Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review

Godzilla and King Kong return in the fifth entry in the MonsterVerse and the second Hollywood film in which the pair appear together.

After the events of Godzilla vs. Kong, the great Titans split the world in two. Godzilla is the apex predator on the surface and protects humanity from rogue Titans, even if it means a major city gets destroyed occasionally. Kong’s domain is the Hollow Earth, a subterranean environment and he spends his days hunting and searching for other great apes. Monarch believes something big is happening when a strange signal appears and Godzilla starts to act out of character, forcing Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) to lead an expedition into the Hollow Earth to find the source of the signal.

To prepare for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire I rewatched the previous MonsterVerse films. The tragedy of this series has been stark. The 2014 version of Godzilla was made after the success of The Dark Knight Trilogy and tried to treat the material as realistically and seriously as possible. Kong: Skull Island was a period monster film that had effective moments of horror. Godzilla: King of the Monsters was an incoherent mess with some cool fist-pumping moments and an excellent soundtrack. Godzilla vs. Kong was unashamedly silly. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire aimed to offer more of the same.

Adam Wingard returned to the director’s chair for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The sequel had a similar structure to its predecessor. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was split into three stories. The first was the expedition that led to Andrews and her party discovering a lost civilisation, the second was about Kong searching for more members of his species, and the third was about Godzilla powering himself up for a big battle. The filmmakers were going for a Journey to the Centre of Earth/The Lost World style adventure where characters get to explore a strange prehistoric world. But this storyline was similar to Kong and his human allies going into the Hollow Earth to find a lost weapon from the previous film.

Out of the two monsters, Kong got the most attention. He’s given more of a journey, both physical and emotional as he discovers he isn’t the last member of his species. Godzilla was a side character for most of the movie and only played a major role in the final act. Fans of the nuclear-powered lizard will probably leave disappointed.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire attempted to give the human story some emotion through Jia (Kaylee Hottle), Ilene’s adopted daughter. The film highlighted the parallels between Jia and Kong since they both were alone in the world and they thought they were the last of their kind. Jia suffers from teenage angst as she asks where she belongs. Meeting the Iwi people allowed Jai to experience her birth culture and discover why she’s special. Dan Stevens made an impression as Trapper, a Titan vet. He was a larger-than-life character due to his confident personality, long hair, and accent that sounded like a combination of Cockney and Australian. Stevens brought a lot of life to the film as this universe’s Steve Irwin.

Where Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire succeeds was being a big, silly blockbuster. It’s a B-Movie idea that happened to have major studio backing. The target audience was going to watch this film because they wanted to have a good time. When the monster action happened, the film was an utter blast. This was a film where Kong used a baby ape as a weapon. It came across as the cinematic equivalent of professional wrestling the monsters punch, kick, and body smash each other. There was plenty of city-wide destruction with Rome, Cairo, and Rio de Janeiro suffering a lot of damage. However, Godzilla absorbed so much radiation that he was radioactive, leading to concerns that he was causing many people and the environment a slow and painful death. For good and ill, the special effects heavy action, and overstuffed plot made Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire similar to the Michael Bay Transformers films.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was a simple film that will act as popcorn fodder for many. It’s far from being high-art and lacks any meaning like Godzilla: Minus One, but I enjoy the silliness that was presented.