Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review – Clash of the Titans

I hate Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. I’m specifically talking about that aggressively clumsy title which wasn’t content with an unnecessary suffix and so also added… mathematics/Roman numerals/random consonants??? As for the movie, I saw it in IMAX 3D two days ago and had a gleeful blast with it, all through its rambunctious 115-minute runtime. The fifth and possibly final entry in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, The New Empire is just a step behind its predecessor, 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong, in terms of entertainment value.

Returning director Adam Wingard certainly knows how to nail that “anything goes” cheeseball charm of smashing roaring monsters together that has served these two screen icons well through the decades. This is the type of movie where a skyscraper-sized irradiated iguana can suplex a giant ape into the Giza pyramids and have me roaring in delight like I was ten-years old again, watching Saturday morning cartoons in my pajamas. Wingard and his trio of notable screenwriters (Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, and Jeremy Slater) also give us hand-wavey Hollow Earth gravitational science, ancient tribal prophecies, telepathