Godzilla: King of the Monsters

***Godzilla: King of the Monsters*** is a 2019 American science fiction monster film directed by Michael Dougherty and a sequel to 2014's *Godzilla*. It is the third film in Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse and is followed by 2021's *Godzilla vs. Kong*.

## Synopsis

*Set 5 years after the events of 2014's Godzilla (film), the new story follows the heroic efforts of the crypto-zoological agency Monarch as its members face off against a battery of god-sized monsters. As the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah. When these ancient super-species – thought to be mere myths – rise again, they all vie for supremacy, leaving humanity's very existence hanging in the balance.*

## Plot

The year is 2019. Five years have passed since Godzilla defeated and killed the MUTOs in 2014 while the existence of the "Titans", giant god-like animalistic creatures that once dominated Earth, has been revealed to the world. Dr. Emma Russell, a paleobiologist working for the cryptozoological organization known as Monarch, continues to study the Titans while raising her teenage daughter Madison.

One day, Emma and Madison travel to an excavation site in China, where they witness the birth of a giant larva moth named Mothra. At first, Mothra turns aggressive and starts to attack the Monarch operatives, though Emma manages to calm her using the "ORCA", a sonar device she created that is capable of emitting frequencies that only Mothra and other Titans can hear. Madison grows attached to the docile Mothra, until an eco-terrorist group, led by former British Army colonel Alan Jonah, raid the site, kidnapping both Emma and Madison. Mothra manages to escape and cocoon herself underneath a waterfall miles away from the site. Meanwhile, Monarch's scientists and soldiers led by Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and his assistant Dr. Vivienne Graham find Emma's ex-husband and Madison's father Mark and convince him to help rescue Emma and Madison. Though Mark is hesitant at first since he has previously resigned from Monarch to pursue his passion as a wildlife photographer and has blamed Godzilla for the death of his son Andrew, who was lost during Godzilla's battle with the MUTOs five years ago, he reluctantly rejoins the team.

Monarch and Godzilla travel to Antarctica where the team realizes Jonah's intentions to free a three-headed draconic Titan encased in the ice called "Monster Zero", believed by Monarch based on their limited data to be a rival apex predator to Godzilla. Once there, Jonah's team ambushes the Monarch soldiers. During the standoff, Mark finds Madison and Emma, but before Madison could come to her father, she is stopped and called back by Emma. Although hesitant at first to leave with her father, Madison eventually comes back to Emma, who frees Monster Zero herself before leaving with Jonah's men. While fleeing, Jonah orders Emma to use the ORCA to wake up Monster Zero, who awakens and kills Monarch's forces on the ground below before turning his attention to the rest of the group. Fearing for Mark's life, Madison snatches the ORCA from Emma and sends out sonar pulses to distract Monster Zero in hopes of keeping the creature away from her father, only to be restrained and pulled away by Jonah's forces while Emma turns off the ORCA to prevent Monster Zero from killing them. At that moment, Godzilla suddenly erupts from the ice to confront Monster Zero and the two Titans engage in battle. During the fight, Godzilla is overwhelmed, Graham is deliberately devoured by Monster Zero and Mark is knocked unconscious in the process while Monster Zero is being bombarded by missiles from Monarch's warjet, the *Argo*. Barely fazed, Monster Zero flies off, leaving the Monarch team to regroup while Godzilla gives pursuit.

After Mark recovers sometime later, he and Monarch find out that Jonah's next target is Isla de Mara, Mexico. They are contacted by Emma, who reveals that she was in league with Jonah all along and she intends to free the Titans to cull the human population and restore balance to the world, though Mark chastises her for endangering Madison, for not putting Andrew’s death behind her, and for jeopardizing billions of human lives. Unable to reason with her, Monarch focuses on evacuating the people, but before it is complete, Emma is ordered by Jonah to use the ORCA to awaken a pterosaur-like Titan called Rodan, despite Madison pleading to her mother to reconsider and let Monarch do the evacuation first, but Emma ignores her pleas. After Rodan escapes from his containment chamber, Mark plans to use the Titan as bait to keep him away from the village so that Monarch can lure him to Monster Zero which would result in the two Titans fighting each other to death. Monarch sends a fleet of fighter jets to open fire on Rodan, who immediately takes flight and pursues them, despite him causing destruction to the nearby city below with shockwaves caused by flapping of his wings. Rodan was able to take out the jets, only to encounter Monster Zero, who easily defeats Rodan in an aerial clash.

