Godzilla Minus Zero Opens to Spectacular Destruction, But Critics Say Its Emotional Core Is Missing

Godzilla Minus Zero, the long-awaited sequel to Toho’s Oscar-winning kaiju epic, is opening in theaters worldwide this week, arriving in Japan on November 3 and in North America on November 6. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, the film expands the franchise’s mythology by introducing King Ghidorah as a new threat, delivering scenes of breathtaking destruction while drawing mixed reactions from critics who praise its visual spectacle but question whether it recaptures the emotional depth of its predecessor. The assessment below is drawn from a screening timed to the New York Film Festival.

Set two years after the events of Godzilla Minus One, the story follows Kōichi Shikishima and his family as they confront not one but two monstrous forces. With Ryunosuke Kamiki returning as the former kamikaze pilot and Minami Hamabe reprising her role as Noriko, the film picks up the lives of these characters in what appears to be a period of relative peace—until Godzilla and his archnemesis return to wreak havoc.

A New Nemesis Enters the Ring

The movie opens with a sequence of devastation as Ghidorah lays waste to countless civilians fleeing through the streets, dodging both falling rubble and lightning breath from the creature’s mouth. As the marketing campaign teased, this is King Ghidorah, the archnemesis of Godzilla and the creature referenced in the film’s title—Ghidorah has also been called “Monster Zero,” which helps to explain this film’s name. Screenshots from the film, including the opening destruction sequence, capture the sheer scale of the carnage.

These scenes of destruction and terror are described as breathtaking, with Yamazaki and his visual effects team managing to keep their creatures from feeling like CGI monstrosities. Rather, Ghidorah—and Godzilla when he eventually shows up—appear to be real monstrosities: humongous, slow-moving, reptile-like, and all the more terrifying for it. Ghidorah also distinguishes himself from his counterpart with his scary yet herky-jerky, almost cat-like mannerisms.

“The film proves its VFX bona fides from the opening bell, delivering monster-on-monster action that is visually stunning, but the human characters and their emotional baggage risk looking puny in the face of these god-like creatures.”

Review of Godzilla Minus Zero

So as soon as that first-round bell rings, the movie has already proven its visual effects credentials—to no one’s surprise. But it has also confirmed that a Godzilla sequel inevitably means more monsters. None of this is to say that there’s anything wrong with a movie where Godzilla has to rip his own arm off because his foe’s teeth are sunk so tightly into it. Audiences clearly love monster-on-monster action, but the more a monster movie becomes a mash-up, the more it risks losing its edge as the human characters and their emotional baggage run the risk of looking puny in the face of these god-like creatures.

A Franchise at a Crossroads

The most interesting character in Minus Zero is perhaps the most under-served: Kanji Murakami, played by Min Tanaka,