Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review

 

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) Review

 

I can’t believe this movie exists. Prior to 2021, I had been waiting to see Godzilla and Kong fight again since I was a kid, and after the spectacle of Godzilla vs. Kong, I was more than satisfied. Seeing Godzilla and Kong throw down, with Godzilla definitively beating Kong, and then having Kong revived so he can team up with Godzilla to defeat Mechagodzilla was everything I had wanted and more, to the point that I didn’t even consider what might follow it. Another Godzilla movie? Another Kong movie with him in the hollow earth? It came as a definite surprise when a direct sequel was announced, and it was fast-tracked, promising early on that Godzilla and Kong would have to fight together to defeat a new evil enemy: the Orangutan-like titan Skar King!   

Even after seeing Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I still can’t believe it exists. How times have changed since the hype of sitting down in the home theater room in 2021 to watch Godzilla vs. Kong on streaming because our local movie theaters were closed due to the pandemic. I got to see this one in IMAX, and right away I will say it is worth the premium format because it gets the job done of making these monsters seem larger than life on such a big screen. That being said, I also saw Dune: Part Two in IMAX a few weeks earlier, and not to get off track and compare two vastly different movie-going experiences, but Dune was a much better and more immersive IMAX experience, for multiple reasons, but mainly because it didn’t look like 75 % of it was made in a computer—and yes, that is a mild bit of criticism of Godzilla x Kong.

I have seen polarizing reactions to GxK. Some are loving it, and calling it a “monsterpiece” which is brilliant, while others are calling it a disaster and making unfavourable comparisons to the far superior Godzilla Minus One. For those out there trying to compare this movie to the previous Japanese-produced one that just won an Academy Award, let me make something clear: Godzilla x Kong is at the opposite end of the monster movie spectrum compared to Minus One. It is not going to win any Oscars, nor should it, because it is all about, to quote James Rolfe of Cinemassacre: “Monsters beating the hell out of each other and blowing the &%$# out of everything in sight.” Another quote from him came to my mind as I was putting this review together, from his review of Godzilla: Final Wars: “If you’re willing to let reality fly out the window and just sit back and enjoy a wild flick, then give this one a watch, because it kicks ass.” That about sums up Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, as well.

It’s going to be difficult for me to avoid spoilers, so I’ll try to keep some specific likes and dislikes in a separate spoiler section, but I’m not really too concerned with spoiling this movie, since its mere existence sort of automatically delineates two groups of people with any interest in it: those who genuinely wanted to see it like me and therefore have probably already seen it before reading this, or those who have a cursory curiosity about it and care more about my reaction to it over what specifically happens. Let’s get into it.

The first important thing to note about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is its bad title. Besides the subtitle being a bit generic, it’s misleading. Eventually Godzilla and Kong do crossover, as the “x” implies, but this is not much of a Godzilla movie. In fact, despite Big G having some pretty awesome moments, he’s barely in it for the most part. It’s weird that the MonsterVerse films have been so averse to featuring Godzilla in anything close to a prominent role. Frankly, I’m tired of this, given it’s the fourth time in a row, and it’s one of the main detractors, for me, about this movie. This is a King Kong movie that also features Godzilla—which isn’t a bad thing, for the record, I’m still just longing for the Godzilla-focused MonsterVerse movie that hasn’t happened yet. For perhaps the first time ever in giant monster movie history, a monster is the main character of the story. Kong is, for all intents and purposes, the protagonist, and all the human plots serve the monster plots. He’s the first and last character shown in the movie, and he carries entire scenes without any humans present. Unlike Godzilla vs. Kong, though, there are many more monsters featured beyond the two in the title, and because it isn’t promising a battle between just the two of them, the focus of the movie is…well, I’d say it’s rather unfocused.

This is the ADHD giant monster movie I’m sure some fans have been waiting for. If you don’t like having to follow the human storylines for consecutive scenes, don’t worry, this movie jumps all over the place. There are two monster battles before the main title even shows. But, there are human characters, though far fewer than previous MonsterVerse entries. Returning from Godzilla vs. Kong is Rebecca Hall as Dr. Andrews, Kaylee Hottle as Jia, the young Iwi tribe survivor from Skull Island Andrews adopted, and Brian Tyree Henry as monster conspiracy podcaster Bernie. Introduced in this one is a new character by the name of Trapper, played by Dan Stevens, who is something of a Kong veterinarian, and easily the most fun and entertaining human character in the movie. The reason given for Bernie being brought back into the fold is pretty dumb, but most of the setups in the movie are, admittedly, stupid. Clearly that was not a problem for the creative team.