After Rodan is beaten, Monster Zero turns his attention to the *Argo*, but Godzilla emerges from the ocean and drags Monster Zero underwater, successfully gaining the upper hand by tearing off Monster Zero's left head. During the battle, the military launches a missile known as the Oxygen Destroyer towards them, seemingly killing Godzilla, who sinks into the ocean. Monster Zero however survives the missile unharmed and travels to the place where Rodan emerged, where he regenerates his missing head by absorbing energy while a recovered Rodan acknowledges the new alpha, becoming Monster Zero's vanguard. With Godzilla seemingly dead and now taking over the role as the new alpha Titan, Monster Zero lets out a piercing shriek which awakens all the dormant Titans and furthermore directs them to attack human cities and actively unleash natural disasters of apocalyptic proportions (such as massive wildfires, mass die-offs, volcanic eruptions polluting the atmosphere with gigatons of ash and volcanic gases, etc.) around the world. Horrified at what her mother has unleashed, Madison turns her back on Emma for her role in the destruction and countless deaths the Titans are now causing, and she poses a question by asking her mother if Andrew would really want what she has done. In the wake of the apocalypse, Monarch contemplate Monster Zero's numerous unnatural characteristics, and Dr. Ilene Chen pieces together from mythological texts that Monster Zero, now named Ghidorah by the ancients, is actually an alien invader, meaning his actions will destroy the Earth's biosphere instead of healing it without Godzilla around to keep him in check.

Meanwhile, Mothra emerges from her cocoon underneath the waterfall and flies to a facility in the Bermuda Triangle where she uses her sonar to communicate with Godzilla, who had survived the detonation and is recuperating underwater. Using her bioluminescence as a beacon, Mothra leads Monarch to Godzilla's location. Deciding to fire a nuclear warhead at Godzilla to revitalize him, Mark, Serizawa, and a Monarch team board a submarine. A vortex pulls the submarine into an undersea tunnel that leads to Godzilla's lair: an underwater city irradiated enough to recharge him. Unfortunately, the team realizes the natural process could take hours to recharge Godzilla and decide to detonate the nuclear weapon. However, due to earlier damages the submarine suffered from the vortex, the weapon system is offline, meaning someone will have to place and arm the warhead next to Godzilla, although the heat and radiation could kill them before they can make it back. Serizawa volunteers to manually detonate the weapon, and after donning a diving suit and boarding a miniature submarine, travels into the air pocket where Godzilla is resting. After arming the nuclear weapon and approaching Godzilla, Serizawa can only say farewell to his old friend before accepting his fate as the warhead detonates, obliterating Godzilla's lair along with the rest of the sunken city. Soon, Godzilla emerges from the ocean next to the submarine, fully revitalized by the nuclear blast. After briefly inspecting the group and realizing that they revived him, Godzilla makes his way to fight Ghidorah and take his rightful place as the true alpha Titan while Monarch resolve to follow him and join the battle.

In Boston, Massachusetts, Emma starts doubting that Jonah's goals are as effective as he says they are, and suggests the possibility of using the ORCA to broadcast a signal in Fenway Park, but Jonah declines since all he cares about is the Titans taking back the Earth since the planet truly does belong to them and believes humans are the most destructive species. However, unknown to Emma and Jonah, Madison overhears their conversation, steals the ORCA and escapes undetected, intending to carry out her mother's idea of stopping Ghidorah's rampage herself. After traveling to Fenway Park and making her way inside the pressbox, Madison hooks up the ORCA to the ballpark's sound system and broadcasts a frequency that calms the Titans, but unwittingly attracts all of them to her location. Alerted to this frequency, Ghidorah arrives in Boston seeking to destroy the ORCA and attacks Madison, who sacrifices the device in the process. As Ghidorah prepares to kill her, Godzilla arrives with Monarch's assistance to challenge his foe, allowing Madison to escape. Monarch learns that the warhead's radiation overcharged Godzilla: while it did made him stronger, he will overload and emit a thermonuclear explosion. Mark leads a Monarch team to find and rescue Madison so they can evacuate the city before Godzilla overloads, but instead only finds the damaged ORCA and meets up with Emma, who has showed up in a Humvee she had stolen upon having betrayed Jonah when she found out that Madison has ran away and has taken the ORCA from her. Mothra arrives to support Godzilla, but Ghidorah calls upon Rodan for assistance, prompting the winged Titan to appear and intercept Mothra so that he can take her out of the fight and prevent her from intervening. Although badly wounded in the fight, Mothra was able to finally defeat Rodan by stabbing him with her stinger, immobilizing the Titan. At the same time, Godzilla continues to battle Ghidorah, who absorbs electricity from a nearby power substation and projects a massive amount of lightning which incapacitates Godzilla before proceeding to lift and drop the Titan from the sky, badly injuring Godzilla once he hits the ground below. As Ghidorah prepares to finish Godzilla, Mothra comes to his aid and attempts to protect him from Ghidorah, but is vaporized by his gravity beams, causing her ashes to shower down onto Godzilla and transfer her energy into him.

