Movie Review - "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"

I think it's pretty fair to say Godzilla is currently having a bit of a pop culture "moment." Not only did "Godzilla Minus One" exceed literally every expectation at the box office, it just won an Oscar, the first time in the 70-year history of the franchise. 

©Warner Bros

That goodwill has certainly benefited "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," which has done extremely well since its release on March 29. That success will surely result in more movies in the Monsterverse, but before we think about the future, let's take a look at this movie. Obviously, it's not as good as "Minus One," but is it a good movie on its own?

Uhhh ... sort of? Spoilers to follow. You've been warned.

Let's talk about the positives first, and there are quite a few. First and foremost is Kong. Everyone's favorite giant ape is really the center of this movie; he gets an honest-to-goodness character arc that really does him justice. He starts off alone and clearly despondent, as he's been searching for others of his kind for years now, and he ends up leading an entire kingdom of kaiju apes. This would be the new empire in the subtitle. Really, all the Kongs (giant monkeys? kaiju apes? What do you call Kong's species, anyway?) are done very well. Obviously, not all of them get personalities, but the major ones do, and this is honestly probably the movie's greatest strength: It's able to tell a story about these titans who don't speak. There's no dialogue, no subtitles, the story is conveyed entirely through body language. And it works very well. You know exactly what the apes are thinking. It does help that they have human-like faces capable of human-like expressions, but credit's where it's due.

Another thing that I liked, oddly enough, was the human storyline. Bad human drama is hardly a Monsterverse-only problem, but between 2014 killing off the movie's best actor halfway through, King of the Monsters' "My God" "... Zilla" moment, and Godzilla vs. Kong's extreme overabundance of characters and plotlines that go nowhere, GxK made the excellent decision to trim the fat and focus on a small group of people doing one specific thing: Getting Jia (Kong's human companion) down to a tribe of people living in the Hollow Earth so she can resurrect Mothra. It's a completely bonkers and silly storyline, but it's a bonkers and silly movie, and the people never get in the way of the monster action. It can't hold a candle to "Minus One," obviously, but it's serviceable, and you can't ask for more than that.

©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Now, I think, it's time to get into something a little more contentious, and that's Godzilla. You know, the main character of the franchise, the first monster named in the title, star of nearly 40 movies over 70 years. Kong may be older, but Godzilla's a lot more prolific. 

Yeah, Godzilla's not in this movie very much. And when he is, he's doing stuff, but it's not exactly the most compelling. Basically, to make a long story short, the Iwi tribe (the people living in Hollow Earth) have sent out a psychic distress call warning that Scar King (the evil Kong leading the tribe at the start of the movie) is close to breaking out of his prison and reaching the surface. Oh, and he's got a gigantic ice-breathing lizard called Shimo at his beck and call, courtesy of what's basically a pain collar. Godzilla hears this distress call, decides that he's going to need a power-up to deal with this threat, and spends the movie absorbing a nuclear power plant, killing two titans that are in his way, and reaching a so-called "evolved" state. This pink-colored form is ... interesting; he's much thinner and has spikes at the end of his tail. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.

Anyway, the problem with Godzilla in this movie is that he's ridiculously overprepared and really doesn't do much in the big final battle. See, he does all this prep work because he thinks he'll have to take on Scar King and Shimo on his own. Something he's already done, according to the movie. He's the one who put Scar King in his prison to begin with. But, of course, Godzilla's not alone. Kong and Mothra (who's been resurrected for the hundredth time) are both there to help (and so is Kong's mini-Kong friend he made along the way). This kind of saps the tension out of the big finale. Kong and Godzilla don't ever feel like they're threatened, and Mothra doesn't even bother coming along for the portion of the fight that takes place on the surface, staying in Hollow Earth to do, uh, something. Godzilla's only there to occasionally tackle Shimo when she fires off her ice breath at Kong, who ostensibly can't deal with that attack. And then when Kong finally destroys Scar King's hold over Shimo, the fight is over, as Shimo immediately turns on Scar King. 

©Warner Bros

I hesitate to call a giant monster fight lame, because the action and choreography is very cool, but the fight does just sort of end, and I was definitely like "is that it?" Ninety-plus minutes of tension and build-up for Scar King to die like a little punk. At the very least, the ending does place Kong in a good place, with his story concluded. Hopefully the next movie lets him live in peace and we can follow Godzilla again, since Godzilla's story isn't at an end.

My other big issue, and this is a fairly common perspective, is that Hollow Earth presents a tricky dilemma for giant monster battles. Do you want to know why Godzilla always does his thing in cities? Well, other than it's cool seeing big buildings get destroyed, it's helpful for perspective. Godzilla feels enormous when wandering through skyscrapers; we know the scale of a city, and seeing Godzilla peering over a skyscraper is awe-inspiring. Hollow Earth lacks that sense of perspective. Too often it felt like Kong was just a normal-sized ape, a problem not helped by the "Planet of the Apes" preview that played just before the movie. Obviously, these monster battles are all just massive animations, elaborate cartoons, but when they take place in human cities, there's an illusion of verisimilitude. That illusion is broken during the Hollow Earth segments. It's a shame, because I like the idea of Hollow Earth in theory, but practically, it needs to be used sparingly.

Those are the major highlights and lowlights of the movie, but one little thing that I liked and wanted to point out is Godzilla turning the Colosseum into his personal cat bed; he starts off the movie curled up inside it, asleep, and he ends it curled up inside the Colosseum, asleep. It's a cute moment, and I immediately thought, "I wonder if it reminds him of his old home, the temple that got blown up during KOTM." An ancient megastructure, the one such building big enough to house him, it made sense. So much sense that apparently the novelization confirms exactly that; Godzilla likes Rome because of the giant ancient architecture. I'm not sure if that will help or hurt Rome's tourism business. I'd go to Rome to check out a sleeping Godzilla. 

Anyway, I think that's pretty much all I have to say about this movie. It's definitely fun in a turn-your-brain-off blockbuster sort of way, even if the conclusion is a bit foregone. I think, in terms of rating, I'll give it a 6.5 out of 10, slightly better that Godzilla vs. Kong, but not on the same level as 2014 or KOTM.