Franchises: The MonsterVerse. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

I'm not going to lie: after I saw Godzilla 2014, I wasn't as enthused at the prospect of sequels as you might expect. I've made it clear numerous times that I found that movie to be disappointing and rather frustrating when I saw it in the theater, and so when I heard there was going to be not one but two sequels, both of which would bring back Gareth Edwards as director and would likely continue with that same, divisive approach of his, I wasn't exactly jumping for joy. As time passed, I not only grew to appreciate Godzilla 2014 more but I was taken aback and pumped at how its success opened the floodgates to a smorgasbord of Godzilla content in the following years, which included Toho's own Shin Godzilla and anime trilogy. Not only that, but then came the announcement of the creation of the "MonsterVerse" via Kong: Skull Island and that it was going to lead to the long awaited rematch between Godzilla and King Kong. Then, of course, was the news concerning the immediate Godzilla sequel, that it would feature Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. The very idea of getting to see those classic Toho monsters brought to life through cutting edge special effects in a big budget, Hollywood movie absolutely blew my mind and really helped renew my interest. And I also can't say hearing that Edwards was bowing out as director didn't add to my enthusiasm. (No disrespect to the guy, as I do think he's talented, but I don't think he's as infallible as some would have you believe.) So, after all that, I see and absolutely love Kong: Skull Island, I get a very nice bonus monster movie in 2018 with Rampage, and finally, in July of that year, the first trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters drops. If you saw that trailer, you know that it was positively breathtaking, with beautiful, poetic music playing over scenes that gave you just a glimpse of what the monsters would look like, as well as not bothering on hiding Godzilla himself at all this time. Like before, I was absolutely hyped, and as its release date the following year drew closer and closer, I eagerly watched every trailer and TV spot that popped up, wanting to see more of what each monster looked like, and also saw glimpses of other monsters' whose identity I was trying to figure out. And while I did try to avoid actual reviews, I did hear snippets that were fairly positive, with one person calling the movie "a Godzilla fan's dream" and that it really made up for the small amount of screentime Godzilla had in the previous movie.

Finally, the time comes and, while I saw the first film a week after it opened, I caught King of the Monsters that Saturday, as I couldn't wait. And, guess what? Like with the 2014 movie, when I came out of the theater, I wasn't completely satisfied. It definitely fixed some of the issues with the previous one, specifically the pacing and the uptick in action, but, also like that movie, it had the same issues of focusing far too much on a number human characters that are so bland it's hard to care about them, despite the top notch actors involved, and, while there was definitely a lot more monster action, Godzilla himself felt sidelined again. He probably has about as much as screentime here as he did there and, like before, there's a large section in the middle where everything goes into a kind of lull, with Godzilla disappearing from the plot for a long while. The disappointment in the movie itself, coupled with how it didn't do that well at the box-office and wasn't going to be the breakthrough into the American mainstream for Godzilla that I was hoping for, made for a rather painful sting. But, all that said, I couldn't deny that the movie certainly had its heart in the right place and was definitely made by fans of Godzilla and the kaiju genre in general, as all the tributes to past movies, the reuse of old sound effects, the recreation of classic musical themes, and the dedications at the end could attest. Plus, it really had some great moments that I can remember giving me chills in the theater, and I thought the depiction of King Ghidorah was excellent, so it wasn't a total failure. As with Godzilla 2014, having now re-watched King of the Monsters several more times on Blu-Ray, I can say that it is an enjoyable and, most importantly, heartfelt movie, but one that's far from perfect and could have been better.

In 2014, the world learned that giant monsters exist when both Godzilla and the MUTOs emerged and almost completely destroyed San Francisco in their battle. Among the thousands affected were Mark and Emma Russell of Monarch, whose young son, Andrew, was killed in the attack. In the five years since, the two of them have become estranged, with Emma staying with Monarch and keeping their other child, teenage daughter Madison, with her, while Mark leaves the organization altogether. While living near Monarch Outpost 61 in the Yunnan Rainforest in China, Emma and Madison witness the hatching of a giant larva dubbed Titanus Mosura, or Mothra, inside a huge containment building. When Mothra is spooked when containment measures fail and the team is forced to step in, Emma takes the opportunity to test the ORCA, a device she's just finished that transmits frequencies the giant creatures, called the "Titans," respond to. She succeeds in calming Mothra, when the outpost is invaded by a team of eco-terrorists led by Alan Jonah, a former colonel in the British Army. Jonah's team kills many of the people there and take Emma and Madison with them, along with the ORCA. In a Senate meeting where they plead their case that the Titans should be allowed to live, Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Vivienne Graham learn of the situation and leave promptly. They track down Mark in Colorado and persuade him to come with them to help find the ORCA, as he developed it along with Emma, and rescue his family. They arrive at Castle Bravo, aka Outpost 54, situated in the middle of the ocean in Bermuda and meant to track and study Godzilla. Although Monarch and the G-Team, the organization's military forces group, believe Jonah's target was Mothra, Mark thinks they took the ORCA in order to go after something else. Indeed, Jonah takes Emma and Madison to Monarch Outpost 32 in Antarctica, which they infiltrate in order to awaken an enormous Titan frozen in the ice. Meanwhile, Godzilla becomes extremely agitated and, after a tense moment between him and those at the outpost, heads to Antarctica. The Monarch team follows him and, en route, they're briefed that the creature housed at the outpost is a recent and mysterious discovery dubbed "Monster Zero." Despite efforts to stop Jonah and save Emma and Madison, Monster Zero is freed and awakened by none other than Emma herself. The creature, a three-headed, golden dragon, battles Godzilla, managing to defeat him and escape into the sky. Afterward, Emma contacts the Monarch team on their command ship, the Argo, and admits she's working with Jonah, believing that the only way to heal the damage wrought by humanity is to set all of the Titans free and restore balance to the natural order. However, her plan goes horribly awry when Monster Zero, which is actually an alien creature known in mythological texts as Ghidorah, unleashes all of the Titans at once with its alpha call and begins its own process of terraforming the Earth to suit its needs. Even worse, Godzilla, the only thing that can possibly stop Ghidorah, has apparently been killed by a prototype Navy weapon dubbed the Oxygen Destroyer.

I've never heard one specific reason as to why Gareth Edwards bowed out of the director's chair for the two Godzilla sequels he was to make. He himself has suggested that, after he agreed to direct Rogue One, which he was not going to turn down since he's said the original Star Wars is his favorite film of all time, Legendary Pictures couldn't wait around for him and so they amicably split. That sounds valid, but I've also heard it said that he wanted to go back to making smaller scale projects after making two mega-budget blockbusters back to back, which suggests that, after making the very low budget Monsters, it all could have been too much, too fast for him. That, coupled with the knowledge that a fair amount of Rogue One was reshot without him, makes me think he might have grown disillusioned with Hollywood. Regardless, when it came time to replace him, Legendary Pictures, rather than bring in another newcomer, decided to go with someone who was no stranger to them: Michael Dougherty. While he first became well-known for helping to write the screenplays for superhero movies like X2 and Superman Returns, Dougherty is also known to genre fans like me for directing two really good holiday-centered horror films: Trick 'r Treat and Krampus, both of which were co-produced by Legendary. Those credentials, as well as learning how much of a Godzilla fan he is, made me quite confident that he could deliver the goods and, as flawed as the movie is and how much it seems like he bit off more than he could chew in making his first major film as director, his fandom for the material is undeniable. In fact, as much as Edwards has always insisted he's a fan, Dougherty seems far more sincere in that regard to me.

The notion that the human characters in these kinds of movies are often very bland and only meant as ways to get the plot moving has been talked about ad nauseam but it has to be brought up again here, as it's an especially big issue in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. There certainly are good actors in this film but their characters range from just functional to downright awkward and occasionally annoying. Also, unlike Godzilla 2014, the cast is very much an ensemble, with no one lead character, and that includes the ostensible protagonist, Kyle Chandler's Mark Russell. (I find it interesting how few people have pointed out that Chandler appeared in Peter Jackson's King Kong, then did this movie, and finally went the full gambit by briefly reprising his role of Russell in Godzilla vs. Kong.) They do attempt to give Mark some heavy emotional baggage, being an animal behavior and communication expert who was once part of Monarch but, after the attack on San Francisco in 2014, which caused the death of his son, he started to drink and became distant from his daughter and wife, leading to their estrangement. When he hears about their "abduction" by Alan Jonah, he initially blames himself, feeling he could have done something had he been there. He's also unhappy to learn that, following his departure, Emma and Monarch went ahead and actually built the ORCA, feeling it's a dangerous tool that could cause another Titan attack should the wrong frequency be used. Because of his role in developing the device, Monarch comes to him in order to help track it, asking him to identify which specific Titan bio-acoustic frequencies Emma used to create the signal so they can do so. Arriving at Outpost 54, Castle Bravo, Mark tells both the Monarch authorities and the G-Team, who believe Jonah and his men are after Mothra, that she's just a decoy and they plan to use the ORCA to go after something major. Hating and blaming the Titans, especially Godzilla, for the death of his son, Mark flat out tells them to kill all of them in order to make the ORCA useless. Ironically, though, when Godzilla becomes agitated and threatens to attack the outpost, Mark, knowing he'll definitely retaliate if they threaten him with weapons, tells them to stand down and open the shields. This does appear to work, and when Godzilla bolts and they find he's heading for Antarctica, Mark suggests they follow him, as he could be following the signal of the ORCA.

When they reach the Monarch outpost in Antarctica, Mark himself infiltrates it after the G-Team goes in, attempting to save his family, but in a standoff with Jonah, he learns that all is not as it seems, as Emma and Madison hesitate to join him and Emma blows the charges that release King Ghidorah from the ice it was imprisoned in. Following the battle between Ghidorah and

Godzilla, during which Mark sees Dr. Vivienne Graham killed right in front of him, he and the others learn of Emma's insane plan to unleash all the Titans in order to restore balance to the natural order of things. Incredulous at what Emma is saying and how she's putting their daughter's life in danger, Mark tries to tell her that this won't bring Andrew back to them, but Emma is unmoved. After this, Mark is mainly along for the ride, as Monarch

deals with the Titans as they're unleashed, although he does have some heroic moments, like when he helps save an aircraft that's nearly destroyed in the air battle with Rodan. And when the Oxygen Destroyer seemingly kills Godzilla, leaving Ghidorah with no one to oppose it and the other Titans, Mark's feelings about the former start to change (albeit very abruptly). After they learn that Godzilla is severely weakened but alive, it's Mark who comes up with a plan to track him down and help restore him to fighting strength with nuclear energy, and when Godzilla is revived and heads to Boston to battle Ghidorah, Mark says they must join the battle. All the while, they keep on with the notion of Mark trying to restore his family and having to come to terms with what happened, with him and Emma ultimately reuniting to find Madison as Boston is destroyed around them and then using the ORCA to lead Ghidorah away from Godzilla so he can get a second wind. But, in the end, it's all very superfluous.

Far and away, the most frustrating of the characters is Dr. Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga), the catalyst of the entire story, as her plan is the most insane, bone-headed one imaginable. Like Mark, she was devastated by the loss of their son in the 2014 attacks and, as she tells the Monarch team following Ghidorah's awakening in Antarctica, she spent a long time trying to figure out why the Titans were suddenly rising after being dormant for centuries. The conclusion she came to is that mankind itself is the problem, that we're destroying the planet and the Titans are the Earth's way of fighting back and healing itself from the damage we've wrought. She also wants to release all of the Titans before they can be contained, destroyed, or, worst of all, used as weapons, and cites how life tends to flourish in their wake due to their radiation as justification for her actions. And finally, she intends to use the ORCA to ensure mankind will be able to coexist with the Titans, an aim both Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham were trying to make a case for at a Senate meeting early in the film... the difference is that Serizawa acknowledges that, while some are benevolent or indifferent, certain Titans are certainly dangerous and destructive. Putting that aside, as Mark, Serizawa, and the other members of Monarch tell Emma, this plan is so dangerous for mankind as a whole, with billions of lives being put at risk. Moreover, Emma, despite what happened to their son, brings their daughter, Madison, along when she, Jonah, and his band of eco-terrorists travel to Antarctica to awaken Ghidorah and then to their base in Boston, where she uses the ORCA to stir up the other Titans. Her rationale for this is that she's trained Madison for survival, something Mark calls her out on as being cold and detached, telling her, "It's not all math, Emma! Some things, you can't control." Regardless of their warnings, and Madison's pleas with her to at least wait until the citizens of Isla de Mara in Mexico get to safety before she unleashes Rodan, Emma goes ahead with her plan, simply suggesting that everyone involved with Monarch take shelter in their bunkers across the planet.

Following the sequence in Mexico with Rodan, Emma realizes that a major hitch has been thrown into her plan when, after Godzilla's apparent death, Ghidorah lets out an alpha call that unleashes all of the Titans at the same time, leading to widespread death and destruction across the globe. Moreover, it turns out Ghidorah is an alien creature, i.e. not part of the natural order Emma was hoping

to restore, and is using the other Titans to destroy mankind and reshape the Earth for its own needs. Realizing what she's done, Emma hopes to use the ORCA to stem the attacks, as well as find a way to destroy Ghidorah, but unfortunately for her, Jonah is unwilling to help, and it's unlikely Monarch would be willing to cooperate with her, too. On top of that, Madison, horrified and aghast at what her mother has done, disowns her and calls

her out on how this is not what Andrew would have wanted. In the third act, having just about lost everything, and knowing Madison has gone to Fenway Park herself in order to use the ORCA to stop the attacks, Emma tries to redeem herself by going after her. She, Mark, and members of the G-Team get caught up in the battle between the monsters as they search for Madison, finding her in the remains of their old home in Boston. The family reunited, they see that Godzilla is in danger of being defeated by Ghidorah and opt to repair the damaged ORCA enough to lure Ghidorah away so Godzilla can get his second wind. Rather than put Mark and Madison in any more danger, Emma opts to stay behind and drives away with the ORCA to lure Ghidorah herself. She ends up sacrificing herself when her vehicle is destroyed by Ghidorah's lightning and the dragon stands over her as she lies on the ground, mortally wounded. Although Ghidorah doesn't actually kill her, considering the amount of radiation Godzilla emits when he starts to go critical at that moment, it's likely she was fried in the process. Despite this attempt at a redemption arc, I'm still left thinking, "Yeah, this was all your fault, so I'm not keen on forgiving you."

I feel a whole lot more empathy for Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), as she's the one who gets dragged along on this insane crusade after having already dealt with the loss of her brother and her parents' becoming estranged. At the beginning of the movie, she's seen messaging her father, talking about how she's worried about her mother, but she doesn't realize just how much she should be concerned for her mental state until later on, when her plan has gone haywire. Despite obvious doubts and her disdain for Jonah, Madison is initially willing to go along with her mother's plan because she's been told it would help save the world. But, after Ghidorah is released from Antarctica and Emma contacts Monarch and tells them of her plan, Madison begins to question it all the more. The crucial moment comes when Emma prepares to unleash Rodan on Isla de Mara and Madison tries to stop her, only for Jonah to tell her that the future Emma promised her is not going to happen without sacrifices and also suggests it's hardly going to be the utopia she likely sold her on. Madison then asks her mother to at least let the people of Isla de Mara get to safety but she awakens Rodan regardless, causing enormous destruction and the deaths of thousands of people. Between that and Ghidorah causing a mass awakening of all the Titans, Madison disowns Emma, telling her, "You're a monster." Emma tries to explain herself, rationalizing what she's doing by saying she had no choice because the government was going to take over Monarch and kill the Titans, but Madison looks her right in the face and says, "Bullshit." She then adds, "You said we were doing this for Andrew. Do you really think he would've wanted this?", and when Emma is unable to answer, Madison says, "Exactly," and locks herself in her room. Later, she overhears her mother talking with Jonah about using the ORCA to stop the Titan attacks and takes her matters into her own hands by swiping the device, sneaking out of the base, and heading to Fenway Park. There, she uses the stadium's sound system to send out a signal that does succeed in making the Titans more docile, but it also attracts Ghidorah, who attacks the stadium and nearly kills Madison. Godzilla arrives just in time to save Madison, who then gets caught up in the massive monster battle that breaks out and runs back to her old home to take shelter. Although the house gets destroyed, Mark and Emma later find Madison and the Russell family is briefly reunited, although Mark and Madison are forced to leave Emma behind at the end when she decides to sacrifice herself.

