'Godzilla Minus Zero' Review: Bigger Monsters, Bigger Spectacle and Just as Much Heart
By Alex Gilston - October 9, 2026
The monster always comes back, and it’s never been more true than in Godzilla Minus Zero the follow up to Takashi Yamazaki’s critically acclaimed creature feature from 2023 - Godzilla Minus One. The eponymous kaiju returns in a high octane adventure where everything is dialled up to eleven. There are more monsters, more planes, more crazy plans, and more destruction.
Despite Godzilla Minus Zero doubling the ambition of its predecessor the winning formula of a balance between the monster chaos and intimate human drama is still present leaving it as a more than worthy sequel.
Two years after the devastating attacks by Godzilla in postwar Japan, pilot Kōichi Shikishima now lives with Noriko and their adopted daughter Akiko. Scientist Kenji Noda now leads the government's large-scale disaster response and he is immediately faced with a new threat. A mysterious asteroid showing signs of biological life quickly transforms into Ghidorah, a creature that takes on the aspects of various animals. It’s up to the rag tag team, along with a few new faces, to try and quell the threat of Ghidorah before he does unknowable damage.
Coming off the back of Godzilla Minus One is no mean feat. A film that audiences consider to be a perfect notch in the Godzilla universe. But the sequel holds all of the same cards and uses them to get to dizzying heights. Quite like the first film, Godzilla Minus Zero introduces a threat, and it introduces the players involved in getting rid of said threat. Whilst the creature levels cities the group weigh up the human cost of it all and decide they have to put an end to it. The final battle comes around and a secretive Hail Mary ultimately saves the day. It’s not overly different to its predecessor and the final act even feels slightly derivative of it, but the fact that these same aspects are scaled up in a way that doesn’t feel overbearing is a minor miracle.
More importantly Godzilla Minus Zero feels like a continuation of the themes brewing within Godzilla Minus One. Of the devastation of war, a country grappling with untold disaster, and its citizens wracked with survivors' guilt. The film itself being cyclical is prevalent to all of this, it feels as though the cycle is continuing. The monster always comes back. So one of the most moving moments, in a film that really values its intimate human drama, is the group's decision to end the cycle of violence. What is film if not a place to process the most damning trauma only to let it flourish into something beautiful that couldn’t exist in the real world.
Godzilla Minus Zero has it all. Extra monsters, extra Godzilla, wonderful effects, a perfectly ear-splitting score, convincing performances, and an emotional core that rivals it predecessor. It is everything you could want from a sequel in every way that matters. If he wants to, maybe Takashi Yamazaki should make Godzilla films forever.
'Godzilla Minus Zero' releases in cinemas on November 6, see it first in IMAX on November 3.
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Alex Gilston
Senior Writer
Alex is a film critic, and self confessed Disney expert. His passion for film is huge, so to be able to write and talk about them is a personal dream of his.
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