For all the insane, ridiculous, and hilarious decisions made in the creation of this movie, I have to applaud Legendary Pictures for actually letting director Adam Wingard make this movie exactly how he wanted to. It does not reek of studio meddling. It reminded me of Pacific Rim in several ways, but not the least of which was how the director’s personality comes through in every scene (minus one cringe shot of a car that is blatant product placement). Wingard let loose. The creative team had no scruples about doing anything they thought was cool and coming up with whatever they needed to in order to make those cool things happen. Going back to Kong, he is on a personal quest, which takes him deeper into the hollow earth (the, uh, hollower earth, I guess) where he meets other giant ape-like monsters similar to him, including a young one named Suko. This little guy isn’t called that name in the movie, you would only know it if you’re as big of a nerd as I am, but Bernie refers to him as a “Mini-Kong” at one point, and at first, Mini-Kong/Suko is a total dick to Kong. But, they form a bond as they venture closer to the main conflict of the movie.

My biggest criticism of Godzilla x Kong overall is how dragged out the first half is. I can compare this one closer to the previous MonsterVerse movie (Godzilla vs. Kong) because this is the first entry helmed by the same director who made the last one, and I think Godzilla x Kong is not nearly as well balanced, or as well refined, or as consistent as the previous versus film. As I said earlier, Godzilla is not really in the movie all that much. When it cuts back to him on the surface of earth, his scenes are truncated and usually coupled with supporting human characters spouting off expository dialogue to catch the audience up, then they speed run his upgrade that was teased in all the trailers and marketing. Kong is able to carry the first half of the movie, and even though his adventures along the way are entertaining and punctuated with moments that are epic, intense, and even intentionally hilarious, there is no central conflict for anyone until Kong finally meets the main monster villain.

I feel like the trailers advertised the movie backwards. What I expected would happen early in the story happened later on. Skar King does not appear at all until Kong gets to his lair. There is not much buildup to him or teasing of his existence, so it doesn’t feel like a suspenseful build as Kong journeys unknowingly toward certain doom. Skar King, while cool, comes into the story too late. It felt to me as if the story started too early, and the uneven jumps back and forth from Kong’s scenes to the humans hurt the pacing. Then, when Kong finally gets back to the surface to summon Godzilla in order to help him fight Skar King, the movie kicks into high gear and it is nonstop action and mayhem from that point on. I definitely found myself enjoying the movie more in the second half, but that’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of entertainment value in the first half.

I was highly entertained by Godzilla x Kong, but in a slightly different way from Godzilla vs. Kong, or any of the other previous MonsterVerse films, for that matter. It’s a wonderful demonstration of the dynamic quality the Godzilla (and Kong) franchise has, in terms of being able to tell serious, grounded, human stories like in Godzilla Minus One, and totally off-the-wall fantastical ones, too, but still have both be entertaining in different ways. In ten years we have strayed far away from the gritty, serious groundwork laid in Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla reboot, but I’m not mad about it. 

I do not think Godzilla x Kong can be nitpicked and criticized too heavily when the intent behind it was clearly to be a big, dumb, fun romp, but at the same time, it lacks a certain credibility and refinement Godzilla vs. Kong was able to maintain while simultaneously stepping out into a more far-fetched realm compared to the previous films. That being said, I still feel there are legitimate negatives about this movie that lowered my enjoyment compared to the previous one. The music is even less remarkable than Godzilla vs. Kong’s already unremarkable score by Tom Holkenberg (who co-composed New Empire’s score), the sound design is not as good, the uninteresting human characters still get in the way sometimes, and there are a few dumb moments and jokes that were not so dumb they were fun, they were just dumb.

To summarize the spoiler-free part of this review, Godzilla x Kong has some of the craziest monster action I’ve ever seen, but it does come off as a sequel that was more rushed and less thought out than Godzilla vs. Kong. As for some of that action, let me cover it by getting into major spoilers! The first two battles Kong and Godzilla have (Kong against some hollow earth wolf-like monsters and Godzilla against the spider-like Scylla in Rome) are short and notable for both ending with the monsters getting drenched in the guts of their victims, which is a little grosser than some of the other monster carnage we’ve seen in these movies previously. Then, the greatest moment of the whole movie: when Kong beats up Suko the first time he meets him, and uses the little monkey as a club to beat up another ape monster! The little guy is fine, afterward, but might have shaken baby syndrome. I laughed so hard at that moment I felt it was worth the price of admission alone.

Godzilla fights the titan Tiamat in the Arctic, and this new titan was previously introduced in a graphic novel, apparently, but I haven’t read it, so this was my introduction to Tiamat, and…Godzilla kills it in less than a minute, and we don’t get to see much of the fight. *Insert sad tuba sound* For Godzilla fans, this movie could easily be cited as a huge disappointment, because it shortchanges him big time until the end. When Kong meets Skar King, though, their first skirmish is intense, and it felt like a lot of care went into the shot choices and visual effects for that sequence. A quick comment on the visual effects throughout the movie: they are not consistently good. Some shots were not done cooking. That being said, the humans were on lots of real sets which looked pretty good. After we meet Skar King, he introduces Kong to his secret weapon: the brand-new ice-spewing titan Shimo, kept behind a lava river.