When I saw the first trailer and recognized the awesome actor Charles Dance, I got especially thrilled, particularly with his great line, "Long live the king." Dance has been an actor I've always loved seeing on film, so the idea of him not only being in a Godzilla movie but being the main human villain seemed like a match made in heaven. So, imagine how disappointed I was when I saw the movie and his character, Alan Jonah, ultimately has very little to do other than stand around and make big speeches. It especially sucks because he seemed like a fascinating character from his backstory: a former British Army colonel who became an eco-terrorist after growing disillusioned with humanity through his experiences in the service. Like Emma, he's hellbent on restoring the natural order of things, but unlike her, he doesn't soften the blow for Madison, basically saying her mother lied when she told her the plan would lead to a utopia of man and Titans living in harmony. Moreover, when all hell breaks loose across the globe following the defeat of Godzilla and Ghidorah becoming the Titans' new alpha, Jonah is willing to let them destroy the world. As far as he's concerned, mankind is so loathsome that it deserves to go extinct, and he tells Emma, "I seem to remember you telling me that the world always belonged to them. Well, maybe it is time we gave it back." He also shoots down Emma's plan to take the ORCA to Fenway Park to try to quell the attacks, as it would lead Monarch right to them, and also refuses to let her use his men to find Madison after she runs away with the ORCA. But, that's about the extent of his role in the film, and that's doubly disappointing because of the strong entrance he makes when he and his men storm the Mothra containment building in the Yunnan Rainforest and Jonah personally shoots one of the scientists even though he surrenders. After that and the awakening of Ghidorah, he does little more than what I've just described, and even gets away scot-free. Granted, stopping Ghidorah was the bigger issue by the point and Emma was the one who truly caused the catastrophe, but it's a shame that Jonah disappears before the climax. He does appear in the post-credits scene where he and his men purchases the Ghidorah head Godzilla tore off in their battle just off Isla de Mara, no doubt for their Titan DNA trafficking operations, but while the head would go on to be a key part of Godzilla vs. Kong's story, Jonah doesn't appear in that movie, just more of a waste of a great actor and a character with a lot of potential.

Like in Godzilla 2014, Ken Watanabe, for the most part, doesn't have much to do as Dr. Serizawa except pontificate and talk about how Godzilla and the other Titans are part of the natural order of things, but he brings the same sense of gravitas and sophistication to the character he did before. There is an interesting dichotomy in that he believes in the same things as Emma, stating in the Senate meeting near the beginning that the Titans are reemerging because of man's mistreatment of the planet and that mankind must learn to coexist with them. However, while he does admire the Titans, he also cherishes human life as well and strictly opposes Emma's plan to unleash them, knowing it will lead to the deaths of billions of people. By that point, he's witnessed the death of his right-hand woman and friend, Dr. Graham, who was devoured by Ghidorah shortly after its awakening, something that really hit him hard, so he has all the more reason to be enraged with the measures Emma's taking. That was nice how they give Watanabe a little more to play with, and Serizawa also gets caught up in the action much more than he did before. But his best moments come near the end of the second act. As they head down in a submarine to locate and re-energize Godzilla with a nuclear warhead, Mark and Serizawa have a nice bonding moment. First, they remember a running joke Serizawa had with young Andrew and then, when Mark finds it hard to believe he's trying to save the thing that killed Andrew, Serizawa tells him, "Sometimes, the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them... There are some things beyond our understanding, Mark. We must accept them and learn from them, because these moments of crisis are also potential moments of faith. A time when we either come together or fall apart. Nature always has a way of balancing itself. The only question is what part will we play?" (This moment is hurt somewhat by a dumb attempt at humor, which I'll get into later, but is a nice speech, regardless.) And then, you have the moment where Serizawa decides to sacrifice himself in order to resurrect Godzilla by going into the giant underwater temple he's recovering in and detonating the nuclear warhead manually when they're unable to launch it from the sub. It's a genuine, heartfelt moment, one that shows how much reverence Serizawa has for Godzilla, as he says, "He fought for us, died for us. He's not only proof that coexistence is possible, he is the key to it." Even better, when he gets inside the temple, sets the timer on the warhead, and as the immense radiation in the place threatens to kill him, he makes his way up to Godzilla, touches his face, and tells him, "Good bye, old friend," in Japanese. Truly touching, and makes for a nice reverse of the original Godzilla from 1954, where Serizawa sacrificed himself in order to kill Godzilla. My only wish is that they'd waited until the third or even a possible fourth movie to do this so that, by then, we would have really gotten to know and like Serizawa, making his sacrifice even more impactful.

Also returning from the 2014 film is Dr. Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins), Serizawa's right-hand and close friend. But, unlike Ken Watanabe, Hawkins doesn't get to do much other than once again be the one person who admires, respects, and believes in Serizawa implicitly, as seen in the Senate meeting where she describes Serizawa's insistence that they must coexist with the Titans as a sort of symbiotic relationship. She also tries to advocate for why Emma went ahead and built a working version of the ORCA after she and Mark destroyed the prototype, saying she thought it could prevent a repeat of the 2014 attacks. Her most notable moment is when she lends a sympathetic ear to Mark when he laments how horribly his relationship with his wife and daughter fell apart after Andrew's death, but it doesn't matter, as she doesn't last too long into the movie after that. During the fight between Godzilla and Ghidorah in Antarctica, Graham is devoured by one of Ghidorah's heads after the team's plane gets disabled in the chaos.

There are a couple of members of the Monarch team who I'm not a big fan of. One of them is Rick Stanton (Bradley Whitford), the team's sonar expert, who tries to come off as really energetic and enthusiastic but often annoys me more than anything, like when he goes on about the Hollow Earth theory (granted, Godzilla vs. Kong would prove him to be very right, but still) or that

moment when they're using drones to investigate the underwater temple and Mark murmurs, "My God," only for Stanton to add, "Zilla," which made me groan, "Oh, shut up!" He does prove to be useful during the major sequences, granted, but he still kind of gets on my nerves. I'm also not that fond of Sam Coleman (Thomas Middleditch), Monarch's Director of Technology,

as he often comes off as annoyingly awkward, like when he leaves the Senate meeting with Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham and plays a film on Titan reproduction for the committee, though he's unsure of whether or not it's the censored version. His interactions with Mark are also rather uncomfortable, especially the first one, where he introduces himself, saying, "I'm a big fan of your wife's... work. And you. That just came out so

weird. Sorry." For most of the movie's first half, Coleman always seems a little too enthused about being around Mark, to the point where, during the major sequence with Rodan where they need to get an Osprey carrying civilians onto the Argo, only for the hangar doors to get hung up, Mark asks for anyone except Coleman to escort him there. Plus, Coleman is a source of another cringe-inducing attempt at humor that I hate, which I'll talk about shortly. However, I don't have a problem at all with Dr. Ilene Chen (Zhang Ziyi), the team's mythologist who, most significantly, uncovers Monster Zero's true identity as Ghidorah, "The one who is many," and that it's an alien creature. She brings a real sense of mythological wonder, divinity, and, in some cases, dread when describing the Titans, like when she describes Rodan as "the Fire Demon." Her best moment comes when Mark asks if her family, which has been with Monarch for a long time, has any tips on slaying dragons and she says, "Slaying dragons is a Western concept. In the East, they are sacred. Divine creatures who brought wisdom, strength, even redemption." Plus, I also love the moment where, right after Emma has told them of her plan, Chen says, "That bitch." Ziyi also appears in the scene where Mothra hatches from her cocoon as Chen's twin sister, Dr. Ling, which was Michael Dougherty's way of putting the Shobijin into the film.

One last human character who returns from Godzilla 2014 is Admiral Stenz (David Strathairn), the U.S. Navy commander who was originally tasked with keeping track of and destroying both Godzilla and the MUTOs. His role here is severely brought down, as he only appears in three scenes. He first appears in the Senate meeting at the beginning, and later, when the Monarch team

gets caught up in the monster battle in Mexico, he contacts them and tells them to pull out, as they've launched the prototype Oxygen Destroyer in the hopes of killing the Titans. And finally, when the Monarch team returns to Castle Bravo, they're meet with the Navy and Stenz briefs them on the situation regarding the Titans' worldwide attack, adding that, this time, they're not responding to nuclear material being used as bait to lure them away from populated areas. He's then told by Chen and Mark that the Titans are reacting to Ghidorah's alpha call and that, therefore, they need to kill it in order to stop the attacks. A far more memorable military figure in the film is Colonel Foster (Aisha Hinds), the leader of the G-Team. While she doesn't have much to her character, she's definitely a tough-as-nails and authoritative commanding officer, very much someone you would follow into battle.

In the awesome scene where Mothra hatches from her cocoon, you have a brief appearance by an older version of Dr. Houston Brooks (Joe Morton), who was introduced in Kong: Skull Island. I have to admit that I didn't make the connection until several viewings, and I also didn't realize he was played by Morton due to the dark cinematography of the scene, the glasses he wears, and how he has

his raincoat's hood over his head for much of it. There's not much to say about him, other than he's the one who first determines that the other Titans are reacting to Ghidorah's alpha call. Also, when Mothra hatches, the big grin he has on his face and the way he spreads his arms absolutely mirrors the way I was feeling when I saw that scene in the theater. And finally, I have to mention CCH Pounder's appearance in the Senate meeting as Senator Williams. Even though she's only in this one scene, I can't ignore it because I've always liked her ever since I first saw her in Psycho IV: The Beginning. Plus, she has the moment where she says to Dr. Serizawa, "So, you'd want to make Godzilla our pet?", to which Serizawa counters, "No. We would be his," a moment I've always liked.

That's what Godzilla: King of the Monsters is to me as a whole: a bunch of great moments and awesome setpieces and action scenes strung together by a story and characters I don't find all that engaging. I'd still say I'd prefer it to Godzilla 2014 because of the, for the most part, better pacing, bigger scope, beautiful visuals, and its clearly having been made by a fan, but just like with that movie, the film's core story and characters could

have been a lot better. Like before with Ford Brody's quest to make it back to his family, I don't really care if the Russell family is reunited amidst all this mayhem, and I don't find the MacGuffin of the ORCA to be that interesting, either. I get that it fits in with the movie's main theme of mankind abusing and manipulating nature rather than coexisting with it, but it doesn't impress me. As for the characters, I've described how most of them are

either bland, a waste of good actors, or just annoying, but I also don't like how they, once again, tend to take the spotlight away from the monsters, particularly Godzilla himself. While he and the other three main Titans all get their moments, especially Ghidorah, the movie is really all about Monarch, crystalizing what was hinted at in both Godzilla 2014 and Kong: Skull Island by turning them into a well-equipped,

technologically-advanced, globe-trotting group of monster trackers, kind of like a live-action version of the H.E.A.T. research team in the animated series based on Godzilla '98. As in that show, they often get caught up in monster action and when it happens, like the scene where they attempt to lure Rodan to Ghidorah in hopes that they'll kill each other, it is entertaining and action-

packed, but I find myself wishing the movie would focus more on action that doesn't involve Monarch, like give us more extended sequences of the other Titans attacking cities around the world or show us more of Ghidorah's attack on Washington, D.C., which we only get glimpses of. And just like in Godzilla 2014, the climactic battle focuses just as much, if not more, on Monarch's involvement and Mark and Emma trying to find Madison, making the glimpses we get of Godzilla fighting Ghidorah or Mothra battling Rodan only slightly more than just enough to whet our appetites.

Now, before I go on, I want to make it clear I understand that human characters are necessary in monster movies, as they're what moves the story along and are meant to be who the audience can identify with, something that's kind of hard to do with the monsters themselves, especially Godzilla, who's not known for emoting all that much. I also know that, while I wouldn't mind a movie where Godzilla himself is the star,

with the humans being a backdrop (ergo, I wouldn't mind seeing Michael Dougherty's proposed prequel film about primitive man first encountering Godzilla), the average moviegoer probably wouldn't want to sit through that, and who knows, I may even find that tiresome after a while, so human characters aren't indispensable. But, it's a real feat to make them work, not so much in how likable or well-developed they are, as kaiju movies

are hardly ever concerned with that (although, it doesn't hurt), but in balancing their scenes with the monster sequences. I don't mind them being a part of the action, as their presence in Godzilla and Ghidorah's fight in Antarctica and the aforementioned scene with Rodan is well-handled (I would have liked that first scene to go on a bit longer in terms of the fight, but still), and I like

that they try to help Godzilla when he's badly wounded, but I don't like how the climactic battle in Boston keeps cutting back and forth, giving us just a little of the monsters fighting and more of the humans doing their thing. While I don't care about the dilemma with the Russell family, I don't mind it being there, either, as long as we get extended scenes of what we paid for. Show us like five full

minutes or so of Godzilla fighting Ghidorah or Mothra and Rodan's battle, and then you can cut back to what's going on with the humans, just as it was done in the past Toho films and which the previous MonsterVerse film, Kong: Skull Island, excelled at. As Dr. Serizawa himself said in the 2014 film, "Let them fight," but it seems like, in these Hollywood movies, the filmmakers just can't stand back and let the monsters do their thing with few interruptions. 

Going back to what I said earlier about this movie being a lot better-paced than Godzilla 2014, what I meant by that is it's a more fun movie to watch in terms of monster action and great setpieces, but if you remember, I said "for the most part." That's because, when it comes to structure, it runs into one of that movie's major problems: "second act blues," a term I've heard other people use to describe a

movie whose middle tends to be a slog. Minus the disappointing death of Joe Brody and Ford being a lackluster lead, the first hour or so of that movie is great, with an awesome buildup of the story and it culminates with Godzilla's first appearance in Hawaii, but after that, it really loses steam, as you're mostly watching the humans attempting to track the monsters and put in place their plan to lure them out to sea with a nuclear warhead, and it

doesn't start to pick up again until Godzilla and the MUTOs arrive in San Francisco. King of the Monsters, on the other hand, not only hits the ground running, showing Godzilla within the first couple of minutes before transitioning into Mothra's birth and the introduction of Jonah, but it moves very quickly through the important setpieces of Ghidorah's awakening, Godzilla's first real appearance and battle with it, the unleashing of

Rodan in Mexico, the use of the Oxygen Destroyer and Godzilla's apparent death, Ghidorah awakening all the other Titans and their attacks across the globe, and Mothra hatching from her cocoon... only to then come to a halt afterward, as the humans try to figure out what to do about the ongoing crisis, uncover Ghidorah's origins, and finally try to find a way to find and help Godzilla.

