Brutal is probably the best way to describe this movie. If Minus One was about overcoming the trauma and overcoming your demons (if your demon was a giant atomic blast shooting dinosaur), then Minus Zero would be like regular people trying to find their way in a world gone crazy in between forces far beyond their control or comprehension.
This is a very different movie from Minus One, although the characters return the situation and circumstances are much different. Shikishima's struggles in this film don't even really stem from the idea of pitting two giant monsters against each other and surviving, but rather surviving the human aspects that would follow, which is an interesting premise but I feel like it was not quite fleshed out enough as the first movie did, which I think still had a much tighter and cohesive story. That being said, I think the level of tension throughout this movie was off the charts: I found myself holding my breath both in the fight scenes as well as some of the build up and that fight scene was bananas. Definitely the most violent and gory fight in the history of this series, it had me STRESSED.
One of my main criticisms are that they kind of teased some moment of development or realization for Akiko and the orphans, but no there was nothing, she just got to flex her motorcycle daddy that boomed two Kaiju (“He got me,” Godzilla & Ghidorah said of Shikishima's dunk over him. "That f***ing Shiki-san boomed me." Godzilla added, “He’s so good,” repeating it four times. He then said he wanted to add Shikishima to the list of people he uses his atomic breath on this summer) and her Godzilla-hybrid mommy, while all the wack ass orphans are in the background crying. I have to say that felt a little mean, especially since they kept revisiting this.
I think this one had different strengths than the first and was visually stunning, but I do feel like the ending was a little less satisfying than the first one since Minus One just had such a satisfying narrative arc, and it felt like there weren't a ton of conclusions to plotlines.