Godzilla Minus One (2023) First Impressions

guess what I just saw hello everyone I just came back from seeing Godzilla minus one in the theater uh and I couldn't wait to sit down and tell you some things about it I don't want to say too much because I think it's really best if you go in knowing as little as possible that's what I tried to do I avoided articles and information and reviews um as best I could there are certain things I couldn't help seeing but all I knew was that people were saying this is really good I did see the trailers and the teaser but I only watched them once maybe twice and then I was like okay I don't I don't want to see anything else so that's how I went into it and it was it was great for those of you who don't know Godzilla minus one is the first too Godzilla film since 2016's Shin Godzilla uh they let Warner Brothers and legendary have the rights to Godzilla for a few years and make those monsterverse movies and then they reclaimed the rights uh and were're like okay you guys had your fun now we're going to make a Godzilla movie and boy did they I don't know how long this us theatrical run will be I think it's a limited release so if you have any interest in seeing it at all I say go and go as soon as possible um it is every thing I think a Godzilla fan hoped it would be and then some I've got several pages of notes that I scribbled in the car afterward and I am going to go through them but I don't want to say too much and give anything away for anyone who hasn't seen it yet but I do also want to talk about some things in as spoiler-free a way as possible so if you don't want to hear anything I would say just in this video now well I will say my biggest takeaway and this is a very great compliment I think for the movie is that this is a Godzilla movie that strikes the perfect balance it is a great Godzilla movie it it has amazing action and awe inspiring visuals and epic destruction scenes yet it also does a great job with the elusive human element I have seen so many Godzilla movies where it's like okay well the monster stuff was great but didn't really care about the characters uh the story was weak that is not the case here this is a serious movie it's solemn it's dramatic it's genuine it's heartfelt it's touching but it's also a great Godzilla movie uh so that is I guess my review in a nutshell if that's all you want to hear from me that's fine thanks so much for watching bye go watch the movie uh now I am going to um dive into my notes and I'm going to go through this as quickly as possible because I actually skipped lunch to go see this movie and I am very hungry now but I want to do this while it's all fresh in my head and I am still amped up I was talking about the human element so I will start there and I promise I'm not going to give anything away I'm not gonna spoil anything in this video um but I am going to talk a little bit more about certain things than you might want to hear so this is your last warning if you don't want to know anything about this movie leave now so it's got a strong protagonist in this character kichi who is a kamakazi pilot who survives the war which is something you're not supposed to do if you're a com maazi pilot it's a shameful thing and so he is carrying this burden and he ends up in this uh situation with a woman and a baby and you just feel for this guy so intently as one thing after another happens to him and he's just floundering really and um I really enjoyed how his character was developed and the relationships with other characters were developed the secondary characters were enjoyable they were entertaining um I'm talking mainly about the crew of The Boat the captain looked awfully familiar and I feel like I've seen him in another Godzilla movie but I can't put my finger on it the story is emotional it's a story that matters it's welldeveloped um it hit me in the fields I don't know if people are still saying that but um there were a couple points here where I felt emotional and I heard heard a few other people in the theater sniffling and I was like it's not just me and it's something new because of its setting this movie has an earlier setting than we've ever seen in a Godzilla movie before um it's set primarily in 1947 but it does start at the end of the war 1945 and it it goes into post-war hardships and um the citizens frustration with the state of things and having lost their homes and their livelihoods and there's survivors guilt and there's the struggle to rebuild their homes and rebuild the cities and get work um and just start life over after years of war and fighting when I heard it was going to have a post-war setting in the 1940s I wasn't entirely sold on it I hoped it would be good but I wasn't sure how it would be um I wasn't sure what they would do with that and um what sort of tone the film would have but it really worked very well so much depended on the execution and I think they nailed it and another thing that has to be considered is the fact that they were fighting Godzilla with 1940s Weaponry they've got ships and boats and planes and artillery and it's all very period specific and you feel like they're going up against Godzilla how could they possibly win the design of Godzilla is great U he's got this gnarly look um the spikes or the spines still not sure what I'm supposed to call those they are I think that's the most impressive thing about him here they are so so pointy they look so sharp and so um just menacing and dangerous too brings back scary Godzilla there is Rage in those eyes and in his movements um I felt