******KEIJU-SIZED SPOILERS!******

I’ve been a fan of Toho’s Godzilla movies for literally as long as I can remember. Used to have the Monogram model kit as a kid (with optional glow-in-the-dark pieces) and I currently own most of the movies on DVD/Blu-ray. In 2004, I attended the Hollywood premiere of “Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S” and saw a 50th anniversary screening of the original Japanese-language film at the NuArt Theatre. While I’ve long enjoyed the G-movies, it’s fair to say they often sacrificed emotional depth and character in favor of action and colorful (often campy) monster mashups. Continuity was also a wild card, with different eras of movies (Showa, Hissei, Millennium, Reiwa) each offering radically differing origin stories for Godzilla and his titanic opponents (see: 2016’s “Shin Godzilla”). There’s also the Americanized Godzilla movies and TV show (the Monarch series) but those soon lost my interest. Godzilla is as Japanese as James Bond is British. Full stop.

In 2023, writer/director/visual FX artist Takashi Yamazaki (“Space Battleship Yamato”) renewed the movie series once again with “Godzilla Minus One”; a ground-up reimagining (and period piece) set in the years immediately following World War 2, with the atomically-mutated title monster ravaging a war-torn, shattered Japan (the ‘minus one’ of the title meant a Japan already coping with tremendous losses). What surprised me most about Yamazaki’s film was that its potent, memorable human characters could’ve easily populated a gritty, post-war drama without a monster. Such humanity was surprising for most G-movies made after 1954’s gritty, hard-hitting original, and this new Godzilla film quickly became my personal favorite. The visual FX for the surprisingly low-budget $10-15 million movie were state-of-the-art, making Godzilla’s rampages feel more devastating than ever. “Godzilla Minus One” was also the first G-movie to win an Academy Award (Visual Effects, 2024).

Now, three years later, comes “Godzilla Minus Zero,” which is also written and directed by Yamazaki. This past Friday morning, I attended an IMAX screening of this IMAX-shot movie at my local AMC multiplex, and it was nice to see the return of so many characters from the previous film, as well as the reimagining of a legendary Godzilla opponent…

“Godzilla Minus Zero” (2026)

Note: Sakura Ando returns from the previous film as Sumiko, the young mother whose three children were killed in a US bombing during the war, and is now running an orphanage. I was very pleased to hear “Godzilla Minus Zero” was reusing many of the characters from the previous film, since those characters were so well drawn and beautifully acted that they could’ve carried a Japanese postwar drama with or without Godzilla.

Note: Of the new characters, clairvoyant meteorologist Makoto Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa) doesn’t have a lot to do in the film, beyond predicting the monster’s movements based on waving her hands over a map and ‘feeling’ weather patterns. What’s her backstory? This under-developed character is one of my few minor nits with this otherwise impeccable sequel.

Note: Professor Noda, the brilliant, somewhat nerdy government scientist (and former minesweeper crewman) has a signifiant arc in this film, as he moves from his good guy comfort zone into slightly grayer areas, which incur the ire of new, bullying American ‘allies’ and even his friend and former shipmate, Kōichi. As he navigates both monster activity and postwar bureaucracy, actor Hidetaka Yoshioka brings considerable charm to the character, as always.

Note: King Ghidorah is a reimagining of a monster originally introduced in 1964’s “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster,” a Toho movie directed by original “Gojira” (“Godzilla”) director Ishirō Honda (1911-1993), who also directed 1966’s memorable “War of the Gargantuas,” and other groundbreaking keiju movies of the Showa era, including “Rodan” (1956) and “Mothra” (1961).

Note: Nice to see actor Miou Tanaka as Capt. Hotta, one of the heroes from the previous film’s big naval battle climax. Other returning characters, such as Kōichi’s minesweeper ex-crewmates Shirô (Yuki Yamada) and Captain Seiji Akistsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki) are given considerably smaller, though significant roles in the sequel.

Note: 81-year old actor Min Tanaka, who plays Dr. Murakami, has a film career dating back to the early 1990s, including a small role as an old homeless man in 2023’s “Perfect Days” (one of my favorite movies of the 21st century to date). Tanaka’s intense performance in this film, particularly in the Hiroshima flashback scenes, was so effective that I felt my knees quaking in my seat as Tanaka finds the remains of his wife’s charred corpse.

Note: Returning leading character Noriko (Minami Hamabe) is now paralleling the character of Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka) from the Hessei series of Godzilla films (1984-1995). In those earlier films, Miki shared a telepathic bond with Godzilla. Now that bond is manifest in Noriko as an involuntary link emanating from the Godzilla cells growing within her body. Noriko’s joining with Godzilla is painful and unwanted–a far cry from Miki’s sympathy for the creature.

Note: Godzilla’s New York arrival was in the movie’s American trailers, giving the impression the monster would wash up on US shores, as he did in 1998’s American reimagining of “Godzilla,” which felt more like a wannabe “Jurassic Park” sequel than a true Godzilla movie. While the American ‘Monarch’ G-movies and TV shows (2014-present) from Legacy Entertainment are a step up, they’re still inferior to the Japanese films. The Godzilla franchise is intrinsically Japanese; both in feel and cultural overtones. It just doesn’t have the same resonance in American hands.

