Godzilla

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Director: Gareth Edwards Year: 2014 Runtime: 123 min IMDb: ⭐ 6.4
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Synopsis

Ford Brody, a Navy bomb expert, has just reunited with his family in San Francisco when he is forced to go to Japan to help his estranged father, Joe. Soon, both men are swept up in an escalating crisis when an ancient alpha predator arises from the sea to combat malevolent adversaries that threaten the survival of humanity. The creatures leave colossal destruction in their wake, as they make their way toward their final battleground: San Francisco.

Plot[edit | edit source] In 1954, Godzilla, a prehistoric alpha predator, is lured to Bikini Atoll in an attempt to kill him with a nuclear weapon. In 1999, Monarch scientists Ishiro Serizawa and Vivienne Graham investigate the skeleton of a monster similar to Godzilla in a cavern unearthed by a collapsed uranium mine in the Philippines. They find two giant spores, one dormant and one hatched, along with a trail leading to the sea. In Japan, the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant experiences unusual seismic activity. Supervisor Joe Brody sends his wife Sandra to lead a team of technicians into the reactor. A tremor breaches the reactor, forcing Joe to close the reactor door before Sandra and her team can escape while the plant collapses. In 2014, Joe and Sandra's son Ford, a U.S. Navy EOD officer, returns from a tour of duty to his wife Elle, and son Sam in San Francisco. He departs for Japan after Joe is detained for trespassing in Janjira's quarantine zone. Joe is determined to find out the cause of the meltdown and persuades Ford to accompany him to retrieve vital data from their old home. They learn that the zone is uncontaminated and retrieve the data, but are discovered and taken to a facility in the plant's ruins. The facility harbors a massive chrysalis that has been feeding off the plant's reactors for fifteen years and emitting intense electromagnetic pulses over time. A giant winged insect-like creature emerges from the chrysalis and escapes, destroying the facility. Joe is severely injured and later dies. The incident is reported publicly as an earthquake. Serizawa and Graham join a U.S. Navy task force led by Admiral William Stenz to search for the creature, dubbed a "MUTO" (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). Serizawa and Graham reveal to Ford that a 1954 deep-sea expedition awakened Godzilla. Nuclear tests in the 1950s were attempts to kill him; when this did not work, Project Monarch was established to secretly study Godzilla and similar monsters. They explain that the MUTO caused the Janjira meltdown. Ford reveals that Joe had monitored echolocation signals indicating that the MUTO was communicating with something, presumably Godzilla. The MUTO attacks a Russian submarine and drops it in O'ahu to eat its nuclear material. Godzilla arrives, causing a tsunami in Honolulu, and briefly engages the MUTO in battle until it flees. Serizawa deduces that Godzilla was only listening and that the MUTO was communicating with something else, prompting the military to investigate the other spore stored in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. A second, bigger, wingless MUTO has emerged and attacks Las Vegas. The scientists deduce that the first MUTO is a male and the second is a female, their signals being a mating call. Over the scientists' objections, Stenz approves a plan of using nuclear warheads to lure all three monsters out into the open ocean and destroy them. Returning to the U.S., Ford joins the team delivering the warheads by train, but the female MUTO intercepts them and devours most of the warheads. The remaining warhead is airlifted with Ford to San Francisco (where the monsters are converging) and activated after Godzilla appears at the Golden Gate Bridge. The male MUTO snatches the warhead and takes it to the female, who forms a nest around it in the Chinatown area. While Godzilla and the MUTOs battle, Ford and a strike team enter the city via HALO jump to find and disarm the warhead before it detonates. Unable to access the timer, the team gets the warhead onto a boat for disposal at sea while Ford destroys the nest. Godzilla defeats the MUTOs and collapses from exhaustion. Ford gets the boat out to the open sea, is rescued before the warhead explodes, and reunites with his family at an emergency shelter the following morning. Godzilla reawakens and returns to the sea while the media dubs him the "King of the Monsters".

Summary adapted from TMDb and Wikipedia sources.

