Godzilla: Minus One (2023) Review

[Music] well well well Bady we're finally here I think this may be my most anticipated movie of the year okay we're talking about Godzilla minus one the most recent Japanese Godzilla movie it's been how many years it's been like I think seven years 2016 was the last one is that seven talking about Japanese Godzilla yeah Japanese Godzilla let's go ahead and get this out of the way I've only seen Godzilla versus Kong right I don't know oh really only that one yeah you haven't seen the 2014 mm-m really oh wow so so this is my second Godzilla movie waa okay I thought you've seen the American ones and that's it like the first American one at least no I've just seen Godzilla versus Kong whoa okay well Shin Godzilla is the one before this and that came out a couple years ago yeah they came out a couple years ago it's not before this you know in the timeline this is a new Godzilla new franchise but that was the the last Japanese one and then we've had Godzilla versus Kong in between there we've had king of the monsters the American ones in there so Godzilla's bring up to bat we've taken it we've eaten it up we've watched it we've soaked it in how do we feel about it this movie completely lived up to the hype for me this is maybe the best Godzilla movie of all time I loved it so much nice okay cool and like I kind of wasn't expecting to because I actually hadn't really seen like a trailer for it and then I watched one before I was going to see it and then I we just I didn't end up watching it and then like a little while later I watched it with my brother uhhuh and it was great you saw it in the theater right yeah it blew it blew me away uhhuh go see it in the theater while it lasts because it'll be gone soon well it was going to be gone soon and then it was doing so well that they like extended the run and then they've extended the run again so we've gotten like two or three more weeks with it now okay so go see it fast it may even get more weeks though we may we may get a whole month to see this movie m which is crazy for a Japanese Godzilla movie cuz I think Shin was only in theaters for like a week or two all right give me the basic premise of the movie Braden the basic plot is we have a Japanese uh what kamic thank you for giving me that word you knew exactly what I was not remembering but yeah so we have a kamakazi pilot his name is kichi and he is a timid man who's afraid to kamakazi as I think most people would be you know understandable he lands his plane and godz he has an encounter with Godzilla after that you know we're in World War II Japan is decimated not by Godzilla but by the war and then he sort of uh gets this makeshift relationship with uh one of the survivors and her not her child but a child they find they get a little makeship family going but of course Godzilla comes back to ruin everything and our main character deals with a little bit of survivors guilt and PTSD Etc Etc that's the basic gist we got to stop Godzilla yeah real quick I assume people know this but just to explain for anyone who may not know kamakazi pilots in World War II were Japanese suicide bomber planes so basically when he returns home and people realize that he didn't die that he basically abandoned his duty and that brings a lot of Shame and dishonor onto him right right right I mean I would say his family but his family was also murdered by the bombing in the war yes but there's that one girl I don't was was it his friend or his neighbor his neighbor okay yeah and she he was real close with her and she really condemns him for it so yeah yeah why is this so good bra why it's so good because it has such a good human story to it like you haven't seen a lot of other Godzilla movies I should probably say I've seen I've seen many of them I haven't seen all of them cuz there's like I think there's yeah I think there's more Godzilla movies than Marvel movies I'm not sure now with all the shows and stuff but whatever there's a lot of Godzilla content out there I haven't seen it all but the the biggest complaint that most people have with most Godzilla movies is I don't care about the monsters I or I don't care about the people I just want to see the monsters you know and this movie you could take Godzilla out of it and it still be a good movie you could replace Godzilla with just any natural disaster threat big monster and it would work MH but you also get Godzilla so it's it's the perfect film in a way and it's a great esal ation of the essence of Godzilla I don't know if you know this but Godzilla was originally a metaphor for nuclear war oh yeah that makes sense yeah so like the original film is all about like it's a pretty straightforward Godzilla Rex havoc on Japan you know that's what the nuclear bomb basically represents Horrors upon mankind sort of thing and this is the perfect like escal this is the perfect way to like do that but also do something new cuz it said after World War II we're dealing with the Damage Done to Japan but then we get this nice personal element of Godzilla representing like PTSD and survivors guilt and really getting like into the nitty-gritty of what these people are feeling and how Godzilla is taking them to an even worse level do you know why this movie is called Godzilla minus one yes I do I to talk about that uh basically the idea is that after the war Japan was at zero and then Godzilla shows up and he takes them to minus one oh yes what a creative idea for a title yeah yeah for real for real um yeah I just loved it way more than I thought I would uh usually I'm not I don't really watch foreign films a lot like I'm I'm not used to watching like stuff with even when I've watched anime before I've us watched dubbed anime sorry guys it's fine but I forgive you usually I even watch it dubbed like with English subtitles which I guess is like the the most basic American way to watch you're trying to English it up as much as you can yeah but in this movie I did not even like usually when I'm watching like movies in a different language it I'll be taken out of the movie for a little bit bit