Kamikazi pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) does something very unusual for a pilot of his duty. He lands his bomber on Odo Island for repairs at the remote Navy Air Service base. But, there's nothing to repair. The lead mechanic Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) diplomatically approaches the pilot, telling him that he could find nothing apparently wrong with the plane. "What are you implying?" Shikishima replies defensively. "I'm on your side," deflects Tachibana. "You landed this bucket of bolts on this swiss-cheese of a runway. We need more people like you. Why 'die honorably?'" But, Shikishima only feels shame and regret—his very existence is evidence of his cowardice and his turning back on his duty. He is in an existential nightmare.
But, it will only get worse.
Shikishima has noticed some usually-deep-water fish dead on the surface waters surrounding Odo Island. It's an odd mystery until it gets dark. Then a roar erupts from the waves and an out-sized dinosaur creature lumbers onto the beach and quickly takes out a reconnaissance tower "Godzilla" one of the mechanics murmurs. "What is it?" Shikishima asks in terror.
"Nobody knows."
And, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Shikishima will sneak to his plane, but when he has the creature in his sights, he freezes, causing a panicking technician to prematurely...and ineffectually...fire his rifle, attracting the beast's attention and provoking an attack. Shikishima runs from the plane just as Godzilla stomps on it, exploding the plane and knocking Shikishima out. When he recovers, all save for Tachibana are dead, and he accuses the pilot of cowardice, blaming the deaths on him, and vindictively giving him a packet of the dead engineers' photographs as a reminder of his weakness.
Ultimately, Shikishima returns home to Tokyo after the war, only to find it in ruins from U.S. fire-bombing, his parents dead, and his reputation as a kamikazi in tatters and himself a symbol of scorn. He does not argue, he does not fight back, as he is in utter agreement with the sentiment. He has failed in what he sees as his duty twice and his survivor's guilt is near crippling. It becomes a matter of survival, and refugees are trying to scratch out a living any way they can under U.S. occupation. It's how the young pilot becomes the care-taker of a beggar-woman, Noriko Oishi (Minami Hamabe) and the orphan-child Akiko that she has promised its dying mother to raise. But, he sees his role as merely charitable: there is no romance between Kōichi and Noriko as he does not think he deserves such happiness, nor would he disgrace Noriko by becoming her husband. For him, the war is not over. It may never be. It lives with him still.
But, he needs a job. He takes one clearing the Sea of Japan of American and Japanese mines on a "specially made" ship—which turns out to be a converted wooden fishing vessel, the Shinsei Maru—the wooden structure won't attack magnetic mines, and he finds his gunnery experience useful in detonating the cut mines. With him are the ship's captain Yōji Akitsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki), Shirō Mizushima (Yuki Yamada), and former Naval engineer Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) and the crew form a bond, albeit a cynical one in their work of destroying the two nation's defenses.
Unbeknownst to them, the U.S. is doing further tests of the nuclear capabilities that brought Japan to its knees, and, with the war over, they're testing them on islands in the Pacific. The consequences will be far more than merely obliterating an island.
This is the 70th Anniversary of the first Godzilla movie, and we should all look this good at that age. In fact, when I heard scuttlebutt that Godzilla Minus One was quite good, it went on my short-list of movies that had to be seen. Not only did it not disappoint, it is surprising how good and accomplished it is, how mature, and downright clever. It is a master-stroke that combines the kaiju tradition of Japanese monster movies with the sensibilities of the early Akiro Kurosawa post-war films filled with defeatist angst and finding the hope and courage to rise above it.
How do they do it? It's something they should have done from the beginning—move the super-imposed people at the bottom of the screen fleeing Godzilla's toes and moving them center-screen. Rather than the scientific and military perfunctories that usually do the exposition in the films, Godzilla Minus One takes to the victims of the attacks, makes their struggles real and relatable, and then "mess" with them until the audience can't take it anymore. In Godzilla Minus One, the government—such as it is—is absent, more concerned with not spreading a panic than saving lives ("Information control is Japan's specialty" says one of the heroes), and the U.S., concerned with arming the Japanese so soon after the war, and with Russia monitoring their actions in the Pacific, take no action at all. Except we send some decommissioned war-ships (we're good at that).
It's up to an already-beaten-down populace to come to the fore and save themselves from a force that—like the rest of the world—just...doesn't...care. At the same time, writer-director (and SFX supervisor)Takashi Yamazaki removes the traditional sentimentality associated with this series of films and strips it from its titular monster, making it completely unfathomable and that much scarier, the stakes that much higher, and the tension that much more sphincter-tightening. Plus, his focus on the human scale of things makes the craning looks at the monster that much more impressive.
I don't "do" Top Ten lists—I find them limiting—but, if you'd tell me that a Godzilla movie would make it on my list of the top ten films of the year, I'd have laughed. I'm not laughing. I'm still kinda jazzed at how unequivocally good Godzilla Minus One is.
