Godzilla Minus Zero Is Getting Oscar Talk Before It Opens, and the First Reactions Are Not Unanimous

Photo: Øyvind Holmstad, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Godzilla Minus Zero opens on November 6, and the first reactions have been around since its New York Film Festival premiere in late September. The summary is easy to give: bigger, louder and still emotional, with a lot of critics saying it holds on to the human story that made Minus One work. JoBlo went as far as saying it should be nominated for Best Picture and compared it to The Godfather Part II, which is a sentence I would put firmly in the category of brave.

Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Not everyone is on board. IndieWire gave it a B+ and Awards Radar gave it 3.5 out of 5, which are good scores but not rapture. RogerEbert.com's critic said it does not quite reach the heights of the first film, and the sources I found disagree on the exact star rating, so I will not quote one. One review said much of it feels like a rehash of Minus One. I think that is the real risk of following up a film this loved.

Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The rating detail is odd. It is the first R-rated Godzilla film in the United States, while Japan classified it G. The same monster, two very different ideas of who should be watching, and I would not be surprised if audiences in the two countries come out of it with different opinions.

Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This week it also played as the Centerpiece of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which is a nice piece of symmetry for a series about Japan rebuilding itself. Takashi Yamazaki made Minus One, and his name is the main reason I care about the sequel at all.

Photo: Tyuvc, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In India the release may slip to November 20 because of Ramayana's IMAX exclusivity, according to a Bollywood Hungama scoop, so check your local listings. Did Minus One work for you as a tragedy or as a monster film?