Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review
The next one better be called Godzilla OR Kong.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Directed by Adam Wingard
Screenplay by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slater
Starring Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Rachel House, Brian Tyree Henry, Fala Chen, Kaylee Hottle, Mercy Cornwall and Alex Ferns
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Review
An interesting thing happens when a film series reaches a certain number of entries. As Legendary’s MonsterVerse debuts its fifth installment…it’s a perfect time to talk about it. Each new movie finds itself serving two masters. As with any film director Adam Wingard (You’re Next, The Guest) helm…he sets out to make a good movie. When you’re making a fifth entry in an ongoing series (and direct sequel to Wingard’s own Godzilla vs. Kong), you also want to give fans of the series a good version of the specific thing they’re a fan of. The more movies that get made…the more the formula tips towards the latter.
There is a 164-thousand-pound kaiju in the room this time around. Godzilla Minus One was released a few months ago to critical acclaim, a prestigious Oscar win, and a slightly less prestigious Scare Value Award. The MonsterVerse will never be confused with Takashi Yamazaki’s throwback masterpiece…but Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire will always be tied to it…fairly or not. The trailer for the latest MonsterVerse release arrived just as Godzilla Minus One fever was reaching its peak. Watching Kong with his power glove running side by side with Godzilla looked comical by comparison. Within the context of the full feature…it works better. As long as you accept that the formula has now tipped completely to the side of serving a franchise.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a good Kong movie. It’s also an atrocious Godzilla movie. Not just because Minus One raised the bar to an impossibly high standard. The New Empire is a bad Godzilla movie compared to Legendary’s own usage of the character. As a standalone Kong movie…there are some enjoyable moments here. It continues the story of Kong’s search for family in some interesting ways. Extended scenes of Kong interacting with his new world sans human characters or speech of any kind stand out as the highlights of Godzilla x Kong.
But this isn’t a standalone Kong movie. The success of Godzilla vs. Kong doesn’t make Warner Bros. interested in taking a step back, after all. It’s a misstep. One that devalues their own property. For all the mistakes and over-saturation Disney has made with the Marvel Cinematic Universe…their arguable creative peak came from not directly following The Avengers with Age of Ultron. Mileage varies on Iron Man 3 (and stalls out with Thor: The Dark World) …but Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy provided series high that the MCU has rarely come close to again. Godzilla x Kong could have been a high-end Kong movie. Instead…it’s the MonsterVerse’s Age of Ultron.
It’s too loud…too busy. Human characters are always an issue in this series and remain so here. Dan Stevens joins the cast and for all his charm and charisma…serves little purpose outside of providing a MacGuffin for Kong’s upgrades. Brian Tyree Henry returns from vs. to provide comic relief. The screenplay forgets to include anything funny for him to say. Rebecca Hall fares better reprising her role from vs. as well. Her ongoing storyline with adopted daughter Jia at least makes narrative sense. These are high quality actors. Mostly wasted in a movie that people aren’t even buying tickets to see human stories in.
Wingard tries to infuse fun into the many battle scenes here…he does a fine job capturing the action, but the big battles become overcrowded and overstuffed with gimmicks. When you’re making the fifth installment…you must go bigger…even if it rarely results in better. Which brings us to the biggest problem in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Godzilla is a disaster. Yes…it’s stupid to watch him running around hunched over with two long, athletic arms throwing haymakers. The trailer tries to prepare you for how silly it all looks. It turns out to be the least of the problems.
The truth is protector Godzilla doesn’t work in repetition. The King of the Monsters only has one possible storyline. An evil titan rises…he shows up to fight it. Godzilla x Kong barely even provides him with that story. It gets there eventually…all swept up in a grand exploration of added lore to the franchise (everything in service of the franchise). Mostly, however, Godzilladoesn’t have anything to do. He’s on a side quest to power up that eventually connects to the main story…but nothing here is interesting or worthy of his usage whatsoever. When he does get to do battle…well…you’ve seen the trailer. That’s not Godzilla. This movie shouldn’t even have Godzilla in it.
If you are a fan of the MonsterVerse…The New Empire is fine. It gives Kong a lot. Lore is deepened in some extensive ways. An unadvertised fan favorite makes a grand appearance. At it’s best…the human characters walk their way through a decent Jurassic Park movie. At it’s worst…a bad Jurassic Park movie. The main villain doesn’t feel like the threat that Mechagodzilla was, let alone King Ghidorah. He introduces us to a new titan that has their own little story arc. It’s basically what you expect. Just more of it to the point of being too much.
Scare Value
My advice for the sixth installment of the MonsterVerse is to return to basics. Start with a compelling antagonist and build a Godzilla OR Kong story from it. Destroyah isn’t too busy. The MonsterVerse, on the other hand, is.
2/5
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Link
In theaters now – Fandango
