Series Report Card: Godzilla (2024)

38. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Honestly, it wasn't a sure bet. Legendary's "Godzilla" and "Kong: Skull Island" were successful, while falling short of the culture-defining, Marvel-like domination the studio probably hoped for from their monster-filled cinematic universe. "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" was, in fact, a box office disappointment. "Godzilla Vs. Kong" underwent numerous reshoots and delays, enough that I began to wonder if the MonsterVerse was going to collapse during what was meant to be its finest moment. Timing, however, is everything. "Godzilla Vs. Kong" was one of the first major Hollywood releases after the COVID-19 lockdown eased up. It turns out watching a giant gorilla and a big-ass lizard beat the shit out of each other was exactly the kind of escapist entertainment the world needed after a year of real world horrors. The titanic title bout was announced as "saving cinemas." Naturally, Legendary, Warner Brothers, and Toho put their heads together to figure out a sequel. Godzilla and Kong would rumble again. Legendary was so determined to have a repeat of their previous success that they made sure Adam Wingard stayed on as director, making him the first person to direct more than one entry in the MonsterVerse. Three years later, the rematch between Godzilla and King Kong has roared into theaters, with the ungainly title "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire." 

Since the events of their last struggle, Kong has remained down in the Hollow Earth while Godzilla has stayed on the surface, brutally smashing any kaiju that challenges him. An infected tooth forces Kong to the surface, making Monarch worry another confrontation might ensue. Yet something worst is brewing. A strange signal from within the Hollow Earth is effecting the dreams of Jia, the last of the Skull Island natives and the adoptive daughter of Dr. Ilene Andrews. She follows Kong into the Hollow Earth with kaiju conspiracy theorist Bernie Hayes, Titan veterinarian Tracker, and Jia. Inside, two civilizations are uncovered. One, a lost tribe of Iwi natives that have mastered the powers of the Hollow Earth. The other is a race of enormous apes, like Kong. They are ruled over by a sadistic tyrant known as the Skar King, who enforces his rule with an ice-spewing Titan known as Shimo. Kong, with Monarch's assistance, seeks to free his kind and prevent the Skar King from invading the surface. And he's going to need Godzilla's help to achieve that, something the thunderous lizard may not be willing to give. 

"Godzilla x Kong's" awkward title points towards its overstuffed, incident-heavy story. Plotting wise, "The New Empire" is a convoluted mess. For much of its runtime, the film is following three or four story threads at once. Kong explores the Hollow Earth, discover his people, and comes into conflict with the Skar King. Monarch is tracking Godzilla across the globe, as the monster charges up his power and battles other beasts. Ilene tags along behind the ape, hoping to figure out what is effecting her daughter so much. Multiple characters are introduced and reintroduced, some of them swiftly being killed off. The plot leaps all over the world, the monsters rumbling in several different cities across multiple continents. There's so many giant beasts in the film that it's a bit tricky to keep track of all of them. By the chaotic last act, so much is happening that I nearly got lost. "Godzilla x Kong" is jam-packed full of stuff happening, to the point that it risks becoming incoherent at times. 

While the mainstream critical press have largely dismissed the film for these reasons, it's hard for me to complain too much about "Godzilla x Kong's" action-heavy plotting. I'm not sure it all makes much sense but who cares when the whole thing is paced like a rocket sled? While most modern, effects filled blockbusters have bloated runtimes that exceed two hours, "The New Empire" runs a comparatively tidy 115 minutes. The movie has so much going on, that it never has time to get boring. Insane ideas right out of a comic book – like anti-gravity generating crystals, Kong having an enormous Power Glove grafted to his hand, or Godzilla morphing into a super strong, super pink new form – are introduced with whiplash inducing frequency. The film simply never stops barreling forward, introducing another dopamine stimulating bit of madness every second. Who can notice any plot holes when you're always cackling with glee? 

And cackle I did. "The New Empire" is even more of a kaiju Royal Rumble than Wingard's previous monster mash. That pro-wrestling comparison isn't just me being colorful. At one point, Godzilla suplexes Kong off the Great Pyramids of Gaza. This is, mind you, after he slayed the crab-beast Scylla with a giant sized Shoryuken earlier in the movie. "Godzilla x Kong" absolutely delights in displaying the fighting prowess and superpowers of his enormous entities. It says a lot about the movie that Kong bludgeoning a fleet of other huge apes with a juvenile giant simian doesn't even rank among the script's most outrageous moments. Finishing moves abound, as Kong literally rips apart numerous giant threats. Skar King whips skyscrapers at our heroes, Shimo freezes half of Rio de Janeiro, and a special kaiju guest star literally flies through the middle of the movie. This is following a zero-G rumble of massive proportions within the Earth's core. It is abundantly clear, every minute of its runtime, that Wingard and his team were having an absolute ball cooking up more and more insane scenarios for these supersized beasts to perform in. "The New Empire" radiates with the joy of a kid slamming his action figures together. 