I was engrossed in it the whole time and like it didn't like distract the attention away from like the movie it was like again it's like such a it's such a simple plot too like I feel like I feel like this has probably been done in like other movies before like especially when you get to the point when like he has this like little rag tag team of like exmilitary people that they're like shooting like the the mines with of course I mean it feels like uh this isn't Japanese but like it feels like Independence Day or something like that you know we're gathering together to fight the monster it's got this good hope element to it the movie has a great structure I feel like where you it just keeps getting worse for a main character and like he's a character who almost wants to die because he's so almost he does want to die he's a character who wants to die and at some points in this movie like it does so good at like giving you peaceful moments and moments of Hope and then just taking those away and making you say like maybe he should die like put him out of his misery you know and it it just keeps going back and forth and it it it gives and it takes and it's it's fantastic also I want to mention no one phones in a performance at all oh of course there there is no one in this who you're like they were just coming to collect a check everybody brings their aame especially the two main characters the Nori and kichi right yeahh uh and his daughter his daughter had a really good scene too I think she like cries in it it's fantastic it made me feel bad for the actor because I was like how did they yeah did they how do they manufacture this for real I was thinking the same thing man did they actually get Godzilla to come they kill this bitch's mom um but yeah like so again the movie keeps giving you instances of Hope like for instance he he's alive after the war but he has shame on him maybe he reunites with his family his family's dead oh he finds this girl with this kid kind of begins a relationship but you know he doesn't want to accept the responsibility oh yeah and Godzilla's coming yes yeah and on top of all that real quick I know Godzilla isn't like the main character in this movie I love his design oh yeah I love I love the unblinking eyes the whole time I love just that he keeps getting stronger and stronger and like the movie does a really good job of setting up the stakes the feeling like how are they going to beat this Godzilla oh yeah because not only I mean I don't know how he compares to other go I know Godzilla's always been really powerful but this Godzilla seems to have a really strong healing Factor yes like like an instantaneous almost healing factor and he just keeps getting bigger and bigger you see him at the beginning of the movie I mean I don't know how tall he was but I mean he he's smaller but he's still wreaking havoc and then he becomes as big as like a like a ship and then he becomes as big as like a skyscraper at a certain point he just keeps getting worse yeah and then he bends over and spikes come out and he shoots a big giant blue beam oh my oh my [ __ ] God we got to talk about that scene looks great it looks amazing it's it's something that like I've seen Goodville fans talk about you know and they say like me seeing like the beam him like shooting his beam in the trailer and you're like oh my God that's awesome and then you see it in the movie and you're like oh no like it's like holy [ __ ] it's coming and then he just decimates Japan you root against Godzilla which I think like is kind of rare for a Godzilla movie that's true because there is like a lot of Godzilla movies after I'd say right after the first one even like Godzilla immediately becomes Goofy and corny and cheesy as soon as they start getting him to like fight other monsters I mean some people would argue those have like serious tones they don't I mean like they're just goofy Kaiju movies but there is this is one of the more serious paired back ones where you actually hate Godzilla and that's when Godzilla kind of works the best that's what Shin did you know that and I think that's kind of what they're they're going forward going to do with Godzilla I don't know if we're going to get another Godzilla fights someone movie maybe well I mean did you see the trailer for Godzilla X Kong a new Empire yes I did I mean yeah what which is amazing too because it's it's awesome that we're get as a Godzilla fan we're getting all sides of the man the man the myth the legend if you want to see goofy Godzilla you got you got that [ __ ] to look forward to and if you want to see Godzilla at his core you have this and they really set up the stakes for it to feel like you can't beat Godzilla and I we're talking about spoilers they kind of do I mean they do but there's always there's always the like is he gonna come back whatever I want they stop Godzilla yeah he may start again though yeah uh but okay just getting into more like the nitty-gritty the plot so Godzilla you know shoots his Atomic breath and Nori who is koichi's wiish they're not technically together well they are though and they raise this child together and you see them Bond and you can tell that they both maybe have some emotional issues where they can't quite speak their feelings to each other they may not want to commit to anything cuz he feels like he should be gone so you but you get the idea that like this is his family yeah well anyways so Godzilla attacks Tokyo us as atomic breath nory's out of the picture mhm and it's devastating you feel heartbroken right for our main character now he has to raise this child alone and like what's even cool is they go into like this thing about where he wants to kill Godzilla with everything he has and he has an opportunity to because he realizes okay Godzilla's weak in the mouth if I comicazi into his maybe that'll kill him and get rid of him and I can finally fulfill my duty and all that but now he has this kid that is dependent on him entirely so it's like is it more is it going to be more guilty for him to live or for him to die yeah he has to fight