In fact, if you have any prejudices about going to see a "Godzilla" movie, get over them. Don't hesitate. Go. Go and enjoy. You'll be impressed.
Doing the Limbo Dance with Godzilla (Faith and Ghidorah)
or Dr. Serizawa's Magic Bullet
I was anticipating the new Godzilla movie,Godzilla: King of Monsters, when I saw the trailer start to hit theaters. I enjoyed Gareth Edwards' 2014 take on the series, and was suitably impressed with what Legendary Entertainment was doing with their second "Monsterverse" film,Kong: Skull Island. But, to see the trailer for G:KOM, with appearances by other Toho Studio monsters, like Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra (especially Mothra) gave me a sense of giddy joy, as in "My God, they're really going to try and do these cheesy monsters with a sense of "real" CGI verisimilitude, instead of the puppeteered, rubber-suited versions we're used to?" And then, to bring a respectable cast of characters actors like David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, and Sally Hawkins (all returning from the 2014 film), as well as Bradley Whitford, Kyle Chandler, Charles Dance, Vera Farmiga (!) and Ziyi Zhang (!!!), I was somewhat delirious, as in "Oh My God-zilla, are they actually going to make a decent movie out of this juvenile material? That would be so awesome!" The answer is "No, they didn't." One wonders if they ever could, but the hope was there, and although the film is semi-successful in some aspects, the conclusion from what I saw was a disappointing result from an over-the-top concept. But, to get any enjoyment from the experience, a little perspective is required. To illustrate, here is a scene featuring a "pitched" battle between those same four antagonists from the 1964 feature Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster*
There, now you should be prepared to see Godzilla: King of Monsters and come out somewhat impressed. Extreme, I know. But, you have to set the bar pretty low to raise expectations. It's been four years since the appearance of Godzilla—"the day the world discovered that monsters are real"—the film starts with a flashback to the events in San Francisco where two new characters, Mark and Dr. Emma Russell (Chandler and Farmiga), two Monarch**specialists are caught in the fray...with their family for some reason...resulting in the death of one of their kids, their son, Andrew (definitely a downside to "Take Your Child to Work Day" when working for Monarch). This fractures the family (you think?). Mark, embittered and wanting to kill the Titans, and GZ in particular, goes off to study wolves, while Dr. Emma continues her husband's work of creating a communication system, designed to keep whales from beaching themselves. Only she's using it to see if she can communicate with the MUTO's. It's a good way to set up all sorts of "Geez, I hope this works..." scenes.
Their daughter Madison (played by Millie Bobby Brown from "Stranger Things") is keeping up contact with Dad and worrying about Mom's frequent moodiness and is one of those irritating "Wesley Crusher" kids, who can take some wires, a USB cable, and a Brillo-pad and hack into a pay-telephone so it can communicate with the Mars rover Endeavor to save Matt Damon (although she has trouble making breakfast...fake-out!). It's no wonder Dr. Emma takes her to the Monarch project where they're trying to awaken Mothra (Hey, remember "Take Your Child to Work Day?" Worked out real well last time, didn't it?). But, not to worry. Even though Mothra freaks out and kills some techs, Dr. Emma is able to take her "Orca" device, push a button, and translate Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" into Mothra-song to calm it down. This inspires Madison to confuse the multi-million dollar facility with a petting zoo to reach out and touch the creature bare-handed without a care about communicable disease or some sort of tactile osmosis that would put a Mothra-larvae into her body that will burst out at a later time (possible sequel?).
Dr. Emma worries about how she's going to explain this to CPS
They don't have to think about that, anyway, as, once they have Mothra under control, former MI6 agent and prominent eco-terrorist Alan Jonah (Dance) bursts in with some merc's, seize the Orca device, and take Dr. Emma and Madison hostage for his nefarious plans to do something evil and inspire a rescue operation. Mission accomplished on that last one; Monarch, in the form of Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Watanabe) and Dr. Vivienne Graham (Hawkins) finds Mark dancing with wolves and tells him what's happened. They set out to track Jonah and his whale-sized ambitions to try and get little Maddy back.
Monarch gets lectured by Dr. Emma (while her ex glowers about "hearing this before"
That, as it is, is the plot. The rest involves globe-trotting to many Monarch outposts, tracking the movements of GZ, and the intentional setting free of the three-headed monster Ghidorah, who has been trapped in Antarctic ice for eons. Once he's—or they, I've have pronoun troubles with three-headed things—thawed, it goes about the world freeing other Titans in its official title as apex predator, which is what Jonah has intended all along. His justification being that the Titans have been here longer, and that we relatively newbie humans are screwing up the planet, so the Titans will fix it all up by getting rid of us. This, then, makes Jonah the ultimate anti-immigration activist (hurts when it's you, doesn't it?).
Foreshadowing that Godzilla and Mark might some day see eye to eye.
