My wife and I saw it today 12/9/23 and we both loved it. During the big end battle there is a period of total silence in the movie. My theater was dead silent during that entire scene, to the point that it was creepy. I have rarely seen an entire crowd captured by a moment like that. Never thought I’d cry at a Godzilla movie, but I did today. I hope more people get a chance to see this wonderful movie.
Enjoy folks and if you've seen it, let us know how you felt. If you haven't? I think this review tells you, to say the least, we think you should! See you in 2 weeks for the Silent Night, Deadly Night ranking and if not? Merry Christmas to you and yours! (we recorded this with Secret Satan and I forgot to take the hat off....not a very kaiju look!)
Thx Guys, over here in Germany the movie has a very limited run. In my region only selected theaters show it and only as special events. I got tickets for tomorrow. After your very positive review I can't wait to see it.
Just seen it, I'm no Godzilla fan, went in not knowing anything or expecting anything. Hadn't seen any trailers or anything, I had just heard a rumbling that this was a banger. Spot on...Absolutely sublime, beautiful, haunting film. Straight into my top 5 of all time. So refreshing to have this available to see in the cinema. I loved the pacing, the insight into post war Japan, the culture, and Godzilla was incredible, love the nod towards Jaws. Character development was perfect. The last film I went to see that I enjoyed as much was The Dark Knight, how long ago was that? Must be 10 years or so. Such a nice surprise to end the year. Glad Hollywood was nowhere near this one. Oscar worthy for sure
A sincere THANK YOU to all on the panel. As someone who grew up a movie-junkie, I've non the less reached a take it-or leave it attitude for seeing things in the actual theater. You guys compelled me to see G-1 on the big screen and I can truly say I'd have beaten myself up for not doing so if I waited for streaming.❤❤❤❤❤
Excellent movie. It's the whole package. A love story, drama and action. It keeps you interested throughout the whole movie. It's almost like Godzilla is a back story. I've seen it twice. Couldn't get my husband to go because of the subtitles. Loved it ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Normally I'm not in to subtitles but I loved the movie so much that it didn't matter. I also didn't know what to expect but was knocked out. I want to see it again !
I'm a huge godzilla fan and my wife saw how excited I was for this film wanted to go with me. She thought it was one of the best films she has ever seen. They need to get a (good) dub out as soon as possible for those who can't deal with subtitles. This would absolutely crush.
What a treat, a Monster’s Den extra with the king of all monsters! Many thanks guys, I feel I know you all well enough by now to be able to grasp each of your opinions, CHEERS.
The original " Rodan" was very good. Wouldn't mind seeing a remake of that. It might work with Godzilla competing with another monster for dominance of territory. Godzilla x Kong looks like a CGI kid's s cartoon.
I gave my 10 year old daughter a choice on movies she would like to watch at the cinema. The choices were, Elf, Home Alone, Wonka, or a Japanese language movie with English subtitles called Godzilla minus One. She chose Godzilla, I did stress that it was in a different language, & haf subtitles, & her response was, 'I don't care it's Godzilla! Godzilla is my favorite. After seeing Godzilla Minus One my daughter absolutely loved it, & the subtitles never bothered her & even wanted to know if there would be a sequel. She also thought it was better than the Legendary Pictures Monsterverse franchise. I really enjoyed as well, & recognised the homage to the original Godzilla when the kaiju attacked the train. There was also nods to Jaws when Godzilla was chaising the wooden boat, but the tension was racked up to 11 because you actually saw the monster bearing down on them. We're both glad we saw it on the big screen.
Incredible movie, I was blown away by how invested I was in the characters. The ending had me misty-eyed, and the audience I was with all cheered as well
Thanks for another great episode guys. My favorite show on RU-vid for a long time. Saw it two days ago. Although I'm a big horror and fantasy fan, I haven't seen a Godzilla movie since my childhood in the 80s. But the trailer grabbed me immediately. I watched it in the original with subtitles. Over here in Germany there is also a dubbed version available. It's a great movie. It looks fantastic and for a fraction of the budget of current Hollywood blockbusters. Godzilla's attacks are absolutely epic and the charakters are interesting. Now I've been hooked and will be watching Shin Godzilla next despite of the mixed reviews.