his own self-conscious essentially and say like do I stay with my daughter or would it be better for my daughter if I was gone not only by him killing Godzilla in this scenario like is going to save a bunch of people but earlier in the movie after he ditched the like the kamakazi Mission yes he stopped at this island and then Godzilla killed a bunch of mechanics people everyone but him people well but one other guy guy yeah but he he basically killed all of these mechanics people who weren't even really in the war and it's because he did now even if he did shoot him with that plane G it probably wouldn't have taken down G of course yeah but it's still the whole fact of like he didn't take action he didn't like make the choices that would have saved every Godzilla is this like NeverEnding reminder that he is not capable he can't he can't quite face the problems in his life see this is reminding me about like in high school English class where like we learned about like all the different like there's only like seven different plots or there's like man versus nature there's Man versus man or what like there's all those like person you know whatever right but you know ultimately this movie is about a man versus his own inner demons right and Godzilla yeah you think it'd be man versus beast but it's really Man versus himself uh real quick too the music score beautiful so good there's one part when like he's flying cuz they got like this new like cool plane for him to like try and kill Godzilla with and they also have this cool plan to defeat Godzilla which I'd never like heard of in a Godzilla movie before right they have this they have a nice scene with that too a very hopeful scene where everyone volunteers to fight Godzilla no one wants to do it at first and then they just ask their they essentially like they're like you don't have to if you don't want to and everyone's like we got to we got to we got to stop them this is are Independence Day hell yeah but um but their plan is to sink Godzilla to the ocean floor and then if that doesn't work bring him back up and hope the recompression like and and it kind of works for a minute but then um so that that plant because he he gets to Tokyo way sooner so then they need koichi to like fly him back I don't mean to keep recounting the whole plot I just think it's kind of important but and then kigi ultimately kamakazi Godzilla but he survived because they they installed a uh ejector seat yes and so they essentially defeat Godzilla for as far as they know what I like about that too is like it seems like a cop out almost to like oh you give him an eject button like now he doesn't have to make any choices or whatever like obviously he'll live but like what I like about it is his character is so strongly wanting to die that even giving him a cop out of the eject button you still don't know if he's going to press it like they don't tell you that he has the eject button they kind of after yeah you can kind guess though cuz there's a scene like when they're talking about his plane where he's like I added something new and then they just cut and so you kind of you kind of assum well he said I added I think he meant I added something new and it he showed the bomb that he had put in the plane like he said I they put it in bigger Bo really but either way I actually I was imagining what happened was cuz there's a part where he's like pull this red lever before yuk kamakazi cuz it's the safety I thought that what the guy did the mechanic guy is he actually put in the ejector seat like against his will and then it would still com but they they have a little flashback they explain that he knew that the ejector seat was in there so I guess it gave him more like Authority and autonomy to give him like the choice to pull it instead um and then surprise twist guess who survived Godzilla somehow oh yes Nori his his wife his woman his love she says one of the I think one of the like the coolest lines in Godzilla movie has your war ended yet oh my God your war finally over yes and it's it's that's another thing where you're like is this going to be a cop out you know like in the scene where she dies she's very clearly pushed out you're like there's no way she [ __ ] survived that [ __ ] right and then she's just in this Angelic hospital bed and you're like okay like I'm so happy to see her that it doesn't matter that it's a cop out whatever you're filled with joy and then it cuts to the back of her neck and there's something growing on the back of her neck you you didn't see that did that happen yes cuz I remember the way the movie ended was that you saw Godzilla like a piece of Godzilla in the water before that though if you look on the back of her neck there's like a black vein that's like growing out of her I didn't notice that no that that's definitely there trust me I've been on the Reddit everyone's talking about it so yeah it almost implies like a piece of Godzilla is like growing in her and then and then immediately it cuts to Godzilla coming back so no cop out there shit's still terrible like the movie is just fantastic at giving you hope and then [ __ ] ripping that [ __ ] from see hearing that again I feel like I'm gonna need to see the movie again to like really notice that but like because I was actually a little let down that the movie ends with it being like is your War finished yet and they like reunited the families together and he stopped Godzilla and it's great and then you're like damn it he's going to come back like I know that that's and I don't know if they're going to make a sequel to this or not I kind of hope they don't because I think it's really good as it is yeah I think there might be I think there might be talks of it but what frustrated me is I was just like like and I know it's probably just tradition in Godzilla to like always at the end of the movie be like he's coming back yeah kind of but um no so like honestly like I think if the movie just cut right before then would but I was fine with it too it didn't like I said it could have cut there it could have cut there and I would have