While it does lead to a nice scene with them discovering the underwater temple Godzilla takes shelter in and Serizawa's sacrifice to give him the power to battle Ghidorah, it goes on for so long that it really hurts the pacing and you wish they would balance that out by showing more of the destruction the Titans are wreaking (although, even during the climax as is, the film's long running time does start to become apparent). And, again, it knocks Godzilla out of the movie for a long time, which I think is a mistake, especially since he hadn't had that much screentime beforehand.

The movie does try to have some substance to it, with its themes of mankind's abuse of nature, the need for peaceful coexistence, and ultimately a question of how much faith man should put in Mother Nature or itself, the latter of which is the very source of the dichotomy between Emma's plan for the Titans and the way Monarch intends to go about it. I can appreciate that, as these themes are part of what Godzilla has always been about symbolically, and I

also like the idea of Ghidorah being the ultimate invasive species since it's an alien that's reshaping the Earth for itself and the natural order is restored once Godzilla destroys it and becomes the Titans' new and rightful alpha. But, as much as I appreciate it, it ultimately comes off like just an attempt to make a big, summer popcorn movie feel deeper than it actually is. Also, the way this movie portrays the Titans as bringers of life and rejuvenation through their radiation is totally opposed to the original intent of Godzilla being a symbol of the horrors of rampant nuclear energy, which I'll elaborate on later.

One thing about the writing I absolutely can't stand is the awkward attempts at humor. I've already talked about how the writers tried to make some of the characters quirky and funny but ultimately made them irritating, but some of the lines they spew out are aggravating, like that, "Oh, my God," "Zilla," moment between Mark and Stanton or when Stanton refers to Ghidorah's heads as Larry, Moe, and

Curly at one point. But what's even worse about these attempts at humor is that they have a bad habit of occurring during moments that are meant to be profound and meaningful, like the exploration of the underwater temple Godzilla is recovering in. Another example: Chen has just uncovered Monster Zero's true identity as Ghidorah, but Mark didn't hear it well and stupid Sam Coleman has to

clarify with, "She said, 'Gonorrhea.'" Oh, I hate that moment! And then, after Dr. Serizawa's heartfelt speech to Mark about dealing with the loss of his son, they have this exchange: "Did you just make that up?" "No. I read it in a fortune cookie once. It was a really long fortune cookie." That joke doesn't completely ruin the meaning and emotion behind Serizawa's words but it still makes you go, "Was that really necessary?"

Despite the complaints I've made and will continue to make, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is far from a movie that has nothing to recommend it. Above all else, it's a visual tour-de-force, right down to its look. While Godzilla 2014 went for a more realistic, muted approach to its color palette, and it worked well with that movie's tone, Michael Dougherty goes for a very bright, rich use of color that fits perfectly with the bigger and more

fantastical feel here. Whenever I think of this movie, I often think of the colors blue and green, as there are so many scenes that are bathed in them, such as the entire sequence in Antarctica, numerous scenes at Castle Bravo and onboard the Argo, the scene where Mothra hatches from her cocoon, and the scenes out in the ocean or deep below its surface. You also have some beautiful use of orange and amber colors during the sequence in

Mexico, deep red for the interior of Mothra's containment building when she becomes agitated and for deep within the bowels of Godzilla's underwater temple, and mixtures of colors for when Mothra appears in the skies in her adult form. Speaking of which, the movie is also wonderfully shot by Dougherty and his cinematographer, Lawrence Sher, both in the scenes with the humans and especially when the monsters are onscreen, as

they manage to make them look absolutely massive, majestic, and, in the case of some, frightening. I also think the battle scenes are well done, mainly because they're not done in that typical, modern action movie use of having a lot of shaky camerawork. That said, there are some moments that feel handheld, and there are a couple of instances where the camera will suddenly do a

zoom in on a monster's face as he looks right at it, as if he realizes he's being filmed. Some complain that, like in the 2014 movie, they have a problem seeing the fights because they take place at night, often in obscuring elements like blizzards or violent rainstorms, but I can make them out just fine and don't think they look as murky as the train attack and final battle in San Francisco did in

that movie (I've heard the 4K release of Godzilla 2014 fixed that problem). And one thing I can't leave out is how this movie has iconic and epic-looking shots aplenty, like the wide shot of Godzilla and Ghidorah's first standoff, Rodan decimating the village on Isla de Mara and making mincemeat of the fighter jets that battle him, Ghidorah letting out its alpha call atop a mountain

with a cross in the foreground, Mothra spreading her wings underneath the waterfall, Godzilla marching into Boston with the Monarch air squadron flying in behind him, and, best of all, him shooting his atomic blast up into the sky after being rejuvenated by the nuclear warhead. When I first saw an image of that last one, I knew it was going to become classic. There's a reason why it's on the poster and was used in so much of the marketing.

The environments and settings, both the actual sets and locations and those created partially or entirely through digital means are top notch on all fronts. Whether they actually shot it somewhere in Mexico, where they did some location-work, or created it digitally, the Yunnan Rainforest at the start of the movie looks so gorgeous, and the same goes for Mark's lakeside cabin in Colorado and the

surrounding countryside (which I think was actually shot in Georgia), the village on Isla de Mara, and the shots of an Arizona oilfield and a hilly region in Munich where two original Titans are awakened by Ghidorah. While the bulk of the movie was shot at Blackhall Studios in Atlanta, they also shoot at the actual location of Tunnel Hill in Georgia for the exterior of the bunker Emma, Madison, Jonah, and his men hide

out in. They might have also used the actual city of Atlanta for the exterior shots of Boston and augmented it digitally to make it look more like Boston, and according to the movie's location page on IMDB, they also shot in New York and Washinton, D.C. (I don't know what they would've shot in New York, though, as no scenes are set there). And finally, the Arctic landscape was, obviously, all done in a studio through green screen, but it's effective enough to where you can feel the cold and the sharpness of the winds.

Be they practical or added onto digitally, the sets are absolutely fantastic, often coming off as either wonderfully high-tech, enormous in scale, or both. Case in point, Mothra's containment building in the Yunnan Rainforest, which is hidden beneath an ancient temple dedicated to her. It's simple enough in design, with a control room looking over a gigantic chamber with a platform surrounding Mothra's egg-sac, but it looks great. However, it's

nothing compared to the interiors of the Castle Bravo base. Outside, it looks like nothing more than an oil rig in the middle of the ocean with a helipad on it, but down below is an absolutely enormous installation, the center of which is the true helipad, surrounded by all sorts of laboratories and control rooms, as well as what appears to be the beak of one of the MUTOs built into the facilities. We don't see much of the bases interiors, save for a

large briefing and control room, as well as some hallways, but it all looks good and gives off the feeling that this is a very high-tech place. It reminds me of the Mana One research facility in The Meg, which came out the previous year, only this place is clearly armed in order to defend itself should Godzilla attack. Speaking of which, the place's most memorable feature are the gigantic windows looking out into the ocean depths, the

shutters of which Mark suggests they open to show Godzilla they're not a threat. The main bridge of the Argo is very similar to the control center in Castle Bravo, and is just as high-tech, advanced, and glossy-looking. My favorite set, though, is the interior of the Monarch outpost in Antarctica, which, again, seems pretty simple on the outside, but when Emma, Madison, and Jonah and his men

take an elevator down to the lower levels, you see this enormous chamber containing Ghidorah's frozen form, surrounded by walkways, plastic-enshrouded corridors, railings, and ladders. After these amazing sets, the Monarch bunker near Boston that Jonah and his men take control of with Emma and Madison is kind of a comedown, with

one fairly big room containing large monitors where they can see what's going on and a large garage where the vehicles are kept, but with generally much smaller rooms, claustrophobic tunnels and corridors, and a low-tech, rusted metal aesthetic. That said, it's not surprising it's like that, as it was meant to be a shelter from calamities such as the one they unleash upon the world.

One thing I definitely didn't expect from this movie was for it to infer that Godzilla was once the god of Atlantis! They don't come out and call it that, but that has to be what this ancient, underwater civilization they find leading up to his lair is, and I have to say, that's a very cool idea and adds all the more to his mythic status (as well as makes his character in these movies feel all the more akin to how Gamera was portrayed in the Heisei trilogy).

You see all sorts of statues and hieroglyphics depicting Godzilla being worshipped by people, as well as carvings of Ghidorah, but the coolest part of all this is the spot that is his lair, where he goes to recuperate from the effects of the Oxygen Destroyer: a gigantic, underwater temple that opens up into a large air pocket. There's fire and

lava all around, the place is glowing red from it, and it has a series of gigantic steps that lead up to a plateau where Godzilla is found lying, feeding on the radiation that permeates the place. Really good stuff all around, and I wouldn't mind this being explored further in that aforementioned prequel movie Michael Dougherty has suggested.

Speaking of Dougherty, one of the things I like most about this guy is that it's clear how much of a true fan he is. As I said earlier, as respectable a filmmaker Gareth Edwards is, and as well-made as his film was, I've often wondered if he's as much of a fan as he claims he is; with Godzilla: King of the Monsters, there's no doubt it was made by someone who is absolutely in love with Godzilla and the kaiju genre as a whole. In a broad

sense, the film obviously takes its cues from the more light-hearted but still straight-laced films of the Showa era, specifically movies like Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, where things were much brighter than they had been with the original 1954 film but hadn't yet become absolutely goofy. In that way, it very much embraces the more mystical and fantastical elements Mothra often brings to a film, but also

applies them in a manner that's not so overt that the movie becomes a full-on fairy tale as a result, and the monsters are still depicted in an animalistic manner, keeping them very much in line with their depictions in most of the early-to-mid Showa films. There are also plenty of callbacks and homages to individual films, like the Oxygen Destroyer from the original, the twist on Dr. Serizawa's sacrifice in that film, Godzilla's nuclear energy going critical to

the point where his body starts to burn like in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Mothra giving Godzilla her life energy in order to give him a fighting chance, which is akin to a moment near the end of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, and the unique way in which Dougherty managed to get a reference to the Shobijin into the movie, among others I'm sure I'm forgetting. Some of these references come off

as perfunctory in their employment in the plot and are little more than fanservice, like the Oxygen Destroyer and Godzilla going critical, but seeing them still makes me smile, regardless. (I've also heard there's an Anguirus skeleton in Godzilla's underwater temple but I've never been able to find it.) Add to that the use of some of the classic music from the Toho movies, as well as an

awesome cover of the Blue Oyster Cult song over the ending credits, and a dedication at the end of the credits to both Godzilla vs. Hedorah-director Yoshimitsu Banno and Haruo Nakajima, complete with an old photo of the latter sticking his head out of a Godzilla suit, and there should be no doubt that, as messy as the movie gets, it's an unapologetic love-letter to this franchise and genre as a whole.

Okay, will all that out of the way, I think we can finally talk about Godzilla himself. Character-wise, he's virtually the same as he was in the 2014 film: an ancient alpha-predator who keeps the natural order of things in balance and, as he did with the MUTOs, rises when he feels the balance is being jeopardized. A little more meat is put to his character here in that you get a sense of just how ancient and mythic a creature he is, as he was once revered as a god by a millennia-old civilization, as well as that his rivalry with Ghidorah, an alien creature who's an unwelcome intruder into Earth's ecosystem, is a centuries-old one. Ergo, when he senses the signals being sent out by the ORCA just before Ghidorah is released from the ice, he becomes agitated, knowing something isn't right, and makes his way to Antarctica, just in time to face off with the dragon following its awakening. After a short battle that ends with Ghidorah taking to the sky, Godzilla pursues his foe and manages to find and attack it again off of Isla de Mara. This time, Godzilla seems to have the advantage, ripping Ghidorah's left head off, but then, the interference of the Navy with the Oxygen Destroyer severely injures him and forces him to retreat back to his lair to recuperate. There, deep within the ancient, underwater city, he feeds on the radiation from the Earth's core, but it's a process that, ordinarily, would take too long to be of benefit to the world under attack by the Titans. However, thanks to Dr. Serizawa's sacrifice and the nuclear warhead he detonates, Godzilla is revived with a massive bump in his power. This section of the movie contains some rare moments of him having real interactions with humans, first when he sees and appears to recognize Serizawa before the warhead explodes, and second when he rises from the ocean following his revival and looks down at Mark, Chen, and the others as they stand atop the submarine. Obviously, they're scared to death of him, and he's overwhelmingly imposing as he looms over them, but he seems to understand that they helped him and he promptly swims away in order to head to Boston and fight Ghidorah.

Although it probably wasn't intentional, Godzilla arrives in Boston just in time to save Madison from being killed by Ghidorah and allows the Monarch forces that arrive with him to join the fight against the space dragon. Despite his newfound power, Ghidorah still proves to be a very fierce and challenging opponent for Godzilla, and it's only through the aid of both Mothra, whom he has an ancient connection and symbiotic relationship with, as he answered a call she let out earlier, and the humans that he's ultimately able to overcome and defeat the dragon, completely obliterating it when his

nuclear power goes critical. Now once again the true apex predator and alpha among the Titans, the others who'd been awakened by and were following Ghidorah start looking to Godzilla and bow to him, truly making him the King of the Monsters. As such, he continues to uphold the natural order and, as news articles seen over the ending credits show, makes sure the other Titans don't attack or harm humans.

I know I'm sounding like a broken record for bringing this up continually but it's the truth: like in the 2014 movie, Godzilla's screentime here is very small. Because of the movie's much faster pace and plethora of monster action, especially during the first hour, it doesn't seem like that at first, and while we still have the problem of bland human characters to deal with, not only are there are far more monsters to grab your attention but, unlike

Gareth Edwards, Michael Dougherty doesn't cut away from exciting scenes and moments in an irritating manner. So, the movie handles itself better in this regard, and Godzilla does feel like a more vital part of the story this time around, but it's still a shame that, like before, he's on the sidelines for a good chunk of it. Not only does that suck because he didn't even get the best of introductions and exploration in the first film, but this is

supposed to show him rise up and firmly establish himself as the true alpha among the Titans, earning his crown as the King of the Monsters. While we do see his determination to kill Ghidorah when the two of them first face off, once the Oxygen Destroyer hits him, he's out of the movie until the climactic battle in Boston. Given that Dougherty promised he would give us more Godzilla this time

around, the fact that we have another mid-section where he's gone a long time was especially annoying for me. And while his resurrection and arrival in Boston are truly epic, like I said, we don't see much of his actual fight with Ghidorah, and when we do see it, the latter part of it is him getting his ass kicked until he goes thermonuclear and decimates Ghidorah thanks to the added power Mothra gave

him. I didn't mind the fact that a lot of his fight with the MUTOs in the first movie had him getting beaten up because, as I said in that review, he's gotten badly beaten in movies before and also because it was obvious he was an ancient creature whose best years may be quickly running out, but he keeps trying and is eventually triumphant. Here, while he does completely obliterate Ghidorah,

given the stakes and his apparent rejuvenation, juxtaposed with what we actually see of the final battle, I'm not entirely sure if he earns his crown by the end of the movie. Maybe Ghidorah should've sicced some other Titans on him, only for him to easily defeat them, or something.

