On this edition of A.V. Club’s Binge Club, what you need to watch before watching Godzilla Minus One. Nearly 70 years and more than 35 films into the series, it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of a skyscraper-sized lizard that Godzilla movies can still surprise you. He may not be the most flexible nuclear-powered dinosaur, but the concept is undeniably malleable. In this century alone, we’ve seen Big G square up against an alien race of Xilians in Godzilla: Final Wars and inspire the Kafaka-esque satire of Shin Godzilla. Whatever genre perches itself on Godzilla’s spiky spine will be well cared for, which helps explain the veritable Godzilla renaissance we find ourselves in. Godzilla Minus One, the latest in Toho Studio’s “Reiwa” era, returns Godzilla to his origins and provides a fresh take on a kaiju assaulting Tokyo. Amid a host of American “Monsterverse” films and streaming shows and the three anime Godzilla features preceding it, the quadragenarian King of the Monsters stands tall in his latest, a postwar melodrama punctuated by the series’ most thrilling monster attacks yet.
