‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’- Film Review: The Guilty Pleasure of the MonsterVerse

Ten years have passed since the MonsterVerse franchise debuted. Fans of the enormous titans they’re focusing on, like Godzilla and Kong, have enjoyed these films immensely, even though the entries are never seen as outstanding cinema. So, it was about time to see these two again with the fifth installment, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the sequel to the surprisingly decent Godzilla vs. Kong. I’ve only seen it once at home since I didn’t want to go to the theater during the few months of 2021, but it’s a memorable mash-up many have waited to see since Warner Bros. and Legendary announced it. Two things considered me about this sequel: 1) It’ll be more of the same, and 2) they decided to release this after one of the best films of last year, Godzilla Minus One (the first in the franchise to win an Academy Award). Regardless, all I wanted from this was to have fun watching monsters fight each other while eating popcorn for two hours. Returning director Adam Wingard understood that even though it’s not enough to consider Godzilla x Kong better than its predecessor.

What’s the Story: After their last brawl, Kong continues to rule over Hollow Earth, while Godzilla is busier, still fighting on Earth’s surface and defeating the Titans individually. Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and Monarch are keeping an eye on him while worrying for her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle) after she’s been having hallucinations about these signals in her head and questioning her place in the world. There’s a distress call from Hollow Earth. With the help of Ilene, podcaster/ conspiracy theorist Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), and daredevil veterinarian Trapper (Dan Stevens), they travel down to Hollow Earth to discover what it could mean. Eventually, Godzilla and Kong would unite to protect the world from a new threat, the tyrannical leader Skar King.

Nobody goes to Godzilla x Kong expecting to be fascinated by the plot; all we want to witness is a gigantic lizard and an ape doing what they do. I knew immediately that this would not be comparable to Godzilla Minus One. To where that was equivalent to dining at an excellent Ruth’s Chris Steak House, this is a Taco Bell meal: It’s not too pleasant, but it mostly gets the job done. The problem anyone will take up front is that there’s not much to go off from the convoluted plot, and it offers no fresh ideas. While this provides more world-building underneath Hollow Earth, you still consider everything else an afterthought in figuring out what we’re doing when the titular creatures aren’t on screen. I started to drift off a few times with the lost ancient tribe and other irrelevant topics. I was more interested in the battle scenes, but the script lacked depth.

At its core, this is more of a Kong movie since we spend more time in Hollow Earth and see him finding more apes since he’s so lonely and the last of his species. Along the way, he finds common ground with a little ape sidekick, Suko. He is sympathetic at first to taking him under his wing, but it gets hilarious once he uses him as a weapon to beat the other apes. The thing to admire is how there’s never dialogue with the monsters, especially once Kong goes up against the Skar King with his whip made of bones. Godzilla’s name is first in the title, yet not much from him. When he beats up other monsters around the planet, he causes destruction and may be seen sleeping inside the Colosseum. Most of the time we see him, he charges his body into something more substantial, as we will see later.

However, what all these MonsterVerse movies have in common is that they never have us care for the human characters. Kong and Godzilla are still the focus, but humans need to break off the momentum to give details about what’s happening, where it’s sometimes engaging and, at other times, losing me. Hall and Henry, returning as Ilene and Bernie, respectively, were okay with what they were given since we know Hall will provide lengthy expositions (including reading hieroglyphics). In contrast, Henry is the audience’s avatar, providing comic relief that’s very hit-or-miss, depending on whether you liked his character prior. But the best performance who appeared to have the most fun was Dan Stevens, who re-teams with Wingard after the underrated thriller The Guest as the badass veterinarian Trapper, who gives the film some energy when needed. He also brings the needle drops tune when he knows it’s about to get awesome or turn into Han Solo.

Anytime it comes to the monster-on-monster action, they will not disappoint if they don’t take themselves too seriously. I found myself smiling almost purposefully during them, especially at the beginning when Kong cuts this wolf-like monster in half with green blood splashed on him before the opening titles. Wingard embraces how these represent watching a Saturday morning cartoon with a gigantic budget. The fights in Godzilla vs. Kong are better since seeing them fight was exciting. Once they actually team up in the third act and put their difference aside (with Kong having advanced Nintendo Power Glove), you know it’ll get insane in all its CGI spectacle on the big screen, especially in IMAX. Their first battle had me laughing when I had to imagine Godzilla is still pissed off at his frenemy in Cario despite the current stakes. However, it concerns me how many people died because of them smashing into historical landmarks in these cities.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is fun and messy, though it only comes around to land smack dab in the middle. Is it great? Nope. Is it bad? Not really? This blockbuster will satisfy the hardcore monster fans, but it doesn’t necessarily stack up to the previous film. But if we’re honest, there’s almost enough silliness to consider this a guilty pleasure for the MonsterVerse based on the shire laugher I got out of this.