‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ Comes Back Home

GODZILLA MINUS ZERO. If you haven’t seen director Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus 1 (2023), which he wrote with Ishiro Honda and Takeo Murata, by all means do so before heading out for its sequel. (It’s streaming on a couple platforms now.) Not only are there plot lines, character arcs and themes to follow, but to jump in straight from one of the recent American productions could leave you with both aesthetic and emotional whiplash. Watching (or rewatching) the 1954 original Godzilla (Gojira) is a wise pregame move as well, not that it connects directly to Yamazaki’s reboot. Rather the first appearance of the fire-breathing lizard rocked from his underwater cradle by the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II takes us back to the time and place these newest films revisit and place in stark relief the themes they etch onto the screen in fire, rubble and smoke.

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