Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Godzilla Minus One' (2023)

Godzilla was always supposed to be scary. The original Godzilla (1954) terrified people but today, Godzilla is synonymous with actors wrestling in rubber monster suits. When my father told me the original Godzilla scared the shit out of him as a kid, it seemed silly to me until I really thought about it. Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb. A huge, unstoppable, radioactive, walking disaster, reflected the powerlessness the Japanese people felt from the advent of the atomic bomb. Imagine being a person confronted by something so massive and unstoppable. All you can do is run and it might not make any difference. Godzilla isn't even trying to kill people, per se, it's just the outcome of its very existence. By simply existing it causes destruction and chaos. I talked about this a little bit in my review of Cloverfield (2008). We'd lost sight of what giant monsters are supposed to be about with the entire Kaiju Genre.

Now, I should mention that this still might not be very scary. I really don't know. I'm so dead inside, I haven't been scarred by a horror movie since I was six years old. The point I'm trying to make is that the concept itself should be utterly terrifying. If Godzilla was a real thing, we'd piss ourselves if we saw it coming. So if anything, this movie was a nice return to the roots of Godzilla, like Shin Godzilla (2016).

I even like the new Godzilla design. They show you its growth in phases, starting about the size of a very large T-Rex, then ending up with the full 164 ft menace. And the transition is pretty natural; starting off more nimble then becoming cumbersome under its own weight. When we first encounter Godzilla, it's balancing forward on its feet using its tale. When Godzilla finally trashes a city, it plods forward, taking little steps, practically dragging its tale. Everything the titan does seems labor-intensive and slow. It's so massive, it's using most of its strength to stand upright.

I wanna also talk about how this movie reflects the origins of Godzilla in its very plot. This isn't just the creation of Godzilla, this is a reflection of the fears of a post WWII Japan. This is about the reason Godzilla was created, the fear of the atomic bomb. This movie isn't just about Godzilla, this movie is about Japan rebuilding itself after its surrender in WWII. The main character rebuilds his life after he lost everything in the war. He picks up a single mother caring for a child that isn't even her own. A family rises out the the decimation of an entire culture. Then they are threatened by a disaster of another kind. The plot is actually quite brilliant.

It's a redemption arch about a kamikaze pilot who abandons his duty, maybe out of cowardice, maybe out of a rejection of imperialistic ideals, but either way, he's basically a war criminal in the eyes of many Japanese citizens. He has deep-seated survivor's guilt, being haunted by the people who died from his inaction. Going home, having lost all of his comrades, he discovers he's lost his family and has nothing left to return to. No purpose, no direction, no meaning. This is why the addition of the single mother and her child are so important to his development because it's a real, tangible thing from a post war society. The child isn't even the woman's child by blood, she just picked the child up from a dying mother. They are all orphans and somehow they come together and make a family.

So what's to be done but rebuild and make a future, except the existence of Godzilla threatens all of that. Everything the Japanese have worked to rebuild, every part of their dignity they have tried to restore, is threatened by a monster birthed from the bomb that brought the country to its knees. That is SO fucking real. It might be nonsense monster fiction, but that is so tangible to the actual history of post WWII Japan that it's downright soul crushing.

That's really what makes the movie so brilliant, why it does such a great service to Godzilla's origins as a monster. Why we should be terrified of the concept. Why it still makes a great movie.

You absolutely must watch this. I am calling it a 'must watch' for all general adult audiences. And when you're done, go back and watch Godzilla 1954 and you will truly understand what this is all supposed to mean. Godzilla is Japanese history.

SPOILERS!!!

Okay, I know this movie is supposed to be super serious, but Godzilla has a DONK. I mean DUMMY THICC. What's funny about this, is that Godzilla frequently stands up straight in water that is too deep for it to touch the bottom. The only thing I can figure is its bubbly bottom is so buoyant it can sit on it upright out of the water like a floaty. Anywho, the movie is awesome. You should definitely watch it.