There's more match-up fights than an episode of the WWF—Mothra versus Rodan, Godzilla versus Rodan, Godzilla versus Ghidorah (SPOILER ALERT-he gets his scaly tail handed to him, regroups then comes back and wins, with a little help from his monster friends, and ultimately wins the gold belt-buckle that says "King of the Monsters") and the puny little humans help as best they can, but, basically, they're farm-league, only good at running away and, failing that, becoming kaiju toe-jam .
Ghidorah bug-zaps Mothra
That's what we all go to see—monsters fighting, even if it's in murky darkness, so they don't have to have the CGI be perfect (or it was the low-projection level of the 3-D version, which is the format I saw it in), and despite the creators' earnest intentions, it's the same format that the other films have usually had. Some pretext in the human world sets everything up—in this case, it's the problems with the Russell's, whom we've never heard of before and have the most basic issues on which to hang a monsters-fighting scenario on. At least, it's not manipulation by space-aliens, or venusians, or some other clap-trap that would cause your eyes to roll sop far back in your head that you'd miss the fights at the end.
Rodan goes in for the kill
You have to suspend belief so high that it's achieved orbit, while at the same time lowering expectations so low that your back will be killing you the next day. Either that, or you have to be such a True Believer Fan, that you just don't care, because you get a thrill every time you hear Godzilla amp up like an old diesel generator before he unleashes a force-beam of some completely unfathomable energy that will somehow shred whatever big-thingy he's up against. When you're that deep in the fantasy, there are no rules of engagement, you're just glad for the engagement—like your desperate Aunt Sophie.
Ghidorah provides free WI-FI to everybody.
The human actors do a fine job of spouting techno-babble and mumbo-jumbo as if it makes sense—Whitford seems to be having a good relaxed time (he's had to negotiateAaron Sorkin dialogue) and Strathairn looks like he's really having to double-down on the glower to prevent himself from cracking up over what he's saying (there are quite a few Oscar and Emmy nominees in this cast, by the way...although this probably won't inspire "For Your Consideration" ads come the next awards season). And they're very good at the Spielberg-trope of looking up with a faraway look as if their lives depended on it.
"For Your Consideration"
There are, despite some of the hammer-hitting lack of subtlety in the film, some nice touches: the constant calling-upon of hieroglyphic evidence of kaiju presence during man's early development (however unlikely that may seem); the sense of glowing myth as the creatures never seem to be present in anything other than strange weather phenomenon, as if they were tied to the very natural forces that soak, electrify, and shake the planet—like some manifestation of Kurosawa's emotional weather conditions; there's even a moment that might be confusing for most audience members—Ziyi Zhang plays two characters in the film, twinsisters, who hearken back to similar twins, the twin fairies, the diminutive shobijin, who summon forth Mothra with their song. It's a tiny little detail, but it set my "mothra-sense" to tingling when I saw the actress appear in a continuity-defying two places at once.
"Please notice that the 'Fasten Your Seat-Belt' sign is on..."
But Godzilla, King of the Monsters is not that great a movie. A pretty darned good giant monster movie and a bit of an improvement over its source material (remember: no venusians...). If it has any luck, it'll become a Saturday afternoon staple on television—which is where I saw most of these things in my youth (and I was cynical about them then). It pays homage to its source by not being too reverential about it or trying to make it more "significant" than it is (despite my comic intentions to politicize it). It was, and still is, a cheese-fest. It's just that the price of cheese has gone up—significantly—over the years.
"Let's get ready to rummmmmblllllle..."
Oh. And one passing thought: despite the dangers displayed by galumphing behemoths of various genera and type, spitting sparks of a source not found in Nature's spectrum, one gets the impression that they are not considered the biggest concern or threat to the filmmakers. Given the evidence of the film and what they choose to show and how they show it, the real danger is...bad mothers. Hope that doesn't spoil anything.
"King me, baby!"
Prepare for the inevitable cage-match (2020, they're saying)
* Or as it's known in the States, Ghidrah, the Three Headed Monster (with only two syllables). ** Monarch is the secretive Japanese-American organization that studies M.U.T.O.'s (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms—or the more PC, "Titans") that have emerged from the Earth's hollow interior due to man's atomic experiments and other destructive activities—like building Monarch's massive underground outposts. Monarch seems to have an unlimited budget and unlimited resources, and 61 outposts around the globe to hunt 17 of these things. It's no wonder there is a Senate investigation of the thing in this movie. Next thing you know, Trump will want one of these organizations if he can't get his Space-Rangers.
Oh. One more thing-they always have to fight by power-lines. Always.
And, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Shikishima will sneak to his plane, but when he has the creature in his sights, he freezes, causing a panicking technician to prematurely...and ineffectually...fire his rifle, attracting the beast's attention and provoking an attack. Shikishima runs from the plane just as Godzilla stomps on it, exploding the plane and knocking Shikishima out. When he recovers, all save for Tachibana are dead, and he accuses the pilot of cowardice, blaming the deaths on him, and vindictively giving him a packet of the dead engineers' photographs as a reminder of his weakness.
