‘Godzilla Minus One’: Legendary monster levels up visually

Nearly 70 years since its debut, Japan’s most famous monster is back. “Godzilla Minus One” is the latest in a long line of films starring the titular beast and the first live-action production (from Japan, anyway) since 2016’s “Shin Godzilla.”

This new take on Godzilla by director Takashi Yamazaki, who also created the film’s visual effects, is a period piece set in postwar Tokyo. Fire bombings have reduced the city to rubble and its defenses to zero — so when a rampaging monster shows up, things go from bad to, well, minus one.

The film begins in the final days of World War II, when reluctant kamikaze pilot (can you blame him?) Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) fakes engine problems and lands on the fictional island of Odo for supposed repairs. At night, a dinosaur-like monster the locals call “Godzilla” attacks the garrison stationed on the island. Koichi is ordered to use his plane’s gun to kill the monster; when he hesitates, almost every human is killed. After Japan surrenders, Koichi returns to Tokyo wracked with survivor’s guilt and PTSD. Over the next few years, he and the city at large begin to slowly rebuild, but when Godzilla reappears (supersized by the American nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll), Koichi vows to get his revenge.

Setting "Godzilla Minus One" in postwar Japan allows Yamazaki to sculpt a few scenes that pay direct homage to the 1954 original, like when Big G tries to eat a train, or when it rams its torso into the Wako department store in Ginza. Yamazaki, Japan’s premier visual effects master, does an admirable job bringing Godzilla to life with computer graphics — though I can’t help but daydream about how distinctive this new line of Japanese “Godzilla” films would look if they had intentionally held on to the old rubber-suits-and-miniatures way of doing things.

“Godzilla Minus One” isn’t purely a homage, though. The new G has some slick new upgrades, like when its back plates jut out one by one as it prepares to spit its heat ray. There are also some fresh ideas about how to destroy the beast, one involving a seafaring scene that evokes “Jaws” on a massive scale. We’re going to need a bigger boat, indeed.

Less impressive are the one-note characters who populate the film, from the eccentric scientist with a plan to the gruff boat captain. There is even a grieving mother, played by a seriously underutilized Sakura Ando. Much of the script, like the rousing speech near the film’s conclusion where a former navy commander urges his men to stand and fight, is eye-roll-inducing stuff.

The best “Godzilla” films have always been about more than monster action. The first film was a polemic about the dangers of nuclear testing. 1971’s “Godzilla vs. Hedorah” railed against the postwar industrial pollution that led to diseases in places like Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture. “Shin Godzilla” pilloried the Japanese government’s lethargic response to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Visually, “Godzilla Minus One” evokes the original film more than any “Godzilla” film since the ’50s. But by locating itself in the past, it avoids taking on contemporary issues, more content to be an entertaining ride than use Japan’s most malleable monster as a metaphor for what ails us.