While I already really liked the way Godzilla was designed in the 2014 film, I think Dougherty's tweaking of it made it even better. The design stays mostly the same but Dougherty decided to change the spines and make them look more akin to the jagged, ridged ones in the original 1954 film, an addition that looks spectacular on this Godzilla. He also made his claws and feet bigger and, this time, I didn't find his feet to be as awkward and elephantine as they were before. I'm glad that, when they on to Godzilla vs. Kong, they kept this redesign pretty much as is, as there was

no reason to change it again. Actually, Godzilla officially goes through a couple of different forms over the course of King of the Monsters. When he rises from the ocean following the detonation of the nuclear warhead, he looks more massive than he was before and stronger-looking, something the characters note when the fight begins in Boston, indicating that the warhead really did pump him up. And, when his radiation reaches critical mass near the end of the fight, he turns glowing re,

looking as if he's literally burning on the inside and the flames are trying to escape through the sections in-between his scales. In fact, he's emitting so much heat and radioactivity that buildings and metal objects melt simply because he's near them! Although definitely a take on his burning/meltdown design in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, here Godzilla doesn't seem to be in agonizing pain but rather just bristling with power and fury. Also, thanks to the energy Mothra gave

him in her dying moments, he's able to expel a powerful pulse of nuclear energy that burns Ghidorah right to the bone. Speaking of which, Godzilla, of course, has his trademark atomic blast, along with the added touch the 2014 film introduced of his spines lighting up one by one from the tip of his tail to the back of his head, accompanied by the sound of him charging up before he fires. Coolest of all, he not only has the same roar introduced in the first film but they actually make use of the classic Showa roar from time-to-time. My favorite moment in this instance is when, during his first fight with Ghidorah, he roars and it transitions halfway from the Legendary roar to the roar from the original Godzilla. Little touches like that are what let you know you're watching a movie made by a fan.

If you've read my reviews of the Japanese Godzilla movies, you'd know that I've never been that big a fan of Mothra. I enjoy her 1961 debut movie well enough and Mothra vs. Godzilla is one of my personal favorites of the entire franchise, but on the whole, Mothra isn't one of my favorite kaiju. That said, I was interested to see what a Hollywood movie would do with her, as well as how they would integrate her into the (relatively) grounded approach the MonsterVerse takes, given her very fantastical nature. And, you know what? I actually really like this version of Mothra! For one, they managed to make her rather tough. In the past, Mothra has always come off as a very fragile monster and, aside from her debut solo movie and her portrayal in 2001's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, I never bought her as a worthy opponent to other monsters or as a genuine possible threat to humanity should her wrath be incurred. Here, she's shown to be potentially dangerous from the moment she hatches, as she feels threatened by the containment team and angrily flings them off the scaffolding around her and hits them with blasts of her silk. Later, when she's become an adult moth, she takes on Rodan and, after a rough fight that leaves her badly wounded, she manages to put him out of commission by impaling him through the shoulder with a stinger-like barb at the end of her abdomen. Second, I like the way they laid her mystical qualities into the film. For the most part, she comes off as another giant animal like the other Titans, but there's definitely something more to her. When she hatches from her cocoon, she seems to emit some kind of force that destroys the lights set up around her, and when she appears at Castle Bravo afterward, she brings a beautiful light of her own that breaks up the gray, solemn rain-clouds in a manner that makes her feel downright angelic. Plus, there's also the manner in which she gives Godzilla her life-force in order to give him the power necessary to kill Ghidorah, which is manifested by her form appearing and her screech being heard when he uses the powerful pulse he acquires. And finally, I love her connection with Godzilla. While their alliances in past films have always been shaky under the best of circumstances, here there's no doubt that they are firmly on each other's side and seem to have a deeply-rooted symbiosis between each other. Unlike the other Titans, Mothra never follows Ghidorah's command, and when she becomes an adult, she seeks Godzilla out, singing a song that he answers back to and helps point the humans in his direction so they can help him. And, of course, during the final battle, she comes to his aid and helps him in his fight with Ghidorah, before getting caught up in a midair scuffle with Rodan and finally making the ultimate sacrifice that enables him to defeat Ghidorah.

Like the other classic Toho monsters in the film, Mothra's Hollywood makeover is nothing short of marvelous. Her larval form feels much different from the way it's always been in the past, mainly in how, in her entire introductory scene following her hatching, her upper half sits upright and perpendicular to her lower half, akin to Battra's larval form in Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth. Her backside appears to be well-armored and less vulnerable than it's been before, and the design of her head and face hints at what her adult form

will look like. She's also rather threatening in this form when she becomes frightened and then angered by the containment team, as she starts emitting a red glow from her underside in place of the blue one she emits when she's placid (her eyes always remain blue, though), is capable of grabbing and tossing or shooting enemies with her silk, and lets out an angry, trilling cry, with her segmented mouth opening up and looking like the Predator's mandibles. Her adult form has the same

color pattern as the Showa Mothra, but her design is based more on actual moths, with longer legs than usual, including a praying mantis-like pair of forelegs and a feathery pair of antennae on her head. She's also not as fluffy or soft-looking as she's often been before, with the designers instead taking inspiration from her more wasp-like look in GMK, and adding that barb on her abdomen that proves to be a capable weapon, as well as allowing her to continue to spit silk, which she never has as an adult moth. And like Godzilla, you can hear some of Mothra's traditional cries and calls throughout the movie, as well as some new sounds like those angry trilling sounds her larval form makes, calm, squeaking noises when she's transquil, and a distinctive, squeaky chirp her adult form often lets out.

The classic Toho monster who I feel really gets shortchanged in this film is Rodan. Granted, there's not much you can do with him in terms of character, but I would have liked to have seen more sequences devoted to him, as after his big one following his release from the volcano on Isla de Mara, you see him briefly attacking fighter jets in Washington and then fighting Mothra in Boston. But, that said, his signature scene is one of the best in the whole movie. After exploding out of the volcano, Rodan's attention is grabbed by the Monarch team, who attempt to lure him to the quickly approaching Ghidorah. He absolutely decimates the village on the island with his strong wind and supersonic flying before getting into a spectacular midair battle with the Monarch forces, where he wipes out numerous fighter jets and sets his sights on the Argo. Not since his introductory film in 1956 has Rodan felt so unstoppable and deadly, and after wiping out almost all of Monarch's aerial forces, he comes close to downing the Argo, only to then run into Ghidorah. Initially, he tries to take Ghidorah on, but the dragon easily overpowers him and, once Godzilla is seemingly killed and Ghidorah asserts itself as the new alpha among the Titans, Rodan becomes little more than its mook. He manages to have a few more moments, as you see him causing some destruction in Washington later on and he really gives Mothra a run for her money during the climax, coming close to killing her, when she disables him by impaling him through the shoulder. When I first saw the movie, I thought she killed him, but, after Godzilla has killed Ghidorah, Rodan shows up when the other Titans approach him. Despite the punishment he's taken, he has the balls to try to challenge Godzilla, but quickly realizes it's a fight he wouldn't win and submits to him like the others.

Besides having often been made into a comical figure in many of the Godzilla movies he's appeared in, Rodan's design has always suffered throughout the years. He looks good in both his 1956 solo debut and 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, but those aside, he tends to have a kind of dopey look to him, often with big, googly eyes. Tom Woodruff Jr. and the people at Amalgamated Dynamics really did right by him

here, adding elements of both Pteranodons and actual birds to his design, giving him a hooked, eagle-like beak and small, yellow eyes, as well as having him grab some of the fighter jets with his talons and tear them up with his beak. They also gave his scales and flesh the color and feel of volcanic rock to make it look like he could have lived in the volcano. They retained his classic abilities of

creating massive windstorms and powerful sonic booms with his flying, as well as had him perform some cool aerodynamics in order to take out more of his enemies. It's only with his cries that I feel they dropped the ball, as his vocalizations are pretty generic and they don't ever use his classic screeches from the Toho movies.

However, the monster I was most excited to see get the Hollywood blockbuster treatment was Ghidorah, and I truly think that Dougherty and company created the best version of this kaiju there ever has been. I like that Dougherty stayed true to some of the classic aspects of Ghidorah, including its most common origin of being an alien, its initial moniker being Monster Zero, and the notion that it and Godzilla are ancient rivals, reflecting their constant opposition throughout the Toho films. Just like in the original Showa films, Ghidorah is depicted as a relentlessly destructive monster, one beyond any sort of reason and capable of destroying the Earth, but it's also different in that, instead of just mindless destroying everything by itself, it instead rallies the other Titans to do its bidding and launch a global attack. Moreover, it's stated that Ghidorah is actively attempting to reshape the Earth's ecosystem to better serve its own needs, and due to its alien nature, it's described as both an "invasive species" and a "false god," the ultimate upset to Earth's natural order. In the past films, Ghidorah has often been depicted as being able to cause windstorms like Rodan, but here, they take it to the extreme and give it the ability to create hurricane-like mega-storms that virtually engulf whichever area it attacks. This is best exemplified when, as it's attacking Washington, D.C., Sam Coleman comments that it looks as if the whole sky is alive and Colonel Foster adds, "That's because it is," when we see Ghidorah's silhouette in a flash of lightning amid the clouds, followed by its cry filling the air. Ghidorah is so intent upon using the other Titans to its own ends that, when Madison uses the ORCA to quell their attacks, it follows the signal to Boston to stop the signal. Only Godzilla, the true alpha of the Titans, and Mothra, who refuses to bow to a false king due to her connection to him, are the ones that pose a challenge and even then, it takes their combined efforts as well as Monarch's forces to finally bring Ghidorah down.

Design-wise, not only did they keep the most important, basic features of Ghidorah (the three long necks and heads, the two tails, and the golden color), they added a bunch of details that I think are truly inspired. Not only are the heads great, with the designers opting for the crown of horns from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, rather than the tufts of hair from the Showa design, and a distinctly Asian look for the faces, but Dougherty came up with the idea of each head having its own

personality. The reason why I always refrain from referring to Ghidorah as "him" or "he" is because something with more than one head doesn't come off as a singular entity to me, and I always wondered before if each head was controlled by one consciousness, like a hive mind, or if they were individual creatures joined into one, sort of like conjoined triplets. Here, it does seem like

the latter is the case, as the middle head is the alpha and is often trying to keep the other two in line, with the right head being very aggressive, while the left is a bit slower and more curious about things. The left head, which has been nicknamed Kevin by fans, displays this when the G-Team opens fire on it shortly after it's been released from the ice. Rather than immediately attacking, the left head comes down and inspects

them before he decides they're a nuisance and joins the others in attacking. Also the left head is the one the middle has the most disagreements with, as he's often biting him and arguing with him. As for the tails, each has a set of spines, which Ghidorah shakes to create a sound similar to that of a rattlesnake. And the wings are simply marvelous, coming off as much more flexible and smooth in how they can unfurl and spread, and look more like leathery, reptilian wings than stiff, bat-shaped ones like before.

Ghidorah has its traditional lightning bolts that it shoots out of its mouths but, in addition to the ability to create storms, there also comes a moment during the climactic battle where one of the heads jams into a nearby transformer, absorbs the energy, and sends it shooting from its body in all directions, which really throws Godzilla for a loop. It's also able to physically drain the energy from Godzilla when he's down and out, and it has

virtually instant regeneration abilities, as when Godzilla rips off the left head during their brief second fight, it grows the head back right after it emerges from the water and lands nearby. And because it's an alien, the Oxygen Destroyer doesn't affect it at all. Like Rodan, they didn't have Ghidorah emit any of its past roars and cries but they made it up for it by giving it this memorable, wailing screech, which you hear in all its glory when it lets out its alpha call.

While you don't see much of them, with many being kept offscreen entirely, the film also introduces some original monsters into the universe. The ones that are seen include Scylla, a spider-like creature with a bunch of squid-like tentacles around its mouth; Methuselah, an enormous, reptilian creature that emerges from under the ground in Munich upon hearing Ghidorah's call; a Queen MUTO that appears at the end to bow

down to Godzilla; and, most popular among fans, Behemoth, an interesting-looking monster that's akin to a wooly mammoth but has sloth features to it as well. You also briefly see footage of Kong taken directly from Skull Island in a couple of scenes, although exactly how Monarch acquired that footage is up in the air, given how unlikely it was for any camera footage from that story to have survived.

Dougherty was also hoping to put in other well-known Toho kaiju like Anguirus, Biollante, and Gigan, but they couldn't afford them and I think it's a good thing, as you don't want to make the mistake of certain comic book movies and cram too many characters into one film. Plus, you never know, they may get a chance to use them in another movie down the line.

While Godzilla 2014 dealt with the monsters more in pure scientific terms, King of the Monsters adds that extra layer of myth to them, with the Titans' locations and identities being discovered by deciphering ancient legends throughout the world, and accounts describing them as "the fire demon" or, "A great dragon who fell from the stars. A Hydra whose storm swallowed both men and gods alike." Like I've said, the movie doesn't go into full

on fantasy territory, but it does help the Titans feel just as much like living gods as enormous animals, expanding on something that was already done to some degree in Kong: Skull Island. Plus, I like the way Chen applies her mythology research to the actual science employed to study them, telling Mark at one point, "'Myth is our compass.' It's something my mom used to say.

She believed our stories about monsters and dragons could help us find the Titans, and restore our connection to nature." And while we're on the subject of monster myths, a little Easter egg is that one of the Titans that's never seen is called Mokele Mbembe, the name of an actual cryptid reported to live in the Congo. Plus, during the ending credits montage, which includes many real historical and ancient drawings of dragons, sea monsters, and other mythic beasts, you see a map that identifies the spots where various Titans are located and one of the spots happens to be Loch Ness.

I also like that this film deals with the repercussions of the events of the first one. People now know that giant and potentially destructive creatures exist in the remote regions of the Earth, and there's now speculation as to how many of them there are and debate about whether or not they should all be destroyed. While the Senate conducts a hearing with Monarch about this, you also see that, due to the sheer destruction Godzilla

and the MUTOs caused five years before and the painful memories brought up by the event's anniversary, there are people protesting in the streets of Washington, holding signs saying the Titans should die (one of the signs reads, "DESTROY ALL MONSTERS!"). Though it's only brought up in the opening and given a conclusion during the ending montage, you also have Monarch being put under scrutiny for how

much it knows about the Titans and the Senate becoming frustrated with how they continue to be tight-lipped and won't explain exactly why they feel the Titans should be allowed to live. During that ending montage, you see an article stating that Monarch is now disclosing every bit of data is accrued over the past sixty years and their actions, be it beefing up security around Skull Island or

exploring the Hollow Earth, are no longer being conducted in secrecy. The discussion about why the Titans are suddenly appearing after centuries of dormancy is another issue that's brought up, and the question is raised about whether or not they should be allowed to take the Earth back and exactly how involved mankind should be in this. And finally, you have the world itself adapting to the Titans' existence, notably in how there's now a black market for the creatures' DNA and body parts, given how Alan Jonah funds his eco-terrorism activities through such trafficking.

As I alluded to earlier, one thing about the Titans that I find strange is the idea that their radiation causes life to flourish after they've passed through an area, which is the crux for why Emma wishes to unleash them and which comes to pass at the end when Godzilla becomes their alpha, as the montage shows us all sorts of articles talking about the positive effect they're having on the planet. When I reviewed Godzilla 2014, I talked about how I felt

the characterization of Godzilla having always been radioactive in nature rather negated his connection to the atomic bomb, diluting the very core of his character, and that the movie also didn't go into how cautiously nuclear power should be used, but this goes much further. Now, Godzilla and the other Titans' intense radioactivity is meant to be a good thing, as is letting them run rampant with it, with Emma describing it as being akin to

how a forest fire or volcanic eruption has an ultimate positive effect. Yeah, but a forest fire or eruption doesn't make a place so toxic that it's uninhabitable, as happened when nuclear energy got out of control at Chernobyl and turned it into a ghost town that will remain deathly radioactive for thousands of years to come. I also have a feeling the people who lived through the bombings of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have something to say about this film's stance on radiation. And no, it's not because the Titans are radioactive from the planet's core rather than having been mutated by the atomic bombs, because their lethality is the very reason why Dr. Serizawa has to sacrifice himself to help Godzilla. Ultimately, it's not a major issue that totally ruins the movie, but once I thought about it, I realized just how much this is the polar opposite of the very point of Godzilla being the personification of the horrors of the bomb.

