Review: 'Godzilla Minus Zero' is a thrilling monster mash crushed by its giant guilt complex

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Set us as preferred Takashi Yamazaki directs the best monster attacks in the multiplex: “Godzilla Minus Zero,” his follow-up to the 2023 period picture hit “Godzilla Minus One,” opens with a ground-eye view of the decimation of Matsumoto, a midsized mountain town that also happens to be where Yamazaki was born.One local calls its shellacking by winged, dragon-necked Ghidorah a “cruel twist of fate,” moaning that the village was never bombed during World War II.

The moralistic film takes no pleasure in destroying Matsumoto; it’s pro-human to a fault.But boy, does the audience shiver with delight watching Ghidorah stomp buildings to rubble while the sound design rattles our seats.The filmmaker François Truffaut once insisted that it’s impossible to make a truly anti-war film, since its images of combat simply pack too much of a visceral thrill.

I’ll add to that: It’s impossible to make an anti-Godzilla film when we’ve all bought tickets to watch the big lizard smash.Nevertheless, Yamazaki wants to try making a genuinely empathetic disaster movie and he’s earned the right.He’s the rare filmmaker to win his own Oscar for visual effects after Stanley Kubrick did so with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This decent sequel works very hard to make us feel sad about its mass deaths; the only blood Yamazaki is willing to show is when the injured pack the hospitals.

But he’s exponentially better at directing action sequences than he is at emotional ones, and as soon as composer Naoki Satô’s dynamic orchestral score crescendoes up, up, up into Godzilla’s theme music, I couldn’t wait to see the monster explode onto the screen to wreak more havoc.Movies From a new “Resident Evil” reboot from the director of “Weapons” to Oscar contenders starring Mikey Madison and Tom Cruise, here are the movies we’ll be at this fall.It’s now 1949 and “Godzilla Minus One’s” core trio is back...