Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
The latest MonsterVerse movie delivers on the action, but not much else.
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The MonsterVerse hasn’t really been my cup of tea. Mind you, I’m a big fan of Godzilla and King Kong, but in a franchise of four, two of their films (the “Godzilla” movies) left me feeling disappointed, one of their films I found to be mildly enjoyable (“Godzilla vs. Kong”), and one (“Kong: Skull Island”) I found to be terrific. While Gareth Edwards’ “Godzilla” took a more grim-dark approach, with very little screen time for the titular character, it didn’t work, especially if you compare it to something like last year's “Godzilla Minus One.”
However, you can’t compare any other movies in the MonsterVerse to the recent Oscar-winner. These movies have become progressively more and more goofy, and the goofiness has finally reached its peak with the latest installment “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.”
The plot of the movie, well from what is comprehensible, is set after the events of “Godzilla vs. Kong,” and finds King Kong traversing his new home in Hollow Earth in search to find other Great Apes like him. In the meantime, Godzilla has been traveling across the globe in search of a new kind of energy. Little do they know, the former rivals will soon have to reluctantly team up to fight a dangerous new foe, the long-armed, orange-furred Great Ape known as the Skar King.
The film also features Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle reprising their roles from the previous film alongside franchise newcomer Dan Stevens, sporting sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt. Although, their plot is full of nothing but nonsensical expositional dialogue that it’s hard to even describe what the hell is going on in the movie.
That doesn’t matter too much, because the marquee characters are the only reason anybody would want to see this, and the movie has enough monster action to satisfy those looking for some good old-fashioned mindless dumb fun. The CGI on Godzilla and Kong is almost flawless, especially with the latter.
While he may get second-billing under his reptilian co-star, “The New Empire” is essentially Kong’s movie. There are long stretches of the film with no humans in sight, just Kong traveling across Hollow Earth with his new best buddy Suko, a childlike ape with a bit of an attitude problem.
These sequences truly stand out, with director Adam Wingard trying to humanize the gargantuan gorilla in ways we haven’t seen before. Within the first 15 minutes, Kong takes a shower under a waterfall, smirks, and deals with an aggravating toothache, and instead of being filled with Hulk-like rage, he just seems annoyed and a little depressed. As goofy as it sounds, and believe me it is, it works. “The New Empire” did so much more to make me care for Kong than any other film in the MonsterVerse.
Unfortunately, where the movie starts to fall apart is how Godzilla is utilized. While his time on-screen is delightfully silly, his entire sub-plot feels shoe-horned in. The movie attempts to tread too much in under two hours, from whatever the hell the humans are doing to Kong and Suko’s growing friendship, to the Skar King’s reign over the Great Apes.
Yes, the human characters of the MonsterVerse are never there to be the stars of the show, but if we’re supposed to be spending time with them, at least make their storylines somewhat interesting and not deliver dialogue that felt like it was written in a drunken daze. It’s not that any of the actors give poor performances,
Hall and Henry do their best with the material they’re given. But outside of Hottle’s stellar performance as the teenage Jia and Stevens’ over-the-top snark, none of these characters are remotely interesting. The movie feels as if it comes to a screeching halt during these moments and the more they show up, the more boring it becomes.
In fact, these moments become so dull, that even when the monsters start trading punches, the movie has already become so tiresome that it’s hard to even care about any of it. The pacing isn’t doing the movie any favors either, as it switches from feeling quick and entertaining to grating and sluggish.
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is far from a great movie and it’d even be a stretch to call it a great one, but there’s enough action and goofiness present that fans of the franchise will leave feeling mostly satisfied. Just don’t expect much out of cool CGI and badass-looking monsters.