“Godzilla looks really ticked off.”

Taking place during World War II, a kamikaze pilot named Shikishima and his crew are suddenly attacked by a giant unknown monster (Godzilla). Shikishima survives; however, a bit of survivor’s guilt has built up inside of him, and eventually, a mother and her child rehome where Shikishima is staying. After Godzilla once again shows up and wreaks havoc, the kamikaze pilot teams up with a group of veterans to finally stop the beast.

And I have to say, I was extremely pleasantly surprised by Godzilla Minus One. It isn’t just a great iteration of Godzilla, but it also has a really excellent story filled with deep characters. I found myself caring about not only the pilot, but the mother and her child a lot more than I ever thought I would have, and that whole story with them was easily, somehow, the highlight of the entire film. It’s almost kind of funny because this is pretty much telling the 2014 Godzilla movie how to do human characters right without taking away from all of the Godzilla stuff. The main problem I had with that film is that Godzilla, just like in Minus One, was used rather subtly; however, I didn’t care about the characters, so the film ended up kind of boring me (which wasn’t the case here).

Even though I’m not like a massive Godzilla fan (yet), even I could tell that this was a pretty excellent iteration of the iconic kaiju, as I’ve never seen him nearly this terrifying before. This movie almost takes somewhat of the Jaws approach in that it doesn’t show the creature a ton, but instead focuses on the dread and everything that you feel building up to whenever he appears. There is a sense of dread pretty much sprinkled all throughout this movie, and it is used extremely effectively. Going back to focusing more on the creature itself, the movie never glamorizes Godzilla in the usual “action blockbuster” sense that we’ve come to expect from the other recent films. Instead, every situation that he’s onscreen, not only is there a sense of dread, but there is also a pretty extreme feeling of pity for all of the characters that are in the path of his destruction. It’s so impactful that not even words could really convey how well done it truly is.

This also won the best visual effects Academy Award, and I would say deservedly so, even though it likely won because of what the creators were able to achieve with the small budget they had for a film like this. I thought the budget was somewhere in the realm of like fifty million or so more dollars, but no, this film literally cost fifteen million dollars. I don’t even know how they pulled off some of the visual effects that they did, particularly the ones in the city that kind of finally persuade all the people to take a stand against Godzilla. It’s truly, to be honest, inspiring that they were able to achieve everything that they did with the budget, because almost everything about this movie looks entirely believable, and something you would see in a film that costs at least five times what this one did.

One thing I certainly wasn’t expecting, that I don’t even know if I’ve ever talked about in a movie review before, surprisingly, would have to be the sound design. It isn’t fancy or anything, in fact, it is probably the lowest budget version you can find, but I do have a five-channel surround sound soundbar that, I have to say, Godzilla Minus One gave me the best experience I’ve ever had with, and I know that sounds crazy. I’ve never watched a movie before on it where literally all five channels were used completely to their full potential, making for one of the most immersive sound experiences I’ve ever had. If you even have some sort of surround sound system, I highly recommend checking out this film with it, as the immersion of it all is truly spectacular.

The one mixed I have for the film is surprisingly the visual effects for Godzilla. Don’t get me wrong, because of the budget, they didn’t bother me at all, but it is the one element of the entire movie, when it comes to visual effects and the budget, where you can certainly see the limitations. It’s not even close to being a negative for me; to be honest, it’s probably a positive just because of how inspiring it is, given the costs. The only reason I put it in the mixed section is that I could see it potentially bothering some people who don’t know the history behind this film and are more used to pretty much flawless CGI creature design nowadays, especially the stuff we have gotten from the Monsterverse.

On the other hand, or I guess the last hand, I should say, the one and only criticism I have for this film is that I think that certain elements of it feel just a little bit rushed. Surprisingly, the beginning of the movie feels pretty slow, in a good way, as it does a really good job of setting up both the characters and the story, but after that, I think I would honestly say it would benefit from being just a tad bit longer than it actually is. There are specifically some pretty big, emotionally impactful moments that could have been significantly more impactful in my opinion if the story had slowed down just a little bit to hone in on them. It’s not egregious by any means, and they are, in fact, still pretty impactful; it’s just that I think they could have been even more so. Take this as more of a recommendation rather than an outright criticism, I guess.

Overall, though, this was easily one of my favorite first-time watches of the year. It had pretty much everything I want from a movie: emotion, spectacle, good characters, and finally, a good story. Funny enough, I am now interested in diving into both the old and new Godzilla/kaiju movies, and I think they have a lot to live up to after watching this one. In fact, maybe I should have watched those before this one so that my expectations were in check. I can’t wait for Godzilla Minus Zero.