As should be abundantly clear by this point, the visual effects in the film are awesome, be it when they're used to digitally enhance or create whole environments, animate aircraft like the fighter jets and the Argo, or, most of all, in bringing the monsters to life. As usual, motion-capture was used to create detailed expressions in the monsters' faces, and while these creatures don't emote as well as others like Kong, it's still very well-done. One of

the best examples is when you see a big close-up of Godzilla's face when he first sees Ghidorah and you can read the sheer hatred and rage he has at the sight of it, as well as when he gets real close to those on the submarine and inspects them following his rejuvenation, as it's clear he's inspecting and sizing them up. A method of motion capture that I found really cool when I heard about it is how they literally tied the three actors who

played Ghidorah's heads together, which probably helped them portray these three different consciousnesses that share the same body. But, as great as all this digital work is, I find it disappointing that they didn't use more practical effects in the film, which Michael Dougherty had successfully done in the two horror films he directed before. In fact, Dougherty had said he

would make use of practical effects, and I had hoped that would mean he would have some animatronic heads built, along with maybe some full-size limbs, appendages, or even torsos, but no, it seems like everything involving the monsters was done digitally. I'd thought they'd used something practical in the scene between Serizawa and Godzilla but, while there was something there for Ken Watanabe to work with, it wasn't a full-size head or anything of that nature (although, I have a feeling the severed Ghidorah at the end is practical).

This movie sets the mood right from the very start, with the Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures logos appearing carved in stone, lit by a fiery glow and with burning embers drifting past them. You also hear Godzilla's unmistakable booming footsteps, and when the screen goes black, you hear a combination of his classic roar and the Legendary roar. The movie truly starts on a

flashback to the destruction of San Francisco from the 2014 movie, and the first thing you see is the descending HALO jumpers from that film's climax. Amid a section of burning rubble, Mark Russell is introduced as he calls for his son, Andrew, while Emma stands nearby, holding young Madison in her arms, as civilians are led to safety behind them. The sound of giant footsteps is heard

and they turn to see Godzilla stomping through, letting out a loud bellow as he goes. We then see that this is Emma reliving a painful memory, as she's shown sitting on a bed, looking out the window, before she glances over to her dresser to see a framed picture of the family she once had, including Andrew. After that, we see news reports of a memorial gathering for the victims of the 2014 incident, which is reported as being part of a wave

of such events, as well as protests demanding that Monarch be held accountable for what happened. News footage of such protests in Washington are shown, and then, massive die-offs of marine life are attributed to attempts to locate Godzilla. The last item talks about the heads of Monarch being grilled by the government as to whether or not the Titans should be exterminated, as well as that Monarch may have discovered more of them since

the 2014 incident, the anchor then adding, "A historic tragedy that changed the world as we know it forever. The day the world discovered that monsters are real." After watching all of this news coverage, Emma closes a black case sitting in front of her.

There's a moment with the now teenage Madison, as she checks her e-mail and finds a message from her father that asks how things are going. It also contains some pictures of a pack of wolves he's studying, and some old pics of the two of them. She nervously writes back, telling him she's worried about Emma, only to be distracted when the smoke alarm goes off, as some food she was cooking

starts to burn. Following a humorous moment where Emma comes in and helps her by turning off the stove and fanning away the smoke, the two of them have a serious conversation when Madison admits she was talking to Mark. They discuss whether or not she should respond to him and Emma assures her, "We're gonna get through this... together." Madison asks Emma if Mark is going to

be okay and she assures her that he's perfectly safe where he is. Emma also notes the case, which contains the ORCA, and tells Madison it's going to work. Suddenly, the entire house shakes and a bizarre screech pierces the air. The two of them look out the window, as Emma is contacted on her walkie-talkie and told she's needed in "containment." That's when the camera pulls

back to reveal a jungle, with an old temple at the center, as a caption tells us the place is Monarch Outpost 61 in China's Yunnan Rainforest. The scene switches to the two of them walking down a corridor in the temple with another scientist, Tim Mancini, who tells Emma the Titan contained there was sleeping peacefully when her radiation levels suddenly shot up, as if triggered by something. Emma tries to send Tim away, saying she can take

things from there, but Tim tells her he's not missing what's about to happen. Madison glances at a stone carving of a moth on the temple wall and joins the adults in a control booth overlooking a gigantic chamber, the centerpiece of which is an enormous, pulsating mass with a walkway around it. Tim tells Emma the sedatives aren't working on the creature anymore, as it, "Wants to be born." Men in bio-hazard suits on the walkway step back as the mass

stretches upward, while Emma, in the control booth, comments, "Her time has come." As the pulsating intensifies, a membrane covering the mass is ripped off by the stretching and a giant form pushes its way through the mass, which falls away completely. The creature turns around and looks at the suited men nearby, while in the booth, Tim notes, "Meet Titanus Mosura, or, as we like to call her...", and a smiling Madison finishes, "Mothra."

A laser containment grid activates around Mothra, but almost immediately, the blue lasers turn red and power off. Mothra, who was already startled by the lasers, becomes agitated and slams down on the walkway, as Tim looks at a monitor and tells Emma the place's entire network is going crazy, that he thinks someone is jamming their systems. Mothra lets out an angry bellow and her

chamber starts to shake, as well as glow red from her fury, and Emma tells the containment team to stand down. One man points his taser gun at Mothra in a panic, when she slams down one of her sharp claws right in front of him. He fires and hits her, thoroughly enraging her. She spits her silk webbing at the containment team, knocking them off the walkway and, in one guy's case, sticking

him to the wall. The other members of the team rush down the walkway to escape, but Mothra smashes through a section of it right behind the man at the rear, causing him to fall, then grabs him with her mandibles and throws him against the wall of the chamber, sticking him to the webbing. In the booth, Tim goes to hit a button that would kill her but Emma stops him, saying she can calm her. She grabs the ORCA and, despite Madison

trying to stop her, goes through the door leading into the chamber. She cautiously walks down the walkway towards Mothra, who's still very agitated, growling and slamming on the walkway, warning Emma to stay back. She watches as Emma slowly crouches down, opens and then activates the ORCA, which begins analyzing Mothra's bio-acoustics. The ORCA lets out a loud, pulsating sound that Mothra does not like and she spits

webbing at Emma, who ducks out of the way. As a horrified Madison watches from the booth, Emma tries to find the right frequency, having to dodge another shot of webbing. Madison quickly grabs Tim's keycard and uses it to enter the chamber. She runs to her mother, ignoring her yelling at her to get back, and tries to get her to run, as Mothra grows more enraged. She rises up, preparing to go in for the kill, as Emma continues trying to find the

right frequency. At the last possible moment, the alpha frequency is found and played. Mothra is almost on top of them and screeches at them, only to abruptly stop when the ORCA begins emitting the frequency. She grows quiet and the red glow goes back to the peaceful blue it was before, as she calmly pulls back and lets out a warbling sound. Emma and Madison realizes the ORCA has succeeded in calming Mothra, while in the booth, an astonished Tim says, "Son of a bitch. It worked."

Madison approaches Mothra, reaching her hand out, and Mothra, in turn, curiously bends down towards her. She almost gets close enough to touch Mothra's enormous face, when the giant larva lets out a big exhale of air through her mouth, which the two of them can only chuckle in wonder at. Emma turns to look back at the control booth, when it's suddenly rocked by an explosion. A

group of armed men rush in and shoot everyone they see, as Mothra rears up at the sound of this. When Tim is the only one left alive, Alan Jonah walks in. Tim slowly gets to his feet and holds his hands up, but Jonah aims a handgun and shoots him right through the head, shattering the window behind him. Emma and Madison look on in horror as Jonah smiles evilly at them, before glancing up

at Mothra and then setting his sights on the ORCA behind them. The film then abruptly cuts to Godzilla battling the female MUTO from the first film, the camera pulling back to reveal it's footage being played during Monarch's Senate meeting. You also get brief shots of Kong as Sam Coleman states his case about the Titans and how they provide balance to the planet's natural order. The scene goes on for a bit, with Dr. Serizawa making

his case about how man must learn to coexist with the Titans, when Dr. Vivienne Graham's cellphone vibrates from a call. The two of them look and see what's happened and rush out of the room, ignoring Senator Williams' warnings of what their abrupt departure could mean for their case. The awkward Coleman follows behind them and, on his way out, he says he's going to play a short and "fun" documentary about Titan reproduction, saying he thinks this is the one where the genitals are censored. On the screen, it starts playing an intimate scene between the two MUTOs and, apparently, the two of them nuzzling each other is considered censor-worthy.

We cut to Colorado, where Mark is watching the pack of wolves eating a deer they've just killed. He takes some pictures from his cover behind a log and also listens to the frequency of their barking and growling, when the serenity is broken by the sound of an approaching helicopter. The wolves scatter and Mark watches as an Osprey chopper lands in the field across from him. When

Serizawa, Graham, and Coleman disembark, he knows this isn't a social call. Later, at his cabin, he's briefed about what happened, shown security camera footage of Emma and Madison being abducted, and is then shown a close-up of Emma using the ORCA to calm Mothra. Mark's grief turns to anger when he realizes the device was built after all, despite him and Emma having destroyed

the prototype, and Serizawa makes it clear they came to him so he could help them track it down, as well as find Emma and Madison. Next, the group is en route to Castle Bravo, when Mark is given a tablet naming the various Titans whose bio-acoustics Emma possibly combined and programmed into the ORCA to create its signal, which Coleman describes as a baseline in order to

communicate with them. Graham also tells him that they don't know exactly which Titans' frequencies she combined and they need him to identify them. Mark, however, is taken aback at the number of Titans he's sorting through and asks how many there are. Serizawa tells him the number is seventeen, in addition to Godzilla, and counting. Graham tells him that most of them have been found either in hibernation or are held in

containment at various outposts around the world, which are marked on a map on the tablet. As things get tense, with Mark saying they should just kill all of the Titans, Coleman notes that they've arrived. Mark walks to the cockpit and looks out the window as Castle Bravo, Monarch Outpost 54, comes into view. On the outside, it looks like an oil rig, but when the chopper, Raptor One, flies into place above the helipad, the pad opens up and the

chopper descends down a deep, metal shaft. Coleman tells Mark the place is their new main facility, meant to track and locate Godzilla. Mark comments that Godzilla is supposed to be missing but Coleman says, "Only if you don't know where to look." Raptor One sets down on another helipad at the bottom of the shaft.

In a meeting, Graham gives the facility's personnel and the G-Team a rundown of what happened, adding that, in the aftermath of the attack, Mothra escaped the containment building and cocooned herself in a waterfall. She also tells them that Jonah has been identified as the one behind the attack and that he's an eco-terrorist and trafficker of Titan DNA. Colonel Foster says they believe Jonah

intends to capture Mothra but Mark tells her he believes that's what Jonah wants them to think, while he uses the ORCA to go after a much more powerful and lucrative Titan. He insists that the best way to deal with the ORCA's theft is to kill all of the Titans in order to render it useless. Dr. Ilene Chen says, "Emma wouldn't have wanted that, even to save her life," and Mark growls, "Well, it wouldn't be the first time Emma put all

this before herself, or her family, would it?" He storms out of the room, and one of the G-Team's men, Barnes, comments, "Dude hates Titans." Coleman responds, "Yeah, well, you would too if you were him."

Meanwhile, Jonah and his men head for Monarch Outpost 32 in Antarctica via Raptor Five, which they've commandeered. On the way, they contact the base and get them to lower their defenses by telling them they've come to deliver supplies and reinforcements, as well as by transmitting security codes. When they land, Jonah sends out his men under the pretense of carrying the supplies, but it

doesn't take long for gunshots to ring out, as all of the greeting party are massacred. Aboard the chopper, Emma and Madison both grimace at the sound of the shots and screaming, and they hug each other for comfort. Jonah comes back aboard and tells them to come on. He leads them out of Raptor Five and towards the base, with Emma telling Madison to keep her eyes straight ahead as

they walk past the bodies of the murdered personnel. Inside the base, they take a lift down, and there's a moment where Jonah is wiping his face, when he sees Madison looking at him. He then wipes his hand over the top of his face and smiles at her, and she responds by rubbing her eyes with her middle finger. The lift reaches the bottom and they walk out down a corridor. Seeing what's up ahead, one of Jonah's men murmurs,

"Mother of God," to which he says, "She had nothing to do with this." We then see the silhouette of a huge, multi-headed creature frozen in the ice up ahead, a Titan that Madison identifies as "Monster Zero." They take a tunnel that leads right up to the side of the ice containing the creature, as Jonah is told there are no survivors left at the base. Confirming that everyone, particularly Emma, has what they need, Jonah says, "Well, let's get started." His men drill into the ice at various points, and Emma has the ORCA begin analyzing the creature's bio-acoustics, while Madison puts her hand on the ice.

Back at Castle Bravo, Mark is watching a recording of the good times he used to have with his family, when the place begins to shake and an alarm sounds. Col. Foster's voice is heard over the intercom, saying, "All personnel, report to battle stations. Code Red." Mark rushes to the main control room and learns that Godzilla is approaching. Graham says he's destroying the

observation drones, while Rick Stanton reports that he's coming straight at them. Foster orders the G-Team to man the base's defenses, as the lights on the underwater base's exterior are activated and the shields are closed. Stanton reports that Godzilla's only 800 meters away and Graham says his vitals reveal he's highly agitated. Chen tells Mark they're getting this information because Emma

isolated Godzilla's bio-acoustics so they could track him. The place rumbles and Stanton reports that Godzilla is now circling them and closing in at 200 meters. Foster tells the G-Team to prepare to fire on her command but Serizawa says to hold their fire, saying they don't know for sure if Godzilla will attack. Mark adds that he will if he feels threatened and advises them to stand down.

The place shakes again, this time violently enough to interfere with their monitors' signals and to almost knock everyone off their feet. Serizawa tells them to stand down and Foster, despite not thinking it's a good idea, tells her men to do so. They disengage their weapons and the sound of Godzilla's heartbeat on the equipment instantly slows and evens out. Hearing a faint growl outside, Mark tells them to open up the shields. While just

about everyone is incredulous at this, especially Stanton, Mark says it's to calm Godzilla further by letting him know they're not a threat. Serizawa orders Stanton to do it and he does reluctantly. The shields slowly open up into the ocean depths, revealing a pulsating blue glow emitting from Godzilla's spines as he floats up ahead of them. Graham explains the light is meant to be an intimidation display but Chen says she doesn't think it's meant for them.

Mark then walks right up to the glass and Godzilla, in turn, swims up until he's only a few feet away. The two of them stare each other down, when Godzilla suddenly backs away, his glow fades, and the sounds he's emitting stop. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, and Coleman is about to mention what an experience that was, when Godzilla suddenly swings around with a loud roar, swimming right by the window as he turns and

heads off into the depths. After everyone recovers from that sudden shock, Mark asks to see Godzilla's territorial routes, explaining that an animal only leaves its hunting grounds when it feels threatened. Graham orders for a course projection to be ran, while Mark tells Serizawa they have to follow Godzilla, as he might be sensing the ORCA. Stanton then tells them that all paths have him heading for Antarctica, and Mark excitedly says, "Good, then. I mean, let's go! Let's go find him!" But, when he sees the dour expressions on everyone's faces, he asks, "What's in Antarctica." Foster tells Barnes to contact the Argo.

