Godzilla Minus Zero (2026)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Much like Godzilla Minus One, this sequel features impressive creature design and spectacular visual effects.
When we get them, Godzilla Minus Zero dazzles viewers with genuinely exciting and intense action sequences.
The first R-rated Godzilla movie, Minus Zero is not afraid to consider the consequences of war and unregulated power, while considering the trauma and impacts those things have on people.
NO
I really wanted to like this also, but let’s be real for a moment: this movie is a slog to get through when we don’t have creatures, action, and violence happening on screen.
The melodramatic story arcs did not work at all and the performances all feel stiff, wooden, and hyperbolic.
After a brief action sequence, I believe audiences wait 40-45 minutes for a second action scene. This movie simply doesn’t give viewers enough of what they are coming to see.
OUR REVIEW
There are moments during Godzilla Minus Zero, the sequel to the 2023 Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, that feel epic and massive. The creature design is improved and the destruction unleashed proves so impressive that, much like its predecessor, you can simply be swept into the awe and spectacle of it all. But getting there is another matter altogether.
Takashi Yamazaki’s latest Godzilla film spends so much time explaining its threats and pounding home its emotional stakes that the spectacle arrives too late. My popcorn is stale, my soft drink is flat, and I have checked my watch enough times to know how much time remains in the film.
Despite the surprise, shock, and wonder of Godzilla Minus One, this sequel’s long stretches between action sequences and pedestrian, surface-level writing repeatedly drains its momentum.
Three years ago, Godzilla Minus One was the little movie that could.
Made for approximately $15 million, Yamazaki’s previous film felt like a big studio blockbuster and grossed more than $100 million worldwide. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Now, this time around, we pick up two years from the events of the previous film and revisit post-war Japan, circa 1949.
A monster, resembling a dragon, attacks Matsumoto City and two scientists document the attack and survive. They take their findings to Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka), the leader of the country’s disaster response unit, who identifies that the beast is essentially an alien being who crashed down to earth on a meteorite. They name it Ghidorah and have no idea how to stop it.
Yamazaki uses as much of the first 45 minutes or so to lay out all of this. Noda is joined by a meteorologist (Masami Nagasawa) and recruits familiar faces, including former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), to help confront the threat.
This all proves to be very boring to sit through, even if seeing some familiar faces return from the first film, including Minami Hamabe as Kōichi’s now-wife Noriko, provides connective tissue to the previous story being told. In addition, the acting tends to appear stiff, forced, and a bit wooden, including a visit to an American military base which features some of the most embarrassing, vertical-video-quality acting I have seen in a mainstream movie in quite some time.
Nonetheless, as plans are put in motion to defeat Ghidorah, all seems hopeless until Godzilla eventually enters the fray.
You will not hear me complain at all about the quality of action sequences and visual effects found here. Godzilla Minus Zero looks amazing in those moments, with more budget, opportunity and trust to make this feel bigger and more epic than before. What I will shake a fist at is how few action sequences we actually get during the film’s 135-minute run time. This is a movie that feels as if Yamazaki is trying to build a world as if the previous film never existed. The planning scenes, the discussions about strategy, all feel woefully underdeveloped and in the way of what we all want to see.
Yamazaki asks us to invest in his characters and offers a few interesting wrinkles when it comes to Noriko’s character. However, the film is so leaden with exposition and dialogue, the emotions asked of us never feel earned and much of the melodrama is on-the-nose and forced.
When the film embraces violence and carnage though, Godzilla Minus Zero feels mighty. A particularly visceral sequence may shock some audiences, and a seaplane action set piece is thrilling and diabolically intense.
Yamazaki’s effort to make this mean something deeper is admirable. In the wake of the devastation of Hiroshima, raising questions about who gets to possess power and who can be sacrificed to benefit becomes interesting considerations. There just isn’t a space for the film to unpack much of any of that though, since the film’s thin characterizations kept me disinterested and just wanting more Godzilla Go Smash!!!
Minus Zero withholds the promise that Godzilla Minus One understood: when you tell people they are getting Godzilla, people expect he will arrive and destroy everything.
Look, I know a lot of people who had a ball with this and maybe this isn’t for me. What I do know is that this is one of the loudest films I have ever heard and Godzilla Minus Zero commands attention when the beasts take over and action intensifies. But what are we supposed to do for the remaining 100 minutes or so?
In Godzilla Minus Zero, that means we talk a lot, read maps and look through telescopes. And then there’s Akiko (Sae Nagatani), all of six years old, whose prolonged shrieking during the final stretch makes an already exhausting movie feel even longer.
I have no idea what math equation is coming next, but Godzilla Minus Zero is a staggering step back from a fun and truly clever creature feature that reinvented the Godzilla franchise for the world over.
My advice for the next one? Godzilla Minus Everything Else.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Min Tanaka, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Masami Nagasawa, Yuki Yamada, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Jun Kunimura, Sae Nagatani, Sakura Ando, Wes Wing
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Written by: Takashi Yamazaki
Release Date: November 6, 2026
GKIDS