Just saw it tonight. Really liked it. Was rooting for the main couple and was devastated halfway through when one of them seemed to have died. Effects were mostly great despite being CGI. Still kind of miss the guy-in-a-suit approach, though. As Davy points out, the Ifukube score was used intelligently and effectively. This movie is so much better than the Hollywood Godzilla movies despite being one tenth the budget.
Chris: You are correct. Minus 1 stands for "before the first Godzilla." In yesterday's Monarch (Apple+) episode, they refer to G-Day -2 and G-Day -1 as two days and one day prior to when Godzilla attacked San Francisco in Godzilla: King of Monsters (I think), respectively.
That's the Monsterverse though, this is Toho. Someone below has posted the director's explanation - Japan had nothing - zero - post war, so this is....Zero Minus One. Bit clunky, I think..but that's the reason! I did send the guys a pic of the G-Day screenshot when I watched it yesterday though, cool coincidence.
Thanks, guys! Good review. I went to the matinee show this afternoon. Greatly exceeded my high expectations! In a sequel I think they can maintain the look, tone and humanity of the story while introducing a new threat along with Godzilla. Not sure they can pull off another movie with just Godzilla being redundant unless they get very creative with the writing. They need to introduce a new monster, but keep it "real" and grounded. Just something else the Earth coughed up. No mechs, no aliens, no moths.
I went into this film, thinking "They should've thought about that before bombing Pearl Harbor." However, the film did brilliantly point out that the Japanese people, like anyone else in the world, shouldn't have been punished for the sins of their government. And that brings me to my next point. This was an amazing Godzilla film, as he hasn't been this scary or badass in decades. It's simultaneously a great remake of the original 1954 film, while putting a fresh spin on things - in that it actually does what no other Godzilla film has ever done before. It makes the viewer actually give a shit about the human characters! I absolutely loved it, and it needs to win the Oscar for Best International/Foreign Language Film!
I really enjoyed the movie, but being legally blind, I was not able to see the subtitles. They did offer me the audio description option, but we found out that this film does not have that feature. It was still a great movie and because I couldn’t get the audio description the movie theater actually refunded all our money on the tickets.
They made this to please Godzilla fans like us and they also made Godzilla look like the latest Hollywood Godzilla to fool general fans of the last couple to believe that it’s the next Hollywood Godzilla film in the series. Lots of people will go, not realizing that this is different, and they’ll be annoyed at first and love it by the end.
Love this. Fyi, Godzilla has been intentionally scaled up over time as skylines haven gotten exponentially taller, so with this film set in 1940s Japan, they could scale him back down. And yes, Davy, G is more vulnerable, something as a super fan I was not happy with, but, I realize others may dig that. Jamie took the words right out of my mouth when he said, "just try to make a really good movie that happens to have Godzilla in it." Boom, mic drop. And not to be a pretentious prick, but this subtitle thing continues to baffle me - "people don't like to read a movie"... That so many Americans still can't handle foreign films not speaking "American" is fucking Dark Ages shit. Davy: "you just need to be able to read and have a heart, and you'll be fine." Thank you!
Best movie I've seen this year, though that's admittedly a short list. And I loved that they brought back the score from the original film. As soon as I got home from watching it, I ordered the soundtrack from my Asian music source.
I saw it last night, it was phenomenal. Sometimes I was mad at myself for tearing up & caring about the human characters in a Gojira film. The only other time that’s occurred was when I saw the first film from ‘54 for the first time.
Really good film, very enjoyable but surprised that nobody seems to be critical of the ending. Considering how good and not “Hollywood” most of this movie is, the ending felt a little forced and not believable. Talking about the fact that the female lead character lived. That bugged me. I personally loved Shin Godzilla - I really appreciated the originality of it.
I agree with all you guys 100%. This is a great rebirth of the Godzilla franchise. I felt it filmmaking in general has gotten so over the top with special effects. This actually included an emotional story, and there was only really the three Godzilla sequences, instead of beating us over the head with too many Godzilla sequences. Old-fashioned filmmaking style proves to be so much more entertaining As the saying goes less is more . So the production budget was $15 million on this movie the gross box office was so far worldwide the 63 1/2 million. because of the low production budget the movies already made a profit of $30 million.
There is no justice in this world nowadays - it will be ignored by Hollywood on principle. And what is with Americans and subtitles - get over it. Probably second best G film ever, and for 15 million.
Its only a matter of time before writers and directors figure out the real secret behind the challenge and success of writing a Godzilla movie. Minus one definitely schools us on what works as a historical epic with complex tones. Godzilla isn't limited to any genere..the story just needs to be good. Could be hiest film, comedy where a struggling manga artist gets hired by aliens, etc. It's the only time where you just need to find a unique compelling script and add a Godzilla, the hard part is making it work.
Haven't seen it yet, but Chris's comments made me think about the power of good storytelling over what Hollywood does with diversity for diversity sake just to piss fans off and forget about character.
For me it’s the best G film. I own all the G films and been watching G films since 1971. Just a fantastic film. I liked G 2014, but those last two are gawd awful.
I've been watching Anime for 30 years with and without subtitles and it doesn't bother me a bit. If you can't watch a movie with Subtitles, then you neeeeed someone to hold your hand and explain everything to you.
Saw it in 4DX. Pretty incredible. But IMHO I thought the “drama scenes” were maybe carried on a little too long. Cut the drama scenes by about 25% and for me it would have been perfect. The scientist was by far my favorite character. And…Why do I always root for Godzilla?!😅🤷🏼♂️
I saw it the Thursday it came out and loved it. Probably the best G-movie ever. I want to see a sequel - I don't care what they do with it just as long as it is good. Don't rush it - get a good story.
I definitely agree with most of the things you guys said. I also hated Shin Godzilla, but soon as I seen the trailer for minus 1, I was in & couldn't wait to see it. I went to see it the first day. I also hate the subtitles, but that isn't going to ruin this movie. And it probably is the scariest Godzilla movie ever. But I definitely got the Jaws feeling there with Godzilla chasing the boat & shooting into his mouth. But he looked great for the most part & really good story. Definitely enjoyed it & will be buying the Blu Ray once it comes out. I seen the trailer for Godzilla x Kong, the trailer doesn't even look good. I really don't like the whole middle earth thing from the last one either, but I'll probably still go & see it.
I’d say a majority of younger Americans are good with subtitles - most of them grew up watching subbed anime. Older Americans, oh God no. It’s saddening, it really limits ourselves on amazing films, music, literature etc.
Glad I’m not the only one that hated Shin Godzilla. I fell asleep in it. Boring. Godzillas new breath is like the effect from the old anime Starblazers/space battleship Yamato wave motion gun. It intakes particles and then shoots the wave motion gun and it takes time to recharge the and the ship is vulnerable while it’s recharging.
I wish the Americans would keep their hands off the Godzilla movies. None of them have been any good. I would rather see a bad Japanese Godzilla movie than any of the American Godzilla movies, and I am American for chrissake.
Chris completely missed the point if he thought there was no politics in this movie. Hahahahaha. And what a stupid comment that if Hollywood made a movie set in Japan there would be to much DiVersity.
I 100% disagree. I did not like it at all. I am definitely in the minority, but I'd say this is one of the weakest if not the weakest of all Godzilla films. It suffers what many Japanese films suffer from, overacting and over-the-top bursts of emotions in every single scene. Japanese school just lacks the subtlety that heightens emotions and makes acting more convincing. Godzilla looks ok, but there's something cartoonish about his face and eyes. Looks more like a doll than a living thing. CGI-ed water always looks crap and this film is no exception. Characters are pretty cliche and exaggerated. I did not care whether a single one was stomped to death. And then the ending... cop-out after cop-out. I don't know whether people have been desensitized by crap coming out of Hollywood lately so anything different would seem amazing, but this move ain't it. 3/10 from me.
