Recap

Godzilla 2014:  Let Them Fight

The opening credits are basically the same stock footage that all nuclear-related monster movies like to use:  nuclear tests, newspaper articles about nuclear tests, snippets of news pertaining to an unidentified creature, etc.  A group of military observers are sitting far closer to a nuclear blast than I would ever feel comfortable doing.  They put on protective eye-wear, because heaven knows if you’re sitting within close range of a nuclear detonation, your eyes are what you will be worried about.  Enormous spikes poke up out of the water.  The explosion and subsequent mushroom cloud turn the screen white.  Godzilla screeches in fury.

1999.  A gigantic hole has been found in the Philippines.  There is incredible footage of CGI workers swarming the walls of the massive ditch.  It looks like an ant hill after it is disturbed. Here is where we meet our solitary Japanese main character, Ichiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe), and his (English?) assistant Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins).  An American (because of course the U.S. is in charge of something this large scale in another country) leads the two down into the cave.  We see probably one of the coolest size-comparison shots ever:  everyone is standing inside the skeleton of a massive creature.  This skeleton…I can’t even think of a good description to compare how tiny the people are vs. the sheer enormity of the skeleton.  Maybe think of a house fly on top of an elephant.  The scale is just incredible.

Continuing on the theme of large-scale, the researchers find a pod or cocoon of some sort that no longer contains whatever it was growing.  We pan out to see a massive trench leading out of the cave; basically a terrifyingly large beast has burrowed its way from the cavern to the sea.