic Titan, Kong. Godzilla Minus One manages to strike a near-perfect balance between a story that its human audience can relate to and delivering kaiju action, which is why many reviews are calling it the best Godzilla movie ever.
