In 1954, Godzilla, a prehistoric alpha predator, as they say, is lured to Bikini Atoll to be killed with a nuclear bomb. In 1999, scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) find a skeleton similar to Godzilla in the Philippines, along with two giant spores, one of which has hatched, and a trail leading into the sea. In Japan, the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant records seismic activity. Supervisor Joe Brody (Brian Cranston) sends his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) at the head of a team of technicians into the reactor. A tremor forces Joe to shut the reactor door, trapping his wife inside, and she dies.
Fifteen years later, their son Lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) returns from duty to his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and his son Sam (Carson Bolde) in San Francisco, but he must leave immediately for Japan because his father Joe has been arrested for trespassing in Janjira’s quarantine zone. Joe is anxious to find out the cause of the meltdown and asks Ford to help. They discover that the zone is uncontaminated, but they are seized by authorities. They are shown a huge chrysalis that has been feeding off the reactor for fifteen years and emits electromagnetic pulses. A giant winged creature emerges from the chrysalis and escapes, destroying the facility. Joe is killed, but the incident is reported as an earthquake.
Serizawa and Graham join up with a U.S. Navy task force led by Admiral William Stenz (David Strathairn) to search for the MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). Project Monarch was founded to study Godzilla and other monsters in secret. Also, Joe had found echolocation signals suggesting that the escaped MUTO was communicating with Godzilla.The MUTO attacks a Russian submarine and drops it in Oahu to munch on its nuclear material. Godzilla arrives, causing a tsunami in Honolulu, and chases away the MUTO. Professor Serizawa thinks Godzilla was only listening in and the MUTO was really communicating with something else. So, they investigate the other spore in the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada. But a bigger, wingless MUTO has already emerged and it attacks Las Vegas. They think this one is female and the male was communicating with it.
The scientists object, but Admiral Stenz approves a plan to use nuclear warheads to lure all three monsters out into the open and destroy them. Ford joins the team delivering the warheads. The last warhead is airlifted to San Francisco where the monsters seem to be converging. The warhead is activated after Godzilla appears at the Golden Gate Bridge, but the male MUTO grabs it and delivers it as a mating gift to the female, who nests in Chinatown. Eggs are laid and many more monsters will be forthcoming.
While Godzilla and the MUTOs fight, Ford and the strike team HALO jump into San Francisco to disable the warhead, but they cannot. They put it on a boat and send it out to sea as Ford destroys the nest. Godzilla defeats the MUTOs and collapses on the shore. Ford is rescued from the boat just before the warhead detonates and he reunites with his family. Godzilla awakes and returns to the sea, and the media calls him King of the Monsters. He is praised as a hero.
The film was directed by Gareth Edwards as the first film in Legendary Pictures’ proposed MonsterVerse. It received generally positive reviews. Godzilla’s screentime was criticized, but at 12 minutes he actually appeared longer than in many Godzilla films. It was such a success that Toho Studios rebooted their own Godzilla in response. Legendary Films then produced Godzilla, King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong. Many of the actors were reluctant to appear in a monster flick but were convinced by the nuclear angle to the story. Others were impressed by Edward’s previous film Monsters. Juliette Binoche was won over by her death scene, which was so powerful that it brought Quentin Tarantino to tears. Bryan Cranston admired the characterizations throughout. There were quite a few top-drawer actors involved.
Edwards insisted that the Hiroshima bombing remain central to the story, but the U.S. Army only helped with the production after a reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that seemed critical of the U.S. military was cut. Unlike some other Godzilla remakes, they were careful to reference the original film in their creature design. The score was created by Alexandre Desplat. The Godzilla roar was re-vamped by sound designer Erik Aadahl. They spent six months on it and finally kept the 50th try. They tested it out on the Rolling Stones’ equipment and it could be heard three miles away.
Like the original Godzilla, this one is covered in scars that evoke the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The MUTO design was inspired by Kong, Alien, Jurassic Park, and Starship Troopers. This Godzilla is 355 feet tall, 550 feet long, and weighs 90,000 tons. The countdown clock for the nuclear bomb seems to be the one from Goldfinger. There were complaints that some of the monstrous battle scenes took place at night and were too dark to enjoy completely. I found it to be so on my DVD copy. Usually, this means that the monsters aren’t very good and they are trying to hide the fact, but it has been suggested that this was because of a fault with the DVD reproduction that was never corrected.
The film was made with a Spielbergian structure: open with a bang, take your time showing the monster to create suspense, and drive the story forward with a government coverup. But they took more than that from Spielberg. The action was pretty much at breakneck speed throughout and there was an emphasis on family crisis. Parents died, terrified children were lost then found again, and couples we care for were separated. The pathos extended to Godzilla himself. He would go down in apparent defeat, then rise triumphantly like an overacting wrestler from the mat, while the desperate, Lilliputian human race at his feet cheered him on. Nobody complained about being manipulated this way. That’s why they need damn good actors.