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Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is the latest installment in the Monsterverse, but unfortunately, it’s worse. Following the prior entry from three years ago, Adam Wingard returns as the director, along with several returning actors: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle.
This new movie has a lot of great kaiju action. There are several 5-10-minute sequences where no human characters appear and it’s awesome. However, when the human characters appear, everything just grinds to a halt to deliver some nonsense exposition.
Pesky Humans
However, the human characters are probably the best they have been since 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. Dan Stevens as Trapper is much fun and bounces off all the other human characters pretty well. Kaylee Hottle returns as Jia from Godzilla vs Kong, and while she is good in this, her connection with Kong that made the previous movie work so well is underutilized. Here, they only share a few scenes, which is a shame. Rebecca Hall’s character, Dr. Ilene Andrews, gets a few nice moments with Jia. Otherwise, Andrews is relegated to providing exposition.
The characters aren’t annoying and feel like they at least attempt meaningful connections, unlike with the last entry. Yet, while The New Empire forgoes connections between kaiju and humans, it has loads of connections between the two kaiju themselves.
All Out Monsters Attack
As mentioned, many sequences feature just the monsters on screen. This works especially well for Kong who feels more fleshed out than ever. Kong is very much the protagonist of this movie. He gets a nice arc and finally earns the “King” part of his title. Suko aka Mini Kong is a surprisingly delightful addition. He and Kong are a great duo that, at times, are reminiscent of the characters Kratos and Atreus from PlayStation’s God of War.
While the movie delivers plenty of great Kong action, there’s not much of Godzilla. He has a few scenes throughout the movie but is mostly present in the third act. Sure, the movie promises a great big team-up, but it doesn’t deliver till the last thirty minutes, unlike its predecessor, which had a healthy balance of the two titans. Thankfully, what little we get of the Big G himself is suitably epic, and when the two do team up it’s worth the price of admission. Still, I can’t help but feel somewhat disappointed that this is a Kong movie with a side of Godzilla and not a full-on team-up movie.
Too Big, Too Fast
Perhaps, the biggest issue of the movie is the lack of scale. Since the movie mostly focuses on the monsters, we are rarely presented with something to ground them against. This is especially true in the hollow earth sequences, which are the bulk of the movie. Additionally, the kaiju don’t have any weight to them like in previous installments. Furthermore, much of the exposition and lore are kind of meaningless and boring. Consequently, it does often play out as if someone just slammed action figures together, but it’s also a lot like a later-era Shōwa Godzilla film.
Overall, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire provides much of what kaiju fans are looking for but perhaps not as well executed as it could be. It is a ridiculous fun rollercoaster ride but one that takes a little too long to start up.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
This article was edited by John Tangalin.