Note: Noriko and Kōichi find themselves in unwanted new roles in this movie, after Kōichi is asked (as a veteran monster-fighting pilot) to train new pilots to engage Ghidora (in a sortie that fails spectacularly), while Noriko finds herself going from adoptive mother to a human weapon.

Note: The amazing visual FX of this native digital IMAX film are once again under the supervision of writer/director and VFX supervisor Takashi Yamazaki, the triple-duty auteur who won an Oscar for his FX work on “Godzilla Minus One.” The budget of this film was rumored to be somewhere between $13-20 million (adjusted from yen to dollars); a significant increase over the previous film’s $10-15 million, which wouldn’t fully cover the catering budget of your average Marvel movie.

Note: I hated to see Prof. Noda killed off, but given the titanic levels of destruction seen in these films, one or two beloved characters were bound to be on the chopping block. It’s enough to ask an audience to accept mountain-sized monsters battling to the death; it’s too much to accept that all our favorite characters make it out alive, too. To paraphrase Stephen King, don’t be afraid to kill your darlings.

Note: The American military are portrayed as duplicitous opportunists in this movie, which is understandable, given current US president Donald Trump’s shameful treatment of longtime US allies Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan; imposing unwarranted tariffs on imports while simultaneously loosening trade with Russia and holding summits with North Korea.

Note: Any chances to see Captain Akistsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki) and his first mate Shirô (Yuki Yamada) in this film are welcome, since the characters are only in bookending scenes near the beginning of the film (the dinner at Kōichi’s home) and in the end, where they offer to help Kōichi and Noriko escape the flaming wreckage of the seaplane. Personally, I would’ve been okay with eliminating a few of the less-engaging newer characters to give these guys a bit more screen time.

Note: Actress Sae Nagatani, who is only six years old at the time of this writing, deserves huge praise in her role as Akiko. That little girl’s tears could make a marble statue bawl. While I realize their soon-reversed decision to leave Akiko with Sumiko was based in practicality, I can’t see how any parent could voluntarily choose to leave such an adorable child just because life on the run might be challenging.

The End.

Summing It Up

“Godzilla Minus Zero” is a worthy successor to “Godzilla Minus One” (my personal favorite Godzilla film), and it certainly has the same humanity and epic punch of its predecessor, though it sometimes feels a bit too busy. Some of its charming returning characters are reduced to little more than cameos at times. Of the new characters, tormented scientist and Hiroshima survivor Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka) is a potent addition; the 1945 flashbacks of Murakami scouring Hiroshima’s streets to find the burnt bodies of his family are painful to watch. However, psychic meteorologist Makoto Aoyama (Masami Nagasawa) does little more than psychic weather forecasting with a map. Nevertheless, this is a minor quibble in a modern action movie with a lot more humanity than most.

The reimagining of the 62-year old keiju King Ghidorah is well done, with the mutable monster posing a genuine threat to Godzilla. Their battle royale in this movie’s long evacuated district of Ginza providing a suitably post-apocalyptic vibe to the confrontation. It also smartly eliminates the recklessness of luring the monsters to fight in a heavily populated city (see: Superman’s shenanigans in 2013’s “Man of Steel”). While the keiju battles are certainly impactful (especially in IMAX), there is still enough real drama going on to keep us emotionally engaged between our divided heroes aboard the seaplane and those watching the Ginza battle firsthand. Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki clearly understands something his American counterparts with the Monarch G-movies haven’t fully taken to heart; visual FX spectacle without genuine human stakes get boring quickly.

Where this new series goes next is anyone’s guess. With Godzilla returning to the sea, we see our heroic found family Kōichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani) riding off into an unknown future, which makes me wonder if this series will see their return, or can it go on without them? I’d prefer the former, but the direction for this successful new series of G-movies is wide open. Like this movie’s version of King Ghidorah, the DNA of cinematic Godzilla is constantly evolving. Personally, I’d like to see these gifted young actors do one or two more in this current series before it’s time to move on.

At the end of that Friday morning screening, I stood with several other attendees near the exit as we listened to original composer Akira Ifukube’s iconic “Godzilla March” play over the last of the end credits. As we ushered ourselves out, one of the attendees remarked, “And Americans think they can make Godzilla movies,” to which I replied, “No, they can’t.” I’d say Yamazaki and his stable of characters have a lock on G-movies for the immediate future.

Where to Watch

“Godzilla Minus Zero” is currently in theatrical release in IMAX and more conventional screenings; check local online theater listings for times and dates. The screening I saw was in Japanese with English subtitles (thank goodness; I hate dubbing). If/when it becomes available for streaming or physical media is unknown as of this writing (the previous movie didn’t come to Blu-Ray in the US for nearly a year), but my guess is it’ll stream on Netflix (just a guess).