While Ghidorah starts to drain Godzilla's energy, Mark and Emma track down Madison to Beacon Street upon learning that she has fled to their old home to seek refuge and eventually find her in a bathtub buried under some debris. After reviving Madison and seeing that Ghidorah is gaining the upper hand against Godzilla, the Russells work together to repair the ORCA so they could use it to distract Ghidorah by luring him away long enough for Godzilla to recover. As the group prepare to evacuate just as Ghidorah draws near, Emma, suddenly realizing that she would never be able to escape with the group if the ORCA was onboard, instead allows Mark and Madison to escape with Monarch before sacrificing herself by driving away with the ORCA so that she can use it to continue luring Ghidorah away, only for the beast to destroy the vehicle with his gravity beams, injuring Emma and destroying the ORCA while Mark and Madison could only watch in distraught. As Ghidorah prepares to kill a wounded Emma as she slowly dies, it is revealed that her sacrifice had not only allowed her family to escape, but had given time for Godzilla to recover as he suddenly appears behind Ghidorah, glowing bright orange and emitting intense heat thanks to the energy Mothra had bestowed upon him when she died. In his new form, Godzilla charges up and unleashes a series of thermonuclear pulses which incinerate Ghidorah completely before penetrating his enemy's chest with a stomp, creating a massive explosion which engulfs the whole city. Once the dust has cleared, Godzilla emerges from the debris holding Ghidorah's remaining head in his jaws and vaporizes it with his atomic breath, finally killing Ghidorah for good and ending his reign of terror, thus avenging the deaths of Mothra, Graham, Emma and countless other humans.

Having finally defeated his rival, Godzilla finds himself cornered by the other Titans who had been lured to Boston by the ORCA while Rodan, having survived being impaled by Mothra's stinger, approached Godzilla to challenge him. However, Godzilla instead gave Rodan a stern look, causing the flying Titan to instantly reconsider his actions and submit to him. The other Titans each followed suit, bowing to Godzilla as their new "King of the Monsters" while Mark, Madison and Monarch watch on as they fly off. Later, it is shown that Monarch has divulged its information on the Titans to the public. News clippings show a newly discovered egg which suspects to be another Mothra, Titans beginning to converge on Skull Island, a mysterious forest blooming at the Sahara Desert, 14 animals have been removed from the endangered species list, Titan waste is believed to be viable energy source, and ancient paintings displaying Godzilla and Kong (or at least members of their respective species) battling.

In Isla de Mara, it is revealed that fishermen had managed to dredge up Ghidorah's severed left head, which had been torn off by Godzilla earlier. Jonah and his men travel to a warehouse where the head was being kept and after observing the head, Jonah declares that he should "take it."

## Cast

* Kyle Chandler as Mark Russell
* Vera Farmiga as Dr. Emma Russell
* Millie Bobby Brown as Madison Russell
* Bradley Whitford as Dr. Rick Stanton
* Sally Hawkins as Dr. Vivienne Graham
* Charles Dance as Colonel Alan Jonah
* Thomas Middleditch as Sam Coleman
* O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Barnes
* Kevin Dillon as Godzilla
* Zhang Ziyi as Dr. Ilene Chen
* Anthony Ramos as Colonel Martinez
* Jonathan Howard as Asher
* Aisha Hinds as Colonel Diane Foster
* Elizabeth Ludlow as First Lieutenant Lauren Griffin
* Randy Havens as Asher
* Jason Liles, Alan Maxson and Richard Dorton as King Ghidorah (motion capture)
* Joe Morton as Houston Brooks