been happy and it it still would have been an amazing ending ending on that line would be just perfect but I like that they added that in just give you that little extra bit of whiplash just to like further that this is not a mo this is a movie about having hope through despair you know despair will always come back though it's a great little extra tidbit they added in there and it plays that great Godzilla theme there's one I'm not going to say it's a flaw in the movie what this is just a complaint I've been seeing around I don't know if you have any flaws with this film but a lot of people talk about uh they say they get bored like Midway through or not Midway through but like when you're coming in on the third act and everyone starts planning things that's when like like it really slows down and we get rid of Godzilla for a little bit he just goes away as he does in every Godzilla movie this is sort of like par for the course he destroys the city and then he's gone for a while for some reason you know yeah but uh yeah a lot of people are saying it slows down in that part I really liked just the hopeful environment the rag tag teames of it and as you mentioned earlier like it's such a simple plot and we're focusing so much on this one character that I'm just I'm hooked the entire time I didn't really get the only Parts I got kind of bored during were like some of the stuff when they're on the boat trying to get rid of the mines I like that but that's all that's all set up for like when Godzilla comes back in yeah and that ends pretty quickly yeah um again I was invested enough in the human characters that like when Godzilla wasn't there it didn't bug me a ton there were a few times when I'm like give me more Godzilla yeah but ultimately you get a lot of them in this movie and you get some great looks at them too I will say this is the most CGI he's ever looked in a Japanese Godzilla movie I know you're probably you you don't know anything about that but in the last movie in Shin Godzilla they used CGI but they Ed CGI to make it look like a rubber suit in a way like they kept his motion very stiff and and I really like that and this movie he gets a lot more movement and there's a few shots where I'm like it looks a little rough there when he's like moving through the city his arms kind of Swing very like animatronic and and of that comes to like how much budget they had this is a big budget Godzilla movie this is one of Japan's biggest movies Ben a how much do you think this movie cost to make I believe it cost like $15 million that is correct and it's kind of amazing with like people like talk about like Marvel and Disney movies with they like2 200 $300 million budget and then you like see like especially like the flash I mean that's not Marvel or DC but or Disney it's DC not Disney but anyway but like a movie like The Flash which was they spent like a crazy amount of money on and still the special effects look weird in hor yeah and then whereas in this like even though it wasn't like perfect like you can tell they used every scent they had to make it look as good as they could and I still think it looks good when I'm critiquing it I I mean like it's just one or two shots where it looks bad I think Godzilla looks mening he looks awesome in this movie and yeah like you said it's crazy I think most of American budgets is honestly just like casting actors yeah like if they if if you plop a Robert Downey Jr in this movie to play kichi $100 million right there you know what I mean so that is part of it but it is a testament to like you can make a great movie without the biggest of budget I mean it's still $15 million yeah that's it's not an indie film more money than we'll both either probably ever make in our lives more money than we'll ever see in our lives probably but again great quality movie yes do you have any real flaws uh like I I said I I mentioned the CGI is like rough in one or two shots that's me nitpicking though cuz this is a five out of five for me I'm just going to say it I'm going to get we're doing our ratings five out of five yes I think this might be my favorite movie of the year it's definitely Contender for me there's one other movie kind of Rivals it I know we're going to do a yearend video so I don't want to spoil it but it's between two right now yeah and this is this was my most anticipated it meets the hype yeah I don't and maybe I'm riding the hype train a little too much with it but like honestly again it's such a simple story I watched this with my brother and he's not like he hasn't seen like the kinds of movies that I've seen before he's seen like you know more of a casual movie more of a casual movie goer and I was worried that like there were going to be things that were going to take me out of this movie but he even walked away from it saying that like I loved that he gave it a five out of five nice I got him a letter box yeah and you are someone who doesn't even watch Godzilla movies you know you watched Godzilla versus Kong I don't even think you loved that movie that much so it's great to hear that you loved this movie you got a good introduction to Godzilla I mean great cinematography great acting yes great story yes perfect amount of Godzilla yeah cheesy in like a good way but like it also but only at times it didn't feel like Nostalgia bate really like it didn't feel like they're like oh let's throw in the old Godzilla thing cuz whatever it just it felt genuine and it's like this is the kind of thing that I want to see going for with like other things that are adapted from previous properties like reboots and stuff like what whenever they do whatever the next freaking Superman or Batman or whatever I want it to like I I just want to be more like this I want more reboots like this kind of movie anything else you want to say uh I think that's it all right let's bid the video Godzilla noise a do have a great day

Channel: Film Friends

Views: 3,886

Keywords: Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One, Movies

Id: 1s2h5yQGLq4

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2023