…………………………………………………

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Movie Review

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a 2024 monster film directed by Adam Wingard and starring Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry. It’s a surprisingly fun movie.

………………………………………………….

“Is that a mini-Kong?“

…………………………………………………..

Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island’s mysteries. I did not quite care for ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’, though I found it to be solidly diverting. This movie, however, is an improved version of that silly blockbuster with much more entertaining results. Only the most cynical critics would call this one boring. You can call it silly and trashy, but tedious it most certainly is not.

I am a Kong fan as I much prefer him over Godzilla, so I was delighted to see this film favoring him as well. What we get here is pretty much a Kong film with Godzilla as a supporting player. Kong stumbles upon other apes here, which was definitely a change for his lore, but it worked as it led to so many fun action set pieces and solid mythology.

Basically, what we have here is a totally silent movie starring Kong as he battled against other rival apes. Those stretches were the highlights for me as they pleasantly reminded me of obviously much stronger, but similarly approached ‘Primal’ by Tartakovsky. This is what these movies should be like – wordless action spectacles with no humans included at all.

…………………………………………………..

Imagine my disappointment, then, that the filmmakers had to include Godzilla and, even worse, humans to the proceedings. The Godzilla scenes could never rival the Kong ones as there is not a single moment with him that was as fun as Kong bonding with that small young ape or fighting an ape leader who is controlling an ice monster. Godzilla felt almost superfluous this time around, though at least their battle was memorable. The movie also included Mothra in a solid way, but most of the other monsters were forgettable and barely utilized.

And then we have those pesky humans. They made up a story here about an ancient civilization and the interconnectedness of humans and monsters that made no sense and was simply unnecessary. It overcomplicated things for no reason. Those sections were quite boring and annoying. The human characters were not just weak, but the movie wasted its great actors so much to the point that I wondered why they even hired them in the first place. Rebecca Hall was the best of the bunch, but her role was dull. Dan Stevens himself was too goofy while Brian Tyree Henry was so badly used unfortunately. The humor in the movie was quite poor.

…………………………………………………..

Godzilla x Kong has pretty solid VFX. The action set pieces looked colorful and fun. The city-destructing mayhem was definitely guilty pleasure. The score, sound and cinematography are all subpar, but at least the movie is so vibrantly colored and benefiting from fine world building that it was imaginative and engaging for anybody with a young spirit.