On the way to Antarctica aboard the Argo, Graham says the Titan at Outpost 32 has been kept off the record and is a recent discovery with little data to its origin. She adds that it's possibly another apex predator like Godzilla and may have even been a rival to him. Dr. Chen says she's been unable to find any mythic or folkloric accounts about Monster Zero, as if people were scared to write

about it. Stanton walks in and tells them they lost Godzilla near Venezuela, adding that he's sure he disappeared into the underwater tunnels that make up the Hollow Earth. Col. Foster then tells everyone they're approaching the base. There, Jonah's men place armed charged in the holes they've drilled into the ice containing Monster Zero. Jonah's told that Monarch has arrived and has

his men deployed to keep the team busy. Approaching the base, the Argo deploys a couple of Ospreys to the ground. The G-Team deploys from them and they head inside the base, while Jonah's second-in-command, Asher, primes the charges. The G-Team reaches the bottom level and spread out into the various tunnels. Foster herself leads one of the groups and reminds her men to

watch their fire, as they've got hostages to rescue. In one of the tunnels, a group led by Barnes stops, as they see the shadow of someone wielding a rifle on the other side of the plastic covering the tunnel. Barnes counts down with his fingers, signaling for a strike, when an explosion rocks them from the rear. The men begin clamoring and firing, but the ambush caught them so offguard that Jonah's men are able to pick them off easily. In the midst of the

chaos, Foster's group rounds a corner and they see Jonah himself leading Emma and Madison at the other end of the tunnel. When Mark sees this on the feed from the group's body-cams, he runs into the base himself, grabbing a handgun from one of the men who were killed before, while Foster goes after Jonah and the hostages. At that moment, Chen tells the others she's getting an EKG reading from within the base. While Mark makes his way

through the tunnels, trying to find Emma and Madison, Foster takes up a sniping position and radios Barnes that she has Jonah in her sights. Mark then climbs up a ladder and intercepts Jonah's group on a walkway. He orders them to let Emma and Madison go, only for Asher to go to shoot him. Fortunately, Foster picks him off.

Pointing his gun at Jonah and his men, Mark yells for Emma and Madison to come with him. Madison starts walking towards her father, while Foster radios Barnes about the situation, saying she doesn't have a clear shot at Jonah. Mark then notes that Emma isn't moving towards him, and is even more perplexed when Emma says Madison's name in a way that makes her stop. After appearing contemplative,

Madison seems to come to a tough decision and walks back to her mother. Emma picks up the detonator, which Asher dropped, confusing both Mark and Foster, as she continues watching from her vantage point. Emma glances at the frozen Monster Zero, whose heartbeat can now be heard, and Mark does the same. Emma murmurs, "I'm sorry," and, after telling him, "Run," pushes the

button. The charges all go off at once, shattering the ice, and the explosion knocks Mark off his feet, while Foster gets blown over the guardrail of the walkway she's on, but saves herself by grabbing onto it. Jonah's group runs off and Mark is forced to run in the opposite direction, dodging shots as he fumbles into an elevator. The terrorists, Emma, and Madison take another elevator back to the surface, and Mark activates his to follow them, as the ice

around Monster Zero continues to disintegrate and crumble. Mark then sees some of the other members of the G-Team rushing to Foster's aid, pulling her back onto the walkway, and even though he knows it'll mean losing Emma and Madison, he hits the button that sends his elevator back down. He reaches their walkway and gets them onto the lift, while on the surface, Jonah's group rushes back onboard Raptor Five. As

the chopper lifts off, Madison tells Emma, who prepares the ORCA, that they can't leave Mark behind, but Jonah tells her, "What are you waiting for? Wake it up." Emma takes the ORCA and walks to the chopper's still open back, while down below, Mark and the G-Team rush to their own transport. The entire base collapses in on itself into the ice, which continues cracking and breaking behind and around the fleeing people, swallowing a

number of them and forcing those up ahead to jump clear. With one final explosion, Outpost 32 disappears completely into the ice. Mark looks up at Raptor Five and sees Emma with the ORCA, who activates the device and sends out a frequency.

Everyone on the ground turns back around and looks down into the enormous hole where the base once was. Within the billowing cloud of evaporated ice and smoke, flashes of yellow light are seen. Curious as to what's going on, the others onboard Raptor One disembark, as a low growling can be heard within the pit. A long tail with a spiky tip rises up from it, followed by a long neck that ends

in a snarling, dragon head that shakes itself free from the remaining ice. Two more heads emerge from the pit, as well as another tail, as the humans get their first look at Monster Zero, aka Ghidorah, with Barnes commenting, "You gotta be fucking kidding." (That's the first F-bomb ever dropped in a Godzilla movie.) Emma and Madison watch from Raptor Five as Ghidorah smacks the edge of the pit

with one of its tails, sending the Monarch team running back to Raptor One. Its enormous wings then explode out of the ice, sending some members of the G-Team flying, while others are crushed by the big chunks of ice that come raining down. As Ghidorah's heads screech, several soldiers open fire on it. The left head bends down to inspect them,

disregarding the assault rifle-fire pelting it, while Mark and the others make it back onboard Raptor One and prepare for a vertical takeoff. Ghidorah's middle head smacks into the left one, basically telling it to stop fooling around, and it and the right one exchange growls and all three power-up, their necks glowing ominously. One of the soldiers tries to say, "Oh, shit," but is caught off when Ghidorah fires its

lightning bolts. All of the soldiers are incinerated, and the lightning bolts also interfere with Raptor One, causing the rotors to shut down. The left head licks up some of the smoldering remains of the soldiers, when the middle head growls at it. Ghidorah then climbs out of the pit and heads towards the disabled and defenseless Raptor One, as Foster desperately tries to contact the Argo for an emergency extract. Onboard Raptor Five,

Madison, realizing her father is in danger, grabs the ORCA and fumbles with its controls. The device sends out a new frequency that Ghidorah hates, as it rears up and screeches into the sky. Jonah and Emma struggle with Madison, the former managing to drag her away while Emma quickly takes the ORCA and stops the signal just as Ghidorah prepares to blast Raptor Five. Shaking away the disorientation, the middle head growls at

the right head and bites the left one's horn to return it to is senses. Ghidorah starts closing in on Raptor One again, which is the last thing Madison sees before Raptor Five's door closes and they leave the area.

Ghidorah begins attacking Raptor One, smacking it with its heads and biting it, as the pilot, Griffin, continues trying to contact the Argo. But, just when it seems like they've had it, Ghidorah stops its attack and backs away, making chirping and hissing sounds, as it clearly senses something. Raptor One's radar picks up a signal and both those onboard and Ghidorah spot a blue glow emitting

from beneath the ice up ahead. And then, in a moment that absolutely gave me chills when I saw it in the theater, the ice explodes and Godzilla rises up out of it. As his first real appearance in the movie, it's a doozy, as he plants his feet near Raptor One and the camera pans up him, all while Bear McCreary's epic rendition of his classic theme blasts on the soundtrack. Ghidorah screeches at

him, while Godzilla snarls angrily at the sight of his ancient foe. The two of them face off, with Ghidorah unfurling its wings to try to intimidate him, but Godzilla merely roars a challenge. Both Titans charge at each other, Godzilla knocking Raptor One aside with his feet as he rushes Ghidorah, grabs both the left and right heads, and then bites into the right neck before slamming it into the

ground. The impact sends Raptor One spinning across the ice and it gets stuck in a large crevice. Inside, everyone is flung around, with Mark getting caught under a control panel that gets smashed loose, along with some cables. Godzilla slams his foot down on the ice, further lodging Raptor One into the crevice, and Foster orders everyone to abandon ship. Mark, however, is stuck and Graham stays to help him, while everyone else disembarks,

as the crevice is widening and threatening to swallow Raptor One up. Serizawa looks up in time to see Godzilla get knocked backwards by Ghidorah and slam down near them. While Ghidorah shakes off the attack and hisses and rattles at him, Godzilla raises back up and lets out an angry roar (not only is that shot awesome with the full moon in the sky behind him, this is also the moment where the Legendary roar transitions into the roar from the original movie). Onboard Raptor One, Graham manages to get Mark loose enough to where he get free and the two of them escape right before the chopper collapses into the crevice.

Godzilla takes a hit to the neck from Ghidorah's lightning and slams his tail down behind him. His spines then start lighting up and glowing, accompanied by the tell-tale pulsating that indicates him powering up. He fires his atomic blast, only for Ghidorah to dodge the beam and shoot back with its lightning. Godzilla gets knocked back while still shooting his atomic blast,

causing him to blow up the remaining buildings of the facility, right beside where the people on the ground are running for it. He gets forced back into the pit that once contained Ghidorah and tumbles in (while letting out the classic Showa-era roar). Graham and Mark run to catch up with the others, when Ghidorah's middle head comes down on and chomps her, killing her instantly. Both Mark and

Serizawa are horrified at this, and it's made even worse when the middle head bites down on the patch of snow in its mouth, with the right one trying to catch some of it. Ghidorah then sets its sights on the others, when it's suddenly blasted by some missiles as the Argo and the rest of Monarch's forces arrive. It uses its wings to shield itself and deflect the missiles, sending one of them flying at Mark. It explodes near him and

blasts him back against a metal crate. Before he loses consciousness, he sees Godzilla emerge from the pit but, before he can continue the fight, Ghidorah takes to the sky and Godzilla lets out an angry roar, which reverberates when the screen cuts to black.

Mark awakens in the Argo's medical bay, while on the bridge, Stanton tells Foster that Godzilla is near Argentina, while Monster Zero disappeared into a tropical storm over Brazil. Meanwhile, Serizawa is mourning the loss of Graham, whose personnel file he's just updated with the status of "DECEASED." Foster tries to convince Coleman that she saw Emma blow the charges in the ice, and while

Coleman and Stanton find it hard to believe and try to come up with other explanations, Mark walks in and confirms what Foster saw. Everyone is shocked by this, and they then realize that it seems as though Emma is trying to start a mass awakening of Titans. They decide to interrogate her when they find her, while elsewhere, deep in the ocean, Godzilla continues his own search, followed

by Monarch's observation drones. Foster later notes that he's following a path to Isla de Mara in Mexico, which happens to be the site of Monarch Outpost 56. She tells them they're going to reach the island in ten minutes, while Serizawa assures Mark they've sent the G-Team ahead to evacuate the civilians. Serizawa is then told there's a call coming through on the emergency channel from Isla de Mara. When it's patched

through, everyone is shocked to see Emma's face appear on the screen. After she assures Mark that Madison is okay, and he sees her, Emma explains her plan to "save the world" by unleashing the Titans in order to restore the natural balance and then use the ORCA in order to co-exist with them. Despite the team's objections, and her getting emotional when Mark tells her that doing this won't bring back Andrew, Emma remains firm and tells

them to take cover in Monarch's bunkers around the world. She ends the feed and everyone is more than ready to find her when they reach Isla de Mara in three minutes. But Stanton tells them the video signal was too weak for her to actually be on the island and that she's bouncing it off Monarch's satellites, meaning she could be anywhere. They then hear a beeping and Coleman realizes Emma deactivated the containment system at Outpost 56.

At their hideout, one of Jonah's men announces they've bypassed the containment system and can now broadcast the ORCA. Emma, appearing to have second thoughts, hesitates and glances at Madison, but then moves towards the ORCA. Madison tries to stop her, saying that Mark may be right about this being a bad idea, but Jonah stops the argument, saying they don't have time for

it and asks Madison, "What exactly did Mommy sell you on? Some grand utopia? Man and monster, living together in some blissful harmoy?" When Jonah is told that Monarch is trying to lock them out, he tells Emma they need to see her plan through. Madison, looking at the monitor that shows a news report of the evacuation on Isla de Mara, begs for them to let the civilians get to

safety, but Emma, hearing that they're running out of time, activates the ORCA, telling Madison, "This is bigger than just you and me." The film cuts to Isla de Mara, where the evacuation is in full swing, with thousands of people clamoring to get to safety. Everything then stops dead when a loud call pierces through the air and everyone looks to see the volcano rumbling, as the ORCA's signal

pulsates on speakers at the station there. Something smashes on the other side of the containment hatch on the crater and it explodes, shaking the entire island. Men stationed around the crater abandon their posts, as lava flails about inside and a giant claw reaches up and grabs onto the edge of it, before Rodan pulls himself out. He lets out a loud screech as he climbs onto the side of the mountain's summit, sending the civilians running just as

Monarch arrives. As if that weren't bad enough, Coleman tells them the tropical storm where they lost Monster Zero has changed direction and is now heading for the island. Though that seems impossible, Chen suggests the storm may actually be something of Monster Zero's creation. Mark then tells Serizawa that Monster Zero is coming because it hears Rodan's cries, while outside, fighter jets fire on Rodan. He lets out a screech

when the missiles hit him on the underside of his wings, followed up by shots to the neck. The Argo and the rest of Monarch's forces arrive, and Rodan, peering at the Argo, takes the bait when the large ship gets almost within grabbing range, only to turn around and fly back the other way. He takes to the air and chases after them, completely decimating the village below with the wind he creates as he flies over it. Though the G-Team manages to save a woman and her young son, other people aren't so lucky and get literally swept away by the windstorm.

The Argo heads back up above the clouds, flanked by fighter jets, and Rodan explodes out of the clouds right behind them. Stanton contacts the squadron of fighters that the plan is to lure Rodan to Monster Zero, while Foster orders them to engage with him. The jets turn around and fly back towards Rodan, pelting him with missiles, but Rodan counters by swooping up into the air and

slamming his wings together, taking out a number of the jets and shaking the Argo with a sonic boom. He flies right above the Argo and the other jets and swoops down at them, grabbing two in his talons, ripping the nose off one with his beak before throwing the wreckage into the water below. Foster warns one of the jets that Rodan is right behind him and, as he closes in, ignoring the gunfire

hitting him another jet to his right, the pilot ejects, only for Rodan to catch him in his beak (I have a feeling that's a nod to a moment in The Giant Claw). Noting their losses, Stanton reports that they're only sixty seconds away from Monster Zero and they head straight for the oncoming storm created by it, with Rodan still right on them. One fighter jet is warned he's coming right up on him and

flies off to the right, but Rodan, after smiling evilly, starts spinning wildly in the air, smashing jet after jet with his wings and sending them tumbling down to the water. Now, the whole squadron is gone, and Stanton tells them they're just thirty seconds away from Monster Zero. Rodan continues his pursuit as the Argo flies into the heart of the storm, when the craft takes a hit from a bolt of lightning. This slows it down to where Rodan is

able to swoop in behind it and reaches out with his claws, but just as he's about to grab them, he backs away and flies straight up. The Argo flies on and comes upon the form of Ghidorah, as it swoops up vertically, preparing to blast them. Foster orders for the Argo to dive and they just barely miss hitting Ghidorah, who then collides in midair with Rodan. The Argo almost hits the water but they're able to pull out of the steep dive in time. Rodan and

Ghidorah engage in a vicious midair fight, with Rodan grabbing onto Ghidorah's torso and biting into it. The Argo is then contacted by Barnes in Raptor One (I guess a different chopper now carries that number), who tells them they've got civilians onboard, children among them, and they need midair retrieval, as one of their rotors is damaged. Stanton tries to activate the hangar doors but finds them unresponsive and can't perform a manual override. Mark unbuckles himself from his seat and, after asking where the hangar is, Coleman shows him the way.

