Contains spoilers for “Godzilla Minus Zero”
It was right there in Looper’s headline: “First Godzilla Minus Zero Trailer Brings The Iconic Kaiju To New York.” When the first footage from the sequel to 2023’s “Godzilla Minus One” featured Godzilla stomping towards the Statue of Liberty, it was natural to assume that, at some point in the movie, he’d end up in New York City. Hosting the world premiere of “Godzilla Minus Zero” at the New York Film Festival only furthered anticipation of an NYC kaiju attack — a potential corrective to ‘Zilla’s last visit to the Big Apple in the godawful 1998 Roland Emmerich film.
Turns out we all got Kangaroo Jack-ed. Remember “Kangaroo Jack,” the 2003 movie that sold itself to kids as a movie about a talking rapping kangaroo, only for it to turn out the kangaroo only talks and raps in a dream sequence amidst a terrible and not-so-kid-friendly crime comedy? This is like that… except this time, the trailer that lied to you is promoting a movie that’s actually great.
Yes, the “Godzilla in NYC” sequence is a fantasy sequence, in the imagination of the Godzilla-researching biologist Kanji Murakami (Min Tanaka). However, any disappointment about not getting a “real” Godzilla attack in the American city is canceled out by the context and the content of this fantasy. After witnessing this nightmarish vision of what such an attack would really mean, you don’t want it to be real — and you’ll be terrified by Murakami’s plot to make it come true.
The NYC dream sequence goes for full R-rated horror
Kanji Murakami, a new character introduced in this
Kanji Murakami, a new character introduced in this installment, is a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. He’s developed a machine that can summon Godzilla mutated Godzilla cells, with the stated intent of using it to make Godzilla fight King Ghidorah. Left unstated to his peers is that, after Ghidorah’s defeated, he wants to use this technology to get revenge on America
In Murakami’s imagination, Godzilla crushes the Statue of Liberty with one hand before breathing his atomic breath and vaporizing the civilians of New York City. The camera lingers on images of bodies being burned by the radiation as they dissolve into nothingness — the one country to ever drop atomic bombs experiencing the effects of such weapons itself. It’s genuinely disturbing; along with flashbacks to Murakami’s actual Hiroshima experience, it’s a big part of the reason why “Godzilla Minus Zero” is the first Godzilla movie with an R rating.
Thankfully Murakami is persuaded to abandon this plan by fellow scientist Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka). Even if we understand where his desire for revenge came from, you don’t meet crimes against humanity with more crimes against humanity. The threat of mutually assured destruction is just too horrible. If a Godzilla visit to New York was to play out like we saw in that dream sequence, we’re relieved it was just a dream.