"Godzilla x Kong's" focus on its monster ensemble beating each other up finally resolves the biggest problem that has repeatedly faced the MonsterVerse projects. The giant beasts are, truly, the stars now. Much of "The New Empire" is a non-verbal, wholly visual epic that tells its story through the body language and facial expressions of its giant beasts. Kong's existential loneliness as the last of his kind is made clear as he travels through the Hollow Earth. His disgust at the Skar King's tyranny is visible on his grunting face. An influence from Hong Kong martial arts cinema is felt, as we learn more about the creatures through their fighting styles. The Skar King's lanky posture, somersaults, and choke holds speak to his duplicitous nature. Kong's mixture of booby traps and brute strength shows his intelligent but direct style of combat. Godzilla, meanwhile, always goes for the direct approach, usually running right into his enemies. "Godzilla x Kong's" commitment to visual storytelling is such that you could probably cut the humans entirely out of this film and still be able to largely follow it. Unlike the frantically edited, overwhelming chaos of the "Transformers" franchise or the increasingly same-y CGI hodgepodges of superhero movies, this film feels almost experimental in its focus on telling as much of its story strictly through its non-speaking giant beasties. "Godzilla" fans have long dreamed of a movie starring the King of the Monsters without any humans in it at all. "The New Empire" comes as about as close to that goal as might be possible. 

However, there are people in the film. Even if 85% of it is made up of CGI monsters throttling each other, this is still technically a live action movie starring flesh-and-blood humans. Being the lowly mortal hero in a "Godzilla" movie has always been a somewhat thankless job and that's never been more clear than it is here. With Kong essentially functioning as the protagonist throughout the film, the human cast go with two distinct approaches. The first is bare minimum effort. Rebecca Hall as Ilene does get an actual character arc, of worrying about Jia and what decision she'll make. However, Hall spends the whole movie in a state of vaguely worried anxiety, never giving the role much energy. When the script reduces her to delivering a heaping ream of exposition about the history of the monsters and their conflict, she sounds audibly bored. The other direction the actors go in is over-the-top hamminess. Dan Stevens plays Trapper as a pseudo philosophical surfer dude type, seeming continuously in awe of everything around him and never getting down about the end-of-the-world stakes. Stevens is definitely having a good time playing such a cartoon character. Brian Tyree Henry is basically the movie's comic relief as Bernie, a ridiculous character who exists to react to everything with oversized fear. It's borderline annoying but Bernie is never the focus of a scene too long, so it's alright. Most of the rest of the cast either get killed by the monsters or literally don't talk. 

So, yes, King Kong is the proper hero of this film. His search for companionship drives the story. He's a giant gorilla Moses, arriving to free his people – or apes rather – from cruel subjugation. Wingard's previous Kaiju brawl openly compared Kong to Mel Gibson in "Lethal Weapon." The action movie star energy continues to resonate here. Kong is as beefy as Arnold was at his peak. He runs and dives behind pyramids like Bruce Willis in "Die Hard." When a haughty henchman gets in his face, he lays the ape out in a way that recalls Seagal. More than any other, Kong resembles Stallone as Rocky or Cobra, an uncompromising murder machine one minute and a weirdly warm average joe the next. He can conquer any foe with brutal strength but also gets his lunch stolen by Doug, the goofball giant lizard. Unstoppable hero but also slovenly everyman/ape, constantly getting the shit kick out of him but always triumphing in the end, the film creates an undeniably lovable hero out of Merion C. Cooper's eighty year old beast. 

This aligns the giant gorilla with a generation of father-like figures to anybody who grew up on eighties pop culture. Kong radiates Dad vibes throughout, even taken a shower in a waterfall to wash off the guts of an enemy at one point. I practically expected him to pop open a giant sized beer after that. All of this is fitting, since "The New Empire" sees the gorilla become an adoptive dad of sorts. Clearly paying homage to "Son of Kong," the sequel introduces a smaller Kong for the king to bond with. Identified in the credits as Suko, the ape is given giant, yearning eyes. His body language suggests a battered kid who is nevertheless eager to show his bravery. That makes Suko a little scrapper, who is introduced trying to shank Kong but quickly becomes attached to the big guy. That fearlessness, an ability to keep going even when everything seems bleak, is a trait that he shares with his adoptive dad. Kong and Suko's growing relationship clearly mirrors Ilene's bond with Jia and completes the gorilla's arc of trying to find others like him. 