Raptor One tries to catch up with the Argo, while Mark and Coleman run to the hangar, where they're told the hydraulics are jammed. In the sky behind the Argo, Ghidorah defeats Rodan by holding him with its left and right heads' mouths, while the middle head blasts him, sending him plummeting to the ocean. The crew then receives a transmission from Admiral Stenz, who tells them they need to

retreat, as they've launched a new, deadly prototype weapon called an Oxygen Destroyer which will kill everything within a two-mile radius. After Stenz ends his transmission, they see on a graph that the Oxygen Destroyer is, indeed, coming in fast. Raptor One pilot Griffin tells the Argo they need to open up the hangar doors, but it seems hopeless, when Mark notes the one Osprey hanging above

the still jammed doors. He hits the button to disengage it and pulls a lever, sending it crashing down and smashing open the hangar. Seeing their chance, Griffin pushes Raptor One to its absolute limit and flies up into the hangar, landing roughly and skidding and spinning across the floor. One of the rotor blades slices into the control panel Mark was at and he has to grab Coleman and yank him

down when he stupidly stands there and doesn't duck himself. The crew of Raptor One and the rescued civilians start disembarking and running for safety, when they see that Ghidorah now has its sights set on them. With no way to evade it, it looks as if they're goners, when Godzilla suddenly lunges at Ghidorah from the side and drags it down into the water. The two of them get into a violent struggle on the surface, with the Argo having to

dodge one of Ghidorah's heads as it makes its escape. Ghidorah tries to fly out of the water but Godzilla drags it back down and, as the Oxygen Destroyer very quickly closes in, he manages to rip Ghidorah's left head off. He appears above the water, roars with the head in his mouth, and dives back down, not seeing the missile-like object heading right for him. The Oxygen Destroyer reaches its target, shoots beneath the waves, and explodes,

sending up a green mushroom cloud, followed by a shockwave that hits the Argo. Thousands of dead fish bob to the surface, but within seconds, Ghidorah, despite missing a head, explodes out of the water, otherwise unharmed. Stanton manages to pick up Godzilla's vitals but they instantly start to fade and his radiation levels go down. Within seconds, it flatlines. Serizawa turns to Mark and tells him, "Looks like you got your wish, Mark."

Ghidorah lands atop the volcano as it looks over the deserted and destroyed remains of the village, and instantaneously regrows its severed head. Now whole again, and with no other alpha to oppose it, Ghidorah lets out a shrieking cry that's heard across the globe. At Monarch Outpost 55 in Sedona, Georgia, the Titan known as Scylla emerges from beneath an oil field, while in Munich, Methuselah

also rises, having been camouflaging itself as a big, grassy hill. In their bunker, Jonah and Emma watch these and other Titan awakenings, including one at Mt. Fuji and another in the Sudan. Emma says she's not the one unleashing them, motioning towards the feed of Ghidorah, who's joined on the volcano by Rodan. Jonah intones, "Long live the king," and walks away. Emma turns and looks at a tearful Madison,

who calls her a monster before storming off. Meanwhile, at Mothra's cocoon site in the Yunnan Rainforest, the containment team tries to contact Castle Bravo but with no luck. Dr. Brooks is also told they've lost contact with the Argo and the other Monarch containment sites, and that the Titans are escaping. Like Emma, Brooks determines that Ghidorah's call is the cause of all this. The lights inside the makeshift command

center begin flickering and Brooks heads outside to get Dr. Ling, Chen's twin sister. She doesn't respond when he tells her they've lost contact with Monarch, as she's fixated on Mothra's glowing, pulsating cocoon within the waterfall. It stops raining as a gap opens in the clouds right above them and the moonlight shines down. Everybody else walks outside the command center to see what's going on, as an enormous, insect leg

emerges from the cocoon and stretches out past the waterfall. The lights set up outside all explode but it turns out there's no need for them, as the glow from Mothra as she emerges from her cocoon is enough to illuminate everything. This is another scene that I found absolutely awe-inspiring when I first saw it, as you see Mothra's silhouette as she climbs down from her cocoon and then, the

instrumental version of her song swells as she spreads her wings beneath the waterfall, before looking up and letting out a chirping screech. It's so incredible and downright beautiful, in fact, that I almost teared up, and acts as an encouraging sign of hope when things are at their grimmest.

The movie slows down for a while here, as Emma has to deal with Madison disowning her over what she's done, Mark finds himself unable to identify the frequencies used to create the ORCA's signal, and Chen uncovers Ghidorah's identity and past as an alien creature. The Argo returns to Castle Bravo, only to find the U.S. Navy there, waiting for them. Admiral Stenz briefs them on the global attacks taking place in cities such as London,

Moscow, and Washington, and while he describes the Titans' behavior as erratic and random, Mark explains that they're attacking in the manner a pack would and are doing what Ghidorah is telling them to. They also come to the realization that, by killing Godzilla, they took out their only possible chance of defeating Ghidorah. At the same time, Emma tries to explain to Jonah that Ghidorah is going to destroy the planet but, because of his very low opinion

of humanity, he feels they may as well allow the dragon and the other Titans to do so. Unbeknownst to them, Madison is using the bunker's intercom system to listen in on their conversation and hears Emma mention a plan to use Fenway Stadium as a way to broadcast the ORCA in order to stop the attacks. Back at Castle Bravo, Mark is about to leave in one of the Ospreys to try and find Madison, even though he has no clue where she is.

But, as he's about to take off, a strong and beautiful light begins to pierce through the rainclouds above. He disembarks and walks to the edge of the helipad, seeing a heavenly glow break through the clouds, accompanied by a soft moaning sound. A huge and very bright flash of light parts the clouds completely with a soft boom, and the glowing silhouette of Mothra appears in their place. Mark

rejoins everyone else, who are all equally enraptured, down in the command center. Listening to the soft cries she's letting out, Chen notes how it's like a song and, on a hunch, Stanton listens and is able to record a reply to Mothra's song. It's the distant sound of Godzilla bellowing, confirming he's still alive. Stanton says he's unable to pinpoint Godzilla's location, as the signal's too weak, but he speculates that Mothra might be able to lead them to him. Mark then asks how many nuclear warheads they have, saying they can help Godzilla.

In a meeting, Foster informs the G-Team that Ghidorah has placed itself at the center of a massive hurricane hovering over Washington, D.C. and that they're going to engage in a joint operation with all branches of the military in order lure it away from the mainland. She also hints at a mission the Monarch team is about to embark on with a submarine armed with nukes and when Griffin asks what they're planning on doing, Barnes tells her,

"They wanna bring Godzilla back from the dead." The submarine is then deployed, submerging down below the spot where Mothra is hovering up in the sky. Following a nice moment between Mark and Serizawa, the submarine begins shaking. The commander is told they're caught in a vortex that's dragging them down to the ocean floor. As the countdown to impact quickly ticks away, everyone grabs onto whatever they can and attempts to brace

themselves. Meanwhile, at the Monarch bunker near Boston, Madison breaks into a supply room, grabs some packs of emergency drinking water and a pair of binoculars, and when everyone has cleared the control room, she sneaks in and swipes the ORCA. She then crawls through the place's ventilation shafts, stopping at one point when she looks through some grating to see Emma sitting by herself, sobbing, but then heads on. She manages to slip

out of the bunker and begins the trek to Boston. Elsewhere, in Washington, which is now flooded from Ghidorah's hurricane, the Navy arrives to battle the Titans along with the Argo. Onboard the aircraft, they scan the apocalyptic scene all around them, seeing Ghidorah's silhouette in the heart of the hurricane as it screeches ominously, and they prepare to engage. Back with the submarine, it's

shown to be sitting on a kind of underwater ledge. The commander is told they're apparently 600 miles from their departure point, which shouldn't be possible, and Stanton gets excited, thinking it's proof of the Hollow Earth, that the vortex led down into it, but Chen tells him to be quiet. The crew activates the sub's lights and move forward, before launching three surveillance probes. As the

probes make their way through the darkness, Stanton and the others watch the monitors sending back their cameras' feeds. They're startled when the face of a statue is illuminated, and as the sub continues following the probes, they pass through the gates of an ancient underwater city. Mark says the architecture looks Egyptian or Roman, but Stanton says it's much older. The probes then illuminate hieroglyphics depicting Godzilla and people worshipping him, as well as carvings of Ghidorah. Stanton also says the sensors are picking up a large radioactive mass just ahead, meaning they've likely found him.

Madison sneaks into Fenway Station, which is being used by the military as a shelter, and heads up into the control booth. Listening to news reports about the ongoing cataclysm, she hooks up the ORCA and prepares to start broadcasting. Back with the sub, they follow a trail of lava to the radiation hotspot believed to be Godzilla, but are forced to hang back because of the high levels of radioactivity up ahead. The drones, however,

continue on. Two of them short out but the third continues, rising up through the water and into an air pocket, the camera revealing the place to be an enormous, ancient temple. As the drone pans, they see Godzilla lying nearby, but the camera feed shorts out before the drone can go any further. Pulling up the last frame, they see that he's feeding on the radiation there. Initially, it seems like he doesn't need their help, but Chen determines that it

could take years before he's rejuvenated enough, meaning they need to use the nukes. Unfortunately, the commander tells them their weapon system was damaged earlier and can't be repaired. Chen suggests going in and setting off the warhead manually, but Stanton says anyone doing that wouldn't survive the heat or the radiation. And then, to everyone's shock, Serizawa says he'll do it.

In Washington, the Argo and the Navy are fighting a losing battle against Ghidorah and the Titans under its command, when Coleman looks at a digital map of the globe and tells Foster that all of the Titans have stopped. Cutting back to Fenway Park, it's revealed that Madison is broadcasting the ORCA's signal. As she watches the monitors in the control booth, she sees reports that the Titans have,

indeed, stopped their attacks. At the bunker, Emma is called into the control room and informed that the ORCA is missing. Jonah sarcastically asks, "I wonder who could've done this?", as a monitor shows the signal emitting from Fenway Park. Emma goes to Madison's room and finds her gone, with a tablet that has a picture of her family lying on the floor, smashed.

As Serizawa prepares for his fateful journey into Godzilla's lair, Stanton tells him he prepared his oxygen tank with a chemical that will allow him to stay stable long enough to do what he needs to do. Stanton then tells him that working with him was an honor and shakes his hand, while a nearly tearful Chen hugs him. Serizawa gives Mark his notes and tells him to take care of everyone, before getting into the minisub and, after one last look at

his colleagues and friends, departs. While he heads into the depths of the lair, the submarine gets clear of the blast range. Surfacing in the temple, Serizawa climbs the enormous steps leading up to where Godzilla lays, struggling against the weight of the warhead, the intense heat, and the effects of the radiation. Reaching the top, he makes his way around to Godzilla's side and, at a spot in front of his head, unpacks the warhead and, removing his

glove, arms it and sets the timer. Looking at his father's watch, frozen by the atomic explosion at Hiroshima, Serizawa walks up to Godzilla, who opens his left eye and looks at him. He removes his helmet and touches Godzilla's flesh with his bare hand, as Godzilla continues eyeing him. After he tells him farewell in Japanese, the warhead explodes. In a sequence where the solemn music score is the only sound, the blast wipes out the

temple and the underwater city, and the shockwave follows the sub as it heads to the surface, with everyone inside getting knocked around. The sub gets boosted to the surface, jutting almost completely out of the water before slamming down roughly. After everyone gets their wits about them, a distress signal is sent to the Argo, while Mark and another man climb up to the top of the sub.

Chen joins him as he uses his binoculars to scan the surrounding ocean, when he sees a spot where the waves are twisting in on themselves. A blue glow appears in the middle of it, and as they watch, Godzilla slowly emerges from the depths, his spines glowing and humming with power. He shoots an enormous beam straight up into the sky while letting out a mighty roar, then turns his

attention to the sub and those atop it. He bends down to inspect them and inhales their scent, as Mark tells the others, who are about to panic, not to move. After a few tense seconds, he finishes inspecting them and turns and plunges back into the depths. As they watch him swim away, Mark says he knows how to find Emma and Madison, just as the Argo shows up above them.

Onboard the Argo, Mark gives Serizawa's notes to Coleman, telling him, "Let's make him proud and not screw this up." Coleman then tells Mark that both Ghidorah and Godzilla are heading to Boston and they think Emma activated the ORCA somewhere in that vicinity, but they can't pinpoint the exact location without knowing what makes up the signal. Mark reveals he's figured it out: the ORCA's signal is a combination of Godzilla's bio-

acoustics with that of a human and that the Titans think it's another apex predator. Mark then says that, while they plan to track the signal and rescue Madison, they're also going to join the fight against Ghidorah. At the bunker near Boston, Emma is about to mount a convoy to find Madison, but Jonah puts a stop to it, saying she's not doing it with his men. He tells her, "You said this was about the greater good, that the planet deserved a clean

slate. But now, you're prepared to put all our lives in danger because your little girl is missing... The ORCA no longer matters. Man does not control the laws of nature... and neither do you." Emma pulls a gun on Jonah but all of his men instantly do the same to her. Training her gun on Jonah, she tells him, "I already lost one child. I'm not losing another. I have to fix this." Jonah orders his men to let her go, saying they have everything they need.

And with that, Emma drives out of the bunker in a Hummer and heads to Boston. There, at Fenway Stadium, Madison stands atop the building, scanning the city with her binoculars, when the wind suddenly picks up, only to instantly stop and then let out a sudden gust. Madison becomes frightened and soon realizes the danger she's in when the outer edges of a hurricane-like storm

front closes in on her from all sides, engulfing the city. She quickly runs back inside the building and down to the control booth. There, she watches the storm front close in on the stadium, as rain pelts and then covers the window. And then, Ghidorah lands on the edges of the stadium and lets out a screech. Hearing the ORCA's signal through some speakers, the right head bites down it, causing the place to shake. Hiding under a table, Madison unplugs the ORCA and goes to leave the room, only to turn and see one of Ghidorah's heads looking right at her through the window.

