After hitting the big screen in its native Japan on November 3, Godzilla Minus One is about to make its way overseas – and it's a hit with international critics.
A new kaiju movie made by Japan's Toho Studios, Godzilla Minus One is set in post-war Japan. Per the movie's official synopsis, "Japan's economic state has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state." Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the film follows a former kamikaze pilot plagued by survivor's guilt who ends up fighting against Godzilla with the crew of his mine removal ship.
Ahead of the movie's international premiere next month, Godzilla Minus One has earned a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes – according to Variety, it "delivers everything you could want from a monster movie."
Meanwhile, IGN's verdict is that it's "a rousing, spectacle-filled blockbuster, Godzilla: Minus One takes the king of the monsters back to his roots in post-WWII Japan. The story is character-driven, but the monster scenes are exciting and effective."
Screen International review says that the film "returns the titular beast to its roots as a metaphor for Japan’s postwar anxiety and grief, in the process delivering a stirring spectacle that also contains a palpable emotional undercurrent."
"Yamazaki holds back on the series essentials so they have more force when deployed: only after a complicated character drama does the fully-formed Godzilla wade into frame to become the central focus of the film," says Sight & Sound's reviewer. "Along with its 1950s setting, the film embraces 1950s populist storytelling conventions – seesawing from tear-jerking self-sacrifice to heroic survival, all the while treating its star with the respect due a seventy-year-old icon."
Godzilla Minus One is set to open in the US on December 1, with a UK release following on December 15. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other biggest and most exciting upcoming movies on the way in 2023 and beyond.
