Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire (2024)

While I may have been thinking about it a lot during the movie, I will not be reviewing Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in direct comparison to every other Godzilla movie that we've seen in recent years. That wouldn't be fair, especially in the wake of the superb Godzilla: Minus One, and it's fair to say that, whether you like or dislike this movie, it feels like an attempt to stay true to the featured big beasties while taking the movie series into even wilder and more fantastical territory.

Kong is lonely. That's pretty much what the movie starts with. He also has a toothache. So he moves from the Hollow Earth back to the surface of our planet, where he can receive some dentistry from a brave specialist vet, Trapper (Dan Stevens). Meanwhile, Godzilla is on the move, and there are signs that things are changing down in Hollow Earth. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) heads there, accompanied by her adopted daughter, Jia (Kaylee Hottle),  a returning Bernie Hayes (podcaster and social media ägitator", played by Brian Tyree Henry), Trapper, and Mikael (Alex Ferns). It doesn't take long to start figuring out what kind of new problem they have on their hands, but can they figure out a solution before Kong is badly affected by it. And will Godzilla be of any help to them?

With so many people returning to roles both behind and in front of the camera, this could have easily been an easy continuation of the storyline that proved to be so much fun in Godzilla Vs. Kong. Adam Wingard is back at the helm, having helped to develop the story for this with Terry Rossio and Simon Barrett, assisted by Jeremy Slater when moving from story to screenplay form. They do try to stick to the rules that were put in place in the last movie, but they also try to keep moving faster in between the set-pieces to avoid giving viewers enough time to pick apart the many plot holes.

The cast all seem to know that they're very much playing second fiddle to the headlining creatures, and that's fine. Both Hall and Henry try their best with some weak dialogue, Hottle remains as cute and vulnerable as she was in the previous film, and everyone watching can breathe a sigh of relief whenever Stevens is onscreen, because he actually knows how to lean into the silliness of everything and have fun with his role. 

A blockbuster movie doesn't need to make great use of the human cast, and nor does it need a script that would win any literary awards. Sometimes just being fun and spectacular is enough, and any film with both Godzilla and King Kong in it should deliver on that front. Welllllllll . . . I don't think this does. There a few great visual moments here and there, especially when Godzilla in being shown travelling around the planet, but most of this film is an ugly mess, with an overuse of CGI that varies wildly in quality, a lack of decent reference points to keep track of locations and scale, and a disappointing lack of weight (sometimes literally). There are also scenes of mass destruction that focus on buildings and cityscapes being reduced to rubble without maintaining any interest in the human cost. But that’s all meant to be ignored because there are occasional moments that make good use of neon.

I wanted to have fun with this, but it never once hooked me in. There is a nice extra “cameo” later in the movie that I enjoyed, but the film needed to do more elsewhere. A better script, a better main villain, better visual effects, and generally something that makes it easier to ignore the inherent silliness of it all and just enjoy the monster mash moments.

4/10

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