The New Empire Movie Review

When you reflect on Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of King Kong, what was your favorite part? If your answer is the middle section, featuring an hour-plus of non-stop dinosaur, bug, and other monster mayhem with little break or reprieve, then Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire may be just for you.

And if not, it’ll be a long two hours.

Over the last several months, audiences have been treated to two wildly different takes on Godzilla: the thoughtful, emotional, and at times terrifying Godzilla Minus One, and the one at hand, the American-made Godzilla x Kong, a continuation of the Monarch storyline which began with the 2014 Gareth Edwards-directed piece Godzilla. 

Normally I’d be quick to dismiss this latest entry, which is long, dumb, and not particularly compelling in any way or form, but while watching Godzilla x Kong, I had a mini-epiphane which I am sure will be short-lived: that when we are talking about movies about giant monsters, it’s good that there is something for everyone.

I really liked the 2014 Godzilla, in large part because Edwards captured the awe and terror that a creature of Godzilla’s size evokes, and also, visual effects aside, there were seemingly real, intelligent humans trying to avert disaster. But there were plenty of people who understandably complained there was a noticeable lack of Godzilla action on screen.

The franchise has devolved considerably over the last decade into something a three-year-old can understand, but the good news is: there’s something for everyone. If you want a movie with purpose, real characters, and suspense, there’s Godzilla Minus One. And if you just want to see a movie where King Kong and Godzilla beat the shit out of other monsters for two hours, you get Godzilla x Kong.

There’s nothing wrong with that, and as it progresses I can see the mindless (if hollow) charm of the movie. The primary villain–the Scar King–is a menacing creature, and there is plenty of creature-on-creature action throughout.

Here’s the thing though: it’s all just a bit mediocre. Set largely in the Hollow World, which I guess is the place that King Kong and Godzilla and the rest come from, you often forget that many of the creatures on stage are supposed to be humongous. That sense of scale is lost, and it’s this sense of scale that makes Kong and Godzilla special. And as someone who found Peter Jackson’s onslaught of giant monsters rather tedious after a while, Godzilla x Kong offers similar tedium, albeit with surprisingly worse visual effects and, less surprisingly, inferiorly staged action (Adam Wingard is no Peter Jackson, after all). Stuff happens, but it never matters because you know nothing or no one is really in danger. 

If monster-on-monster battles are your idea of a good time, then by all means check out Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. If you can’t fully turn your brain off, however, there are other, better kaiju movies out there. One released quite recently.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.