I like the idea of Shimo, but why did they make it look so lame? It’s a four-legged dragon-like creature, but it has softer features than Godzilla (though is larger than him overall) and a generic roar. It stood out to me as a new creature in the worst way: it was so clearly an uninspired design compared to the similarly-reptilian Godzilla and acted more like a pet than a creature with any real agency. Yes, it was under the control of Skar King with the little ice crystal thing, but then when Shimo is freed from enslavement at the end, it just becomes Kong’s pet, and I found that a bit disappointing. What I did not find disappointing, though, was the unexpected return of Mothra, this time with a new connection to Jia, and some hollow earth lore that connected well to the original Toho Mothra lore. As a longtime fan, that was a very pleasant surprise, and the way Mothra instantly made Godzilla cooperate with Kong was awesome. I’m also glad she had a good reason for being in the story and wasn’t unceremoniously dispatched in the final battle. Let’s hope she returns, maybe in that Mothra spinoff I hoped for way back when Godzilla: King of the Monsters came out in 2019?

When the team-up battle ensued, I was losing it. The zero-gravity clash between Skar King riding atop Shimo and Kong riding atop Godzilla was pure monster movie absurdity bliss. Godzilla rebounding off floating rocks amid the battle was one of the silliest/coolest things to happen in the MonsterVerse yet–not just in the MonsterVerse, but any Godzilla movie in years. Then, when they got to the surface, one of the greatest moments of all, a meme-worthy monster movie moment: Shimo freezes the sun! The explanation the characters give earlier is that Shimo caused the last ice age. Damn, Shimo is no slouch, even if it looks like a cute little albino bearded dragon. 

The final battle was pretty awesome. Once Kong frees Shimo from Skar King’s control, the pissed off titan freezes his ass, and Kong exacts revenge by smashing him to pieces. Then, rather casually, Godzilla shoots his atomic beam at the sky and reignites the sun! It’s a rapid wrap-up from there, and while I once again commend that the movie is less than two hours in length, it feels a little rushed in the conclusion. At the end, though, I liked how they left off Kong as the new leader of the hollow earth apes. He is now, indisputably, KING Kong. Godzilla, meanwhile, loves sleeping in the colosseum like a cat (inspired by Adam Wingard’s actual pet cat, apparently), which was a funny little joke to end off with him. 

One thing that disappointed me about Kong’s arc was something the trailers had seemed to imply would happen. Kong was shown to have a metal replacement for one of his canines, and Skar King was shown to lose a tooth in the final battle when Kong punched him in the face. I thought this was going to be Kong getting revenge for Skar King knocking out his own tooth during their first clash, and Trapper was going to fix Kong’s tooth before he teamed up with Godzilla for the final battle. This didn’t happen. Kong just happens to have a cracked tooth early in the movie, and the introduction to Trapper is him demonstrating his titan veterinarian skills. You know what, though? Trapper is not much of a vet at all, because all he does is yank Kong’s cracked tooth (which is just cracked because he’s getting old, I guess?) using a flying vehicle, and then later he activates the B.E.A.S.T glove, which flies itself onto Kong’s hand, and Trapper doesn’t really do anything to help with that other than push the button. These are a few moments that feel like missed opportunities, but I can’t say there are an abundance of those throughout.

To wrap up this spoiler section and my review as a whole, I’ll talk about the future of the MonsterVerse, because the future of it at the end of Godzilla vs. Kong was far less certain than it seems now. When Godzilla vs. Kong came out, there was a real concern that it would be the last one, because it premiered during the pandemic in limited theaters and on streaming simultaneously, but that ended up saving the film, because it was a blockbuster that people were clamoring for, even if they weren’t previously-established MonsterVerse fans. It had been far too long since a new big, loud, fun action movie, due to the 2020 movie slate basically having no new ones of the sort, so people were more than ready for the likes of a giant monster brawl in 2021. It ended up making enough money to justify a follow-up, and in the interim, we got the Apple TV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which followed Monarch’s origins and filled in some of the blanks as far as Godzilla’s history went. Now, Godzilla x Kong is dominating the box office, and has already made back its budget, so it’s only a matter of time until the follow-up is announced.

I think it would make sense at this point to have Adam Wingard return to direct a third and final film to round out his Godzilla & Kong trilogy, and his comments on what he would do if he gets the chance to make it sound promising, especially for Godzilla fans and anyone who was irked by the monster's lack of involvement in the majority of New Empire’s story. Even though Skar King was cool (and Shimo, to a lesser extent), it would be nice to see a classic Godzilla villain featured as the main threat next time, instead of a third villain that’s basically just an evil version of one of the good monsters (last time it was Mechagodzilla, this time it was Skar King), and bringing in even more Toho monsters to cross over would be a treat. This was the first time Mothra and Kong have ever shared the screen, and with the way this version of Kong is going, I’m all for him meeting and fighting against or alongside more monsters, like Rodan or Behemoth or something brand new.

I’ve said more than enough about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire for now. To provide a final verdict, I was highly entertained by most of it, but also frustrated by it in certain regards, and I don’t see myself re-watching this one from beginning to end as easily as Godzilla vs. Kong, but it definitely has some amazing highlights, and as the first sequel to ever bring Godzilla and Kong back together after pitting them against each other, I think the outlandish adventure was justified.