like they worked on size and proportions I feel like they took criticism of the monsterverse Godzilla and past GOI suits into consideration when it came to uh designing the feet and the legs and the the hands and the head all of it the atomic breath is nicely done um I feel like they might have taken a page from the monster verse here where it um builds up slowly um from the tip of the tail to the top um that might have been in a Toho film and I just don't remember but um regardless of Whose idea it was first I think it adds suspense and it looks great and uh it it's willing to watch and then they changed or added a couple things with the atomic breath which they call a heat ray in this film um well I won't go into all of that but my favorite thing that they added was that it results in a nuclear detonation he zores something and there's a mushroom cloud and that is something I have always wondered about I've always felt like well if it's Atomic breath how come when he uses it it doesn't look like an atomic bomb has gone off and I feel like yes finally somebody somebody did the thing that I've always wanted to see I don't know if it makes sense scientifically but I don't care also and this is a thing that happens very early on in the movie Godzilla bites people it's rated PG-13 for a reason not that it's super graphic or gross or anything like that but he Chomps on a guy's head and then he does it again and then again and it was like whoa the music um there's original music here nothing ostentatious but it is very appropriate for the action and the drama um and that was good but then yeah there are probably 15 to 20 people in my theater and I think if you were down in front and looking at the crowd you would be able to tell who the real Godzilla fans were because uh at a certain point in the movie we were the ones who were like I know my face split into a huge grin and I I was with my dad and I turned and looked at him and I was like and he started laugh laughing at me um so that was awesome so I guess I am giving that away there is AK Kira ifuku music in this um it is used sparingly but so well both of Godzilla's themes appear and the timing is perfect there are also other recognizable themes if you are a uh a big fan of the music um there was one theme that I couldn't place it I and that it threatened to drive me crazy but I just had to let it go and then they used the theme from King Kong versus Godzilla and that was so exciting I don't know how many people in the theater recognized that um but I was I was sitting in my seat just like trying not to explode by the way this was my first time seeing the too logo on the big screen that was exciting this is also my first time seeing a foreign movie in the theater I think so that's a milestone and uh I'm really pleased that it was a Godzilla movie so it had brilliant use of music and of Silence this movie is not afraid to have Quiet Moments um and to let characters take time to feel things and process things and talk to each other the characters were welldeveloped the acting was great there was not one performance that was Sour I do have one infinitesimal criticism and that is that there were a couple lines that were translated [Music] 47 nobody in Japan and nobody in the United States it didn't take me out of the movie but it did make me raise an eyebrow for a split second and I just feel like why did you have to do that the dialogue is fine you don't have to make a woman in 1945 say say what it just is weird but this is one little thing a couple lines in contemporary vernacular it was not a big deal if I can say one more thing in this movie's favor it's that even my dad liked it and that's huge because my dad does not like Godzilla movies he doesn't like monster movies he doesn't like science fiction he is not into this thing he has come along with me to see the monsterverse films because he's a good sport and a great dad and um I didn't want to go by myself and so so he went along with me and uh sat through those movies even though he didn't really enjoy them but this he genuinely liked even though it was all in Japanese with subtitles which he did not know going into it that was the first thing he said when we were walking out of the theater um he was like so did you know that all of the dialogue was going to be in Japanese I was like yeah didn't you and he said no oh did you purposely forget to tell me that so not only did I thoroughly enjoy the movie it also got my dad's stamp of approval and with that I don't think you really need to listen to any other reviews if dad likes it then it must be a great movie all right those are my first impressions of Godzilla minus one I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you enjoy the film if you go to see it if you have already seen it or if you go watch it after you see this video I would love to hear your thoughts on it so please go ahead and share those in the comments below just try to keep it spoiler free for everybody else I'll be back sometime next week with what else I saw in November the video is filmed I'm halfway through editing it but I got to work on this instead so I'm not sure when I will put that video out maybe I'll just do it next Saturday I don't know but this this video could not wait I hope you enjoyed it let me know your thoughts on the movie and I'll see you next time thanks for watching bye

Channel: Jerome Weiselberry

Views: 20,132

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Id: jlzoDJ1NbG8

Length: 14min 42sec (882 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 02 2023