Something "The New Empire" is really setting out to do is expand Kong's narrative. For most of his existence, the great ape has been defined by the same story, of being taken from his homeland and dying in a strange city. The MonsterVerse has freed Kong of this narrative. Unlike Godzilla, who has had many adventures and an extensive rogues gallery, Kong hasn't had much to fight outside of some persistent theropods. "The New Empire" gives Kong a supervillain of his own, in the form of the vile Skar King. The character is set up as Kong's intrinsic opposite. He's long and lean, where Kong is stout and buff. Kong's fur is dark black. Skar King is bright red. Kong fights his own battles, whole Skar King calls own Shimo – which he controls through magical torture, it must be noted – whenever he starts to loose a fight. While Kong is content to remain in the Hollow Earth, Skar King wants to expand his empire. The film does a wonderful job of emphasizing just how evil this big monkey is. He chuckles with sadistic glee, points and laughs at his enemies. Everything about how he's animated and acted gives off a deceitful, villainous vibe. Shimo, meanwhile, is like an attack dog, an innocent animal forged into a weapon by cruelty. She joins the Indominus Rex in the league of eerily pale reptilian antagonists but is ultimately redeemable, where the Skar King is a slave-driving villain through and through. 

But what of the other half of the title match-up? This might be more of a Kong vehicle but Godzilla still gets top billing. While Kong clearly has a complicated inner life here, Godzilla is treated much more like a straight-forward force of nature. The giant, radioactive lizard is driven by his desire to remain the Alpha Titan and will literally swim half-way across the world to smack down anyone who dares challenges his authority. This, surprisingly, has the result of making Godzilla a lovable bastard, a pure hater who simply wants nothing more than to pummel his opponents. We see this when he seeks out another Titan – the aquatic Tiamat, who has a cool, ribbon like fin around her neck – simply to steal more of her power. This need to dominate anyone who doesn't submit to him is paired with a very cat-like attitude. After tearing Scylla apart, Godzilla curls up in the Colosseum and takes a nap. He swats at jets like they are mice. He sneers at helicopters in contempt. You can't help but love the guy, no matter how big of an asshole he is. Like a typically selfish cat, this is just Godzilla's nature and all we can do is love him for it, as judging him for it will do nothing. It's a fun take on the character.

We are five films deep into the MonsterVerse. Yet it really wasn't until the last installment that the films started to feel like part of a bigger universe. "The New Empire" digs even deeper into this, in a way that allows for another star kaiju to appear half-way through. The world is really stated to feel fully flesh out now, to the point that crazy sci-fi tech existing or another monster being alluded to are taken for granted. My favorite element of the world-building here is how fantastical the Iwi colony inside the Hollow Earth is. They communicate via telekinesis. They carry spears made of pure crystal. They've harvested the otherworldly environment around them to create miraculous tech, like forcefields or anti-gravity. It feels very alien but is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner. These wacky ideas are introduced, they exist in this world, and we as a viewer just have to go with it. This freewheeling style of sci-fi/fantasy storytelling has always been commonplace in the Japanese "Godzilla" films and I love that the American ones have picked up on it. All of these touches do a lot more to make this shared universe feel like a fully formed, comic book universe of its own than all ten hours of "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" managed. 

As with the last film, "Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire" belongs more to a grander tradition of giant monster movies and Showa sci-fi than to any one director. This is a King Kong and Godzilla movie first, an Adam Wingard film second. However, the director's influence can still be felt. His love of neon, synthwave visuals continue here, this time via the otherworldly portals and lava-heated caverns of the Hollow Earth. Even Godzilla's power-up, his eyes and spines shimmering with hot pink energy, seems influenced by this aesthetic. Wingard is informed here by the monster movies, action flicks, cartoons, toys, comic books, and rock videos he grew up loving. This is especially true of the soundtrack, which is filled out with multiple Dad rock favorites. While you can say most of these choices are copied from James Gunn's playbook – not an altogether unfair accusation – I still can't deny that Kiss or Loverboy kicking up on the soundtrack made me smile. (The needle drops are certainly far more memorable than Tom Holkenborg's score. Which is totally serviceable but is seriously lacking in the powerful, recognizable themes that highlight any good "Godzilla" movie soundtrack.) 

The MonsterVerse has come a long way from the grim realism of Gareth Edward's "Godzilla." The series now embraces a highly entertaining mixture of Showa era absurdity, where just about anything can happen, with the more grounded, manga-like tone of the Heisei films. All with a Hollywood studio mega-budget that allows for spellbinding visuals and a massive sense of scale that grants these cinematic icons the sense of grandeur they deserve while respecting their legacy as camp icons. The comparison to the thoughtful, humane drama of Toho's most recent "Godzilla" film will do the sugar-high chaos of this one no favors. I'm not surprised most of the negative reviews have unfavorably brought up "Godzilla Minus One." Yet there's room in this world for many different approaches to Godzilla and his super-sized pals. "Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire" is an exceedingly loud, chaotic, and goofy motion picture that I found immensely entertaining. [Grade: B+]