Madison runs as Ghidorah blasts its lightning into the control booth. Running down the hallway, Madison dodges the streams of lightning as they blow through the walls around her, while outside, Ghidorah opens up on the entire stadium, as well as some buildings around it. Madison manages to make it down the stairs and rushes out of the stadium, while Ghidorah blows up everything around it. An explosion behind her sends flying into

the air and she lands roughly on the ground. Looking up and seeing Ghidorah looming over her, she tosses the ORCA, which Ghidorah stomps with its foot. Focusing on her, Ghidorah powers up to fry her with its lightning, but instead of running, Madison stands there and screams right back at the dragon. But then, a blue beam comes in from the side and hits Ghidorah, knocking it backwards into the ruins of the stadium. After uncovering her face,

Madison feels the earth shake and hears Godzilla roar as she turns around. She smiles as Godzilla stomps into Boston, roaring as the Monarch's air forces fly in past him and the Navy follows alongside his legs in the harbor, all while his theme thunders through the soundtrack. Onboard the Argo, Coleman tells those in Raptor One that the last ping of the ORCA's signal came from Fenway Park and they'll keep Ghidorah distracted while

they go down to find Madison. As Chen declares, "For Serizawa," all of Monarch's squadrons fly in and open fire on Ghidorah. On the ground, Madison runs for it as Godzilla stomps towards Ghidorah and the two monsters charge each other before coming together with a massive shockwave. Onboard the Argo, Coleman notes how much bigger and more powerful Godzilla seems,

but Stanton discovers there's a problem with it. He notes that Godzilla's radiation levels are rising rapidly and dangerously, and estimates that he's going to explode in twelve minutes. Coleman tells those onboard Raptor One what's going on as they come in for a landing outside the ruins of the stadium, while Godzilla flings Ghidorah into some rubble. When they start to disembark, two soldiers

are fried by Ghidorah's lightning, while the rest flank out. Looking up and watching the fight, with Godzilla coming around and smacking Ghidorah with his tail, Mark yells for Madison. One member of the G-Team, Martinez, finds the smashed up ORCA, but tells Mark there's no sign of his daughter. Up above them, Godzilla pushes Ghidorah back and claws at it, only for each of its

heads to bite onto him, with the middle biting his neck, the right biting the back of his head, and the left biting his hand. Knowing Madison's not there, the group runs back to Raptor One, only for it to get stomped by Ghidorah. It explodes and blows them back, while Ghidorah lifts Godzilla up, slams him down and pushes him along the ground, only to get blown away when Godzilla scores a direct hit with his atomic blast. Ghidorah almost crushes the humans with its girth as a result, but it stops right when it's almost on top of them.

In the sky above the battling monsters, a brilliant multicolored light pierces through the clouds and then, Mothra comes shooting down. Ghidorah turns but, before it knows what happened, Mothra sticks its heads to the side of a building with her webbing. The right head frees itself and watches Mothra as she comes around for another pass, before attempting to free the other two. It then sees Godzilla's reflection in the building's windows as

he stomps towards Ghidorah from behind and, before it can react, he barrels it right through the building and slams it to the ground. He stands over Ghidorah and snuffs in a satisfied manner. One of Ghidorah's heads sees Mothra coming back around and then dive down, her mantis-like forearms ready to slice into it. But Rodan comes in from Mothra's side and slams into her, sending her careening through the top of another building. As the two of

them begin a vicious midair battle, Mark and the other members of the G-Team are surprised when Emma comes at them in the Hummer and yells for them to get in. Mark is about to yell something at her, when a fighter jet that got caught up in Mothra and Rodan's fight comes hurtling towards them and crashes just a few feet from them with a big explosion. Emma, again, yells for them to get in, and Barnes and Martinez load Griffin, who has a

large piece of shrapnel in her leg, into the Hummer, while Mark gets into the passenger seat. She drives down the rubble-covered street, when another jet crashes into a building on the right side of the road, forcing her to hit the brakes. Mark and Emma argue about where Madison is, while the soldiers in the back try to treat Griffin's wounds but get tossed around by Emma's driving, as objects rain down

around them, and Mothra and Rodan's fight sends a chopper hurtling towards the side of the road near them. Emma and Mark continue their argument, when Barnes comments that, if he were Madison, he'd run away from home too. Emma suddenly stops the Hummer and has Barnes repeat what he said. Both she and Mark then realize that Madison likely went to their old home. Sure enough, as Godzilla and

Ghidorah continue battling in the background, Madison runs through the rubble and comes across her old home. Then, Rodan gets slammed onto the ground and skids across it near her, sending her running inside for cover. She closes the door behind her and collapses down in front of it, covering her ears and screaming as the house shakes from the battle and the sounds of the monsters.

Godzilla slams Ghidorah's right head into the side of a building and drags it through the walls before pulling it back out. One of the other heads spies a sparking transformer at the base of the building and bites into it. Godzilla glances at this, but doesn't have time to process what's happening before Ghidorah absorbs all of the energy and shoots lightning out of its wingtips and even its tails. This massive attack destroys numerous fighter jets still

in the air, damages the Argo, and sends Godzilla careening backwards, forcing him to push his hands through and grab onto the innards of a building to keep himself from falling. As he tries to catch his breath, onboard the Argo, Stanton tells the others  his radiation is reaching critical and he'll explode in just six minutes. Foster has all the remaining aircraft retreat, while Godzilla, holding onto the tops of two buildings, tries to collect himself.

The wreckages of the fighter jets rain down around him and Ghidorah, while to the left of where they're standing, Mothra gets slammed up against a building. Rodan comes flying in and pins her to it, causing her to screech as its burning interior sears her. She slices into his face with her forearms, sending him flying off, but as she crawls up the building, he comes back at her and pins her to the top of it. He snaps at her head with

his beak a couple of times before cornering her, only to lunge at her and stop dead. A reverse shot shows that she impaled him through the shoulder with the barb on her abdomen, and as he whimpers in pain, she yanks the barb out and pushes him over the edge. He lets out a screech as he falls to the burning streets below, while Mothra nearly collapses on the building's roof from exhaustion

and her injuries. Across the way, the Hummer pulls up to the old Russell home, only to find it in absolute ruins. Everyone gets out and climbs among the rubble, yelling for Madison. It doesn't take long before Mark finds her arm hanging out from the edge of the bathtub, which has a large chunk of rubble lying on it. He calls everyone over and he, Barnes, and Martinez lift up the rubble and

toss it aside. Mark and Emma pull Madison out of the tub and lay her down on the ground, as they check her to see if she's breathing. It initially seems hopeless, but then, Madison lets out a loud gasp and coughs harshly. She sees that both of her parents are there and embraces them.

Ghidorah, meanwhile, jumps at and attacks the weakened Godzilla, grabbing onto him with its claws, pushing him back across the ground, and then flies up into the sky with him. One of its necks chokes him, causing his arms to go limp, as it flies him up past the clouds and then drops him. He plummets back to Earth, heat building up around him from the sheer speed of his fall, and he crashes down in the middle of Boston with a loud boom

and shockwave that nearly knocks the bystanders off their feet. Ghidorah lands near Godzilla, causing two weakened buildings to crumble, while Godzilla lets out a groan, injured and totally drained. That's when Mothra, her wings burned from her fight with Rodan, climbs onto Godzilla's side and screeches at Ghidorah. Her wings glow with lovely colors and she lunges at Ghidorah, but when she reaches the dragon, it blasts her with its

lightning at point-blank range. She gets forced back from the force of it and then explodes, after which some residue of her drifts down and goes into Godzilla, who totally collapses. Ghidorah snakes its way towards its totally drained foe, who roars defiantly at it. Back with the bystanders, Martinez is told that an Osprey is coming to pick them up in two minutes. Mark then says they need to work fast and they start repairing the damaged

ORCA, saying they need to use it and the Osprey to lure Ghidorah away from Godzilla so he can get his strength back. While they work to fix the device, Ghidorah's necks slither around Godzilla and bite into him at various points, causing him to roar in pain, as they begin draining him of his energy. After a few seconds, the humans get the ORCA back up and working again, just as the

Osprey touches down near them. While Barnes and Martinez help Griffin aboard, Emma tells Mark to take Madison, saying she still needs to activate the signal. Ghidorah continues torturing Godzilla, when Emma sends out the signal. Hearing it, Ghidorah lets go of Godzilla and starts stomping towards the source. Everyone quickly boards the Osprey, which prepares to lift off, and Emma runs

to join them, only to stop right when she's about to climb onboard. Looking at Mark and Madison, as they yell for her to come on, and then seeing Ghidorah closing in, Emma mouths, "I love you," to Madison and runs back. The Osprey lifts off and Mark and Madison helplessly yell for Emma, with Mark having to restrain Madison from jumping off. The craft flies off, while Emma climbs into the Hummer with the ORCA and drives down the road. Ghidorah is initially focused on the Osprey, but when it sees the Hummer and senses the ORCA's signal coming from it, it turns and gives chase.

With Ghidorah right on her tail, Emma races through the city, as those onboard the Osprey watch helplessly. After chasing her on foot, Ghidorah flies up, blasts away some buildings with its lightning, and when it has Emma clear in its sights, it fires and hits the Hummer. The vehicle is sent hurtling through the air, lands on its roof, and skids along the road before coming to a stop. Having seen this, Madison

yells for her mother, and both she and Mark watch as Ghidorah closes in on her. It lands down the street from the crash and stretches its necks down towards Emma, who tumbled out of the wreck. The heads snarl at her, while she simply says, "Long live... the king." But, before they can kill her, the heads sense something approaching. Now on the very edge of going thermonuclear, Godzilla, glowing red with nuclear power and emitting an

intense heat that melts and burns everything around him, stomps towards Ghidorah and lets out a roar. Ghidorah turns and screeches at him, only for Godzilla to power up and let out a pulse in the shape of Mothra that flies at Ghidorah and totally overwhelms it. Its wings are instantly burned away as it's blown backwards and falls. It fires its lightning at him but this time, it has no effect

whatsoever. Godzilla, instead, powers up and lets out another pulse, this one completely destroying both the left and right heads. Finally, he pins Ghidorah's body down with his foot and unleashes the full fury of his power, engulfing that section of Boston in a huge, red-colored explosion that's so bright that those on the Osprey are forced to shield their eyes.

Down in the rubble, there's silence for a few moments, followed by a rumbling and Ghidorah's remaining head coming up through the debris. But, it's then revealed that the head and what's left of the neck is dangling out of Godzilla's mouth when he rises up out of the rubble as well. He slams the head back and forth across the rubble, before biting up to the head's nape and charging up for an atomic blast that totally disintegrates all that's left of

Ghidorah. Having seen this from the Osprey, Stanton comments, "Jesus. Good thing he's on our side," to which Chen adds, "For now." Hearing some thudding behind him, Godzilla turns and sees the Titan called Behemoth approaching him, followed Scylla, and the new female MUTO only referred to as the Queen. Rodan then lands in front of Godzilla and screeches at him, but when Godzilla glares at him, he decides it's probably best

not to push his luck and bows his head, submitting. Godzilla turns to the other Titans, who all do the same, and as the Osprey flies off, Godzilla lets out one last triumphant roar, having proven himself as the Titans' true alpha and king (I kind of wonder if this last scene was Legendary's way of jabbing a little bit at Disney's live-action remake of The Lion King, which came out just a few months later). With that, get into the credits and its montage of

newspaper articles, news items on the internet, and mythological drawings of ancient monsters, as well as clips from Godzilla 2014. Through it, we learn that the Titans have returned to their natural habitats, with Rodan having made a home at a volcano near Fiji, Monarch is divulging everything it knows to the public, Godzilla is actively defending cities from any Titans that consider attacking them,

passengers on a cruise liner were surprised when Godzilla showed up in the vicinity, Titan waste has been discovered to be a possible fuel source, a giant egg has been discovered that may or may not be Mothra's, among other things. Most significantly, these credits begin setting up Godzilla's inevitable conflict with Kong, with articles about ancient rivalries between Titans, news about Skull Island possibly becoming unstable, and culminating with shots of the island, taken from Kong: Skull Island, and cave paintings showing images of Godzilla and Kong in battle.

After the credits is a scene on Isla de Mara, where a man leads Jonah and some of his men into a large room in the back of a warehouse, saying he has something that's become very valuable since the rise of Godzilla. Once inside, he throws the switch and the lights illuminate the head of Ghidorah that Godzilla ripped off during his battle with the dragon off the coast. Walking up to it, Jonah looks it over and the movie ends on him declaring, "We'll take it."

As I've been hinting at throughout this review, one of my favorite aspects of Godzilla: King of the Monsters is the score by Bear McCreary, which is absolutely perfect, in my opinion. It's everything you'd want: epic, sweeping, emotional, and, best of all, makes use of the classic themes for Godzilla and Mothra, the renditions of both being absolutely amazing. McCreary makes Godzilla's theme absolutely thunder across the soundtrack, giving it a real sense of titanic power and might, as well as chanting voices that invoke the notion of Godzilla being an ancient creature who was once worshipped as a deity. Also, his use of the familiar march is inspired, as it plays not only when Godzilla rises following his resurrection but also when the Argo and Monarch's forces join in the battle against Ghidorah, which is a clever way of bringing that theme full circle, given that Akira Ifukube originally wrote it as a march for the Japanese military in the original Godzilla. And during the latter part of the ending credits, you hear the march in its entirety, culminating in an amazing flourish and ending on a series of strong, thunderous notes. As for Mothra's Song, McCreary created a beautiful, elegant, and exotic instrumental version that, when it plays during her hatching at the waterfall, swells to an amazing, epic climax that will put a smile on the face of any fan of the characetr. During the ending credits, when the song is heard in its entirety, it starts out soft and eloquent, and then transforms into a full on march, but with the elegant and beautiful main theme at the center of the march, emphasizing how Mothra is willing to fight if she needs to. But, McCreary does far more than just recreate the classic themes, as the score is brimming with original music that is on par with anything Ifukube did in the past. The music runs the gambit from sounding angelic and holy, like when Mothra appears near Castle Bravo or when she sacrifices herself for Godzilla, to being big, dramatic, and adrenaline-pumping, like Rodan's big scene, and downright epic, like the track called "Old Rivals," which scores Godzilla and Ghidorah's first fight, which emphasizes how this is a major battle between two ancient enemies, each of whom will not yield until the other is dead. The tracks for Ghidorah's mass awakening of the Titans and its attack on Washington sound and feel just as apocalyptic as the visuals, and when Ghidorah badly injures Godzilla and drops him from the sky, the music reflects just how utterly hopeless the situation has gotten by that point. And the music in the sequence leading to Serizawa's sacrifice is so emotional and poetic, almost sounding religious, and when the warhead explodes, you hear nothing but the music, hitting you with the gravity of what's just happened.

And you can't talk about the music here without mentioning the awesome cover of the Blue Oyster Cult song, Godzilla, sung by Serj Tankian. Like the original song, it has a kind of cheesy, campy feel to it, but it also feels like a real tribute to the character and has an epicness to it with the chanting voices and how big and grand it gets, building and building until the end. It was an awesome way to close out the movie and was another aspect that showed how this was a film made by fans. And, in terms of the MonsterVerse, while Kong: Skull Island may have the best selection of songs on its soundtrack, King of the Monsters easily wins out as having the best score of the (so far) four films.

I don't know if I would agree with that person who called Godzilla: King of the Monsters a "Godzilla lover's dream," as I think the perfect Hollywood-produced Godzilla film has yet to be made, but for the time being, you won't find one that was made with as much love for the character and his universe. In addition, it's a well-made, visually spectacular movie with a beautiful look, wonderfully done sets and environments, be they real, augmented, or created solely through digital means, images that are destined to become iconic, a plethora of fun and exciting monster action, great visual effects used to bring the monsters to life, standout moments for each of the four main monsters, and an exquisite music score that makes great use of themes and leitmotifs from the past. But, like its predecessor, it does suffer from the problem of a bunch of human characters who either aren't that interesting, are irritating, or don't make good use of the great actors cast to play them, the film tends to focus just as much, if not more, on them during the monster scenes, and Godzilla himself doesn't get that much more screentime than he did previously and there's a long section of the movie not featuring him that has a tendency to drag. Also, the movie has attempts at humor that are obnoxious, the deeper meaning it tries to get at about co-existence and man's relationship with nature comes off as a bit shallow, and as great as the visual effects are, it would have been nice if there had been some practical creature-work thrown into the mix. Ultimately, if you found Godzilla 2014 to be a little slow and frustrating with its teasing of monster battles, King of the Monsters should give you more of what you want, and you will definitely feel the reverence the filmmakers have for the Big G. Just be prepared for it to come in an imperfect and somewhat messy package.