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Content Warnings

⭐ IMDb Parents Guide 🛡️ Common Sense Media

a dog dies
spoiler When a tsunami approaches, a dog leashed to a tree on a beach breaks free and runs with a group of people. While we don't see the dog die, it is not with the few survivors who find shelter, implying that it probably drowned.
a child is abandoned by a parent or guardian
spoiler If You Count The Kid Accidentally Going On A Train, Yes, But In My Opinion The Kid Kinda Abandoned The Parents
a woman is brutalized for spectacle
spoiler Given that one of the kaiju is explicitly female, and that kaiju battles are inherently a spectacle, this one's a 'yes' by EXTREME technicality.
there's abusive parents
spoiler Not abusive, but Joe Brody became estranged from his son Ford after the death of his wife.
someone uses drugs
Yes
an animal dies
spoiler The Skeletal remains of a member of Godzilla’s Species is shown in the movie.
a cat dies
spoiler According to the dingus above, not seeing the dog dead automatically implies the dog IS dead, but I must disagree. In the case of Schrödinger's cat, the cat is both alive and dead until acted upon. So while we don't see the dog die, we can't say for certain that he IS dead. So he's probably not dead you monster.
a pet dies
spoiler A dog is seen fleeing the Tsunami as Godzilla makes landfall but its final fate is not shown.
a dragon dies
spoiler The closet thing to a dragon is Godzilla himself, he does at one point briefly become overwhelmed by attacks from the MUTO’s but their attention is quickly diverted when their nest is blown up, after killing both of the MUTO’s he does collapse from exhaustion, however he recovers and returns to the ocean victorious.
animals are abused
spoiler A dog is shown with its leash tied to a tree unattended, make of that what you will.
an animal is abandoned
spoiler A dog is seen left tied to a tree as a tsunami approaches. It is able to get free and run, however.
an animal is sad
Yes
there are bugs
spoiler There's a millipede and roach
someone breaks a bone
spoiler There are no exposed bones/open fractures, but it is implied via crutches, loss of mobility, pained expressions.
someone is restrained
Yes
a kid dies
spoiler Not on screen, but probably.
a baby cries
Yes
a non-human character dies
spoiler The two MUTO bug-like monsters. Godzilla appears dead at one point but he lives.
a major character dies
Yes
someone dies
spoiler Monsters destroy major cities. Probably tens of thousands or more die.
a family member dies
spoiler A main character loses his mom when he's a kid and his father as a young adult.
a parent dies
spoiler A waste of Cranston
there are jump scares
spoiler A bird suddenly hits a window.
trypophobic content is shown
spoiler There are many shots of deep holes, collapsed pits and mines.
there's natural bodies of water
spoiler The Pacific ocean is a major focus of the movie, with Godzilla and two other monsters crossing it.
someone vomits
spoiler No vomit
someone is eaten
Yes
There's audio gore
Yes
teeth are damaged
spoiler [SPOILERS!] The female mutos head was destroyed by a wave of atomic breath and the teeth of it may have been damaged, although not visibly seen.
there's decapitation
spoiler Godzilla kills one of the MUTOs by firing his atomic breath down her throat until her neck burns away and her body collapses, leaving her head in his hands. It's standard kaiju violence.
there are 9/11 depictions
spoiler Lots of crumbling sky rise buildings and things crashing into them. After the EMP a fighter jet crashes into the side of a building and lots of fighter jets fall from the sky.
there is copaganda
Yes
there's incarceration
Yes
there's a hospital scene
spoiler Just chaotic ER crowds. No blood, needles, etc.
someone suffers from PTSD
spoiler Joe Brody definitely has some PTSD following the death of his wife. He is shown as being obsessed over it and unable to believe the "official" report of why she died.
there are sudden loud noises
Yes
there's flashing lights or images
spoiler There are absolutely flashing strobe lights for a long time about thirty minutes in when “the thing” hatches. I have no idea why so many people are saying “no flashing lights” The flashing lights end after 8 minutes, when you hear a woman talking on the phone with news in the background
shaky cam is used
Yes
there's screaming
spoiler There is an enormous amount of screaming. Giant monsters attack major cities and whole crowds scream in terror.
there's underwater scenes
Yes
there is obscene language/gestures
spoiler "Shit" is used several times.
there's childbirth
spoiler The female MUTO lays eggs but it is not explicit
there is a baby or unborn child
spoiler Babies or very small children appear as background characters a few times.
there's ableist language or behavior
Yes
an LGBT person dies
spoiler No characters who die in the movie are identified as LGBT.
there are incestuous relationships
spoiler Both MUTOs are siblings. They mate nevertheless.
the ending is sad
spoiler For the MUTO’s yes, for Godzilla and humanity no.
a car crashes
Yes
a plane crashes
spoiler Fighter jets are shown dropping from the sky and crashing.
a car honks or tires screech
Yes
there's blood/gore
Yes
there's gun violence
spoiler The military shoots at giant monsters to little effect.
someone drowns
spoiler A tsunami swamps a huge area and a terrified crowd is seen fleeing it. The tsunami is shown right behind the people before the camera cuts away.
there's a nuclear explosion
spoiler There is a huge nuclear explosion
someone is crushed to death
spoiler While there are undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of people who suffer this fate over the events of the film, it's never actually depicted onscreen.
someone is buried alive
spoiler Lots of buildings collapse with people running near them
someone falls to their death
spoiler People are shown falling out of a raised subway train after a monster attack. Fighter jets are shown falling from the sky due to an EMP attack.
Someone becomes unconscious
Yes

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