Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla (2014) is an American monster film directed by Gareth Edwards and produced by Legendary Pictures. It is a remake of Toho Co., Ltd.’s Godzilla franchise, making it the 30th installment of the series. This movie also marks the first in the MonsterVerse and the second Godzilla film fully produced by a Hollywood studio. The story begins in 1954, when a prehistoric alpha predator, Godzilla, is drawn to Bikini Atoll with plans to destroy him using a nuclear bomb. Fast forward to 1999, where Monarch scientists Ishiro Serizawa and Vivienne Graham are studying a similar monster’s skeleton found in an underground cavern during uranium mining in the Philippines. They uncover two giant spores, one hatched and one dormant, along with clues leading them to the ocean. Meanwhile, odd seismic activity is detected at Japan’s Janjira Nuclear Power Plant. Supervisor Joe Brody arranges for his wife Sandra to lead her team into the reactor for inspection. As they enter, a quake strikes and collapses the plant around them as Joe desperately tries to seal off their area before they can escape unharmed.

After a decade and a half, Ford, an EOD officer in the U.S. Navy, returns from his duty overseas to reunite with his wife Elle and son Sam in San Francisco. However, his time at home is brief as he must quickly depart for Japan due to Joe’s arrest for trespassing in the quarantine zone of Janjira. Determined to uncover the cause of the disaster that struck their old home, Joe convinces Ford to join him in retrieving crucial data from the area. Despite discovering that the zone is safe, they are caught and taken to a facility within the now-ruined plant. Inside, they come across a colossal chrysalis that has been feeding off the plant’s reactors and emitting dangerous electromagnetic pulses for 15 years. As they attempt to retrieve the data, a massive insect-like creature breaks free from the chrysalis and escapes, causing destruction in its wake. Tragically, Joe sustains severe injuries and ultimately succumbs to them.