Our prayers have been answered! With a minimal marketing budget, Godzilla Minus One has arrived as this year’s best blockbuster. I saw this movie on a Wednesday night with a few dozen other weeknight moviegoers in what felt like the most unlikely sold-out theater of the week. This is the 37th movie in the Godzilla franchise, and like its original inspiration, it’s a fully Japanese production, meaning it’s a foreign-language film.
In a year full of IP blockbusters that disappointed critically and commercially, Godzilla Minus One defied its lack of Hollywood stars, an American aversion to foreign-language film, and a minuscule budget (they made this movie for $15 million - 15 MILLION - The Marvels cost $220M!!!!) to become a hit. This movie has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and is the biggest Japanese live-action opening in America ever. As Matt Zoller Seitz said, Godzilla Minus One easily puts everything Hollywood is currently churning out to shame.
I’ve written a lot about how difficult it’s become to make a good franchise film, particularly because Hollywood has gotten increasingly meta, self-aware, and sarcastic. It’s no coincidence that the best franchise film this year didn’t come out of Hollywood— it’s come from an entirely different film ecosystem, one that’s not allergic to sincerity.
In this sense, Godzilla Minus One is a return to form. It will remind you of 70s movies like Jaws, 80s movies like Predator, and 90s movies like Crimson Tide. When people say “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore!”, they’re talking about these movies, and there’s something in my heart that deeply empathizes with that sentiment, even though it risks big-time “old man yells at cloud” energy. I think when people make that statement, they’re talking about a wholeness these films have that today’s blockbusters struggle to recreate.
Part of the current blockbuster (which has become synonymous with IP filmmaking) is the sense that it’s been cobbled together by committee, poked and prodded until it could be extruded through whatever studio machine funded it. Even with Barbie, previously my IP pick of the year, we discussed endlessly the way that the film’s IP status was intertwined with the very DNA of the movie. The sense that any given film must fulfill so many different functions eats into the focus of a movie (think of every Marvel movie having to link up to fifty other characters and plot lines). The variety of functions and need to please so many different parties might explain why franchise films have become so damn long (Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One was 2 hours and 43 minutes).
At a tight and fast-paced two hours, Godzilla Minus One never feels like it’s been made by committee. It has a wholeness that pervades its entire runtime with a beautifully clear-eyed focus: to be entertaining1. It spends a significant percentage of its run-time establishing its main character Shikishima, a “failed” Japanese kamikaze pilot, and its setting, post-war Japan. Once the Godzilla action really gets going, that investment pays off, with each character receiving their own thoughtful arcs and the cultural legacy of WWII in Japan receiving a deeply moving portrayal.
Even putting all the IP stuff to the side, it’s difficult to overstate how GOOD this movie is. The action setpieces are edge-of-your-seat tense. Every single actor was dialed-in. I cried multiple times. This is a movie that’s going to make you feel things, in the best possible way. You can sense the film setting up its story beats like dominos, but it’s the kind of movie that understands that’s not something to be ashamed of— half the pleasure of watching dominos get set up is the anticipation of how satisfying it’ll be when they’re finally knocked down.
Godzilla Minus One has just extended its theatrical run in the states, so this is your chance to see it!!!!!!! You won’t regret it. If you’re in New York and are even a little bit curious, just hit me up— I’ll see you there!