In the last year, we have gotten not one, but two Godzilla movies. The first was Godzilla Minus One and the second was Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The former was a standalone film made by Toho Co, the original creators of Godzilla, and the latter was a continuation of a new series made by Legendary pictures that started with Godzilla back in 2014. Though they both share similar qualities when it comes to big, grand monster movies, these films couldn’t be any more different.
Let’s start with Godzilla Minus One.
This movie was written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, who also designed the visual effects that earned him an Academy Award. More on that in a bit. The film was made on a $15 million budget and was wildly successful at the box office both in Japan and in the United States. If you weren’t already aware, yes, $15 million was the budget for a Godzilla film. It blew my fucking mind when I first read that. All of these big action Hollywood blockbusters generally clock in at the $200 million range these days, with the majority of that going into visual effects. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with spending a lot of money on visual effects for epic sci-fi, fantasy, or action films, but if that amount of money is being spent on CGI or whatever, then make it look incredible! CGI is here to help enhance our movie going experience and take us to places that don’t exist in the real world. But make that fake world seem real.
Aside from the incredible cinematography and special effects, Godzilla Minus One had a great story with great characters. They were the focus of this narrative more-so than the big G man.
The story follows a kamikaze pilot who, near the end of the war, encounters Godzilla while making a pit stop to have his plane repaired; but really, he was only doing it to escape his duties as a pilot. When Godzilla attacks the small island, he is told to get into his plane and shoot at the monster, but freezes the moment all the men get slaughtered by the beast. A few years later, after the war is over, the pilot, riddled with survivor’s guilt, is set on a path to redeem his honor for his cowardice in the war. He meets a woman with a child who lost her parents during the war, and offers to help take care of them. I could go on but if you haven’t seen it, I wouldn’t want to spoil the movie.
It’s weird for me to say this about a giant monster movie but it’s beautiful. I cared about the characters and how they dealt with the aftermath of the war in the face of a new threat in Godzilla. It’s a story about a people who are already at their lowest point, trying to rebuild their lives, and the resilience they show when faced with an enemy that threatens to destroy what little they have left.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on the other hand…
Let me begin by saying that I didn’t hate this movie; but that doesn’t necessarily mean I thought it was good. What I did enjoy about the movie is just how epic the scale of it was. There were a ton of monster fights with plenty of cities being leveled to the ground as a result. It was all spectacle. Which is not always a bad thing. I knew going into this movie that I was about to watch giant CGI monsters fight each other for two hours. However, this new franchise didn’t start out that way. I’m gonna rewind for a second.
This movie is actually the fourth film in the popular monster franchise that began ten years ago with Godzilla (2014). I distinctly remember watching the trailer for the first time all those years ago and I was absolutely hyped for it. The first trailer didn’t even show Godzilla himself; instead we only hear his roar at the very end. I think that really drew people in, myself included. And that movie was actually a great start to this franchise. It is similar to Godzilla Minus One in the sense that there was a heavy focus on the characters as well as introducing the titan to the audience for the first time. Overall, it was a pretty solid movie.
Then came the sequels. Slowly, with each one, it became less and less about the people affected by the death and destruction of Godzilla and more about the monster himself. Which is fair. It’s called Godzilla for a reason. And even the older Godzilla films that came out in the last seventy years were more focused on him as well. Each new movie came out introduced more and more monsters for him to fight. That’s what people came to see. And, frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that. If anything, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire captures that concept from the older films with all its monster fighting glory and I feel that it was well done in that regards.
At this point, I think everyone knows what they’re getting themselves into when going to see this movie. It’s the same thing with the Transformers movies. They keep making them because people just want to watch giant robots fight each other. And I think secretly we all love watching society literally crumble all around us and these movies allow us to visit that part of our imagination.
Movies, at its core, are here for entertainment, and to give us an escape from reality, but Godzilla Minus One proves that you can have your cake and eat it too.
If you’re looking to watch one or both of these films, Godzilla Minus One is streaming on Netflix and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is streaming on Max.
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