Godzilla (1954)

Director: Ishirō Honda

Cast: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, Takashi Shimura

Have I Seen It Before: I want to say yes, but in my dim memory, I might have seen any number of films in the series, or even parts of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1956). I’ll be honest, the series never meant all that much to me. Godzilla Minus One (2023) changed all that.

Did I Like It: No review of the film will be complete without talking about suitmation. Essentially abandoned by even the powers-that-be at Toho by now, and having spent years looking blissfully silly to almost everyone, there is something to be said for the innovations on display here, to say nothing of the fact that of all large-scale effects photography, climbing into a rubber suit seems like the only one in which there is a risk of dehydration on the part of the performers. Here, it is put to far greater effect than I am guessing you are imagining. The trick is making sure scale works for you, not against you. The less your Kaiju interacts with buildings that can’t help but look like carboard boxes, the better. Setting a scene in a giant, radioactive footprint of your monster at least helps me believe that the creature might actually be that big. I was prepared to laugh at the special effects, but they are surprisingly effective, even before I start grading on a curve for 70 years hence.

The movie’s political message is lean, and well argued, especially for a concept that involves a giant lizard breathing fire down on the world. If indeed I had any complaint its that the metaphor takes a front seat here, as opposed to in Godzilla Minus One, where the human element leapfrogs both the post-war meditations and the monster that wrought them.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Director: Takashi Yamazaki

Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: I’m really annoyed with this film. Deeply, so.

I got to November and I was really quite sure that I had my top five movies of the year all figured out.

Now? Now, I’m stuck either giving Tetris (2023) or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) the bad news that one of them gets relegated to the top ten with the likes of jokers like Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023), or worse yet, The Flash (2023)*. It is easily my favorite action or sci-fi film of the year.

Not only is this one of the best movies of the year, it’s also moved me from being a relative Godzilla agnostic to an absolute believer in the King of All Monsters. I want to see all of the movies in the series now, and I might even try to get back into the recent American series. Matthew Broderick is probably still on his own.

I can’t readily think of a film that so winningly depicts the Japanese post-war experience, and that’s before we get to the giant lizard of it all.

And, man alive, has that lizard never looked better. There are sequences where’s he’s a frightening face that won’t die coming through the water. There are times where I’m relative sure that he’s just a guy in a suit. And it all works as a piece. Yes, even the lurching figure lumbering his way through Ginza works. I was surprised, too.

It might have helped that the crowd I watched it with was just about perfect. Monday afternoon. Maybe half a dozen people including myself. Spoilers, but when Shikishima (Kamiki) makes his escape from his plane just as Godzilla’s head explodes, we all cheered. All of us.

Please go see this movie. Do it with a crowd.

*This is why I don’t do a top ten list. It will force me to really reckon with how I feel about The Flash. This movie cost about 5% of what The Flash cost, and now my head hurts.