Luckily caught the last showing at our cinema of
Godzilla Minus One, as luck would have it!
Set in the dying embers of WWII, prior to Japan's capitulation, a young kamikaze pilot and his brethren encounter Godzilla, who embarks on a killing spree, whilst our main protagonist freezes with fear when tasked with firing on it, leading to deaths akimbo.
In the post-war rubble of Japan he meets a woman survivor, and the child she's caring for, from another mother. Soon he finds work as a minesweeper, and the couple rebuild their lives as a family unit of sorts.
It's not long before Godzilla resurfaces however, and much carnage ensues. Cities are destroyed, cruisers flung about like toys, and it comes down to the Japanese civilians, many still crestfallen from the fallout of the war. Can they defeat this unstoppable, death-ray-spewing monster to the depths from whence it came?
Well long story short, probably. For all the word of mouth this film received, it plays out like every other Asian Cinema classic, in that it always ends up greater than the sum of its parts, and that upon reflection, it can be considered an all-time great.
Less rubber monsters and more redemption and the human spirit, this film encompasses all that is great about wanting to live, even when at your lowest. The acting's great and earnest as you'd expect, with no facial gymnastics or sass-talking while preaching to the audience about what bad people they are, whilst the SFX are stripped down to what made Godzilla such an apocalyptic beast to be feared in the first place.
The definitive Godzilla, and all this on a $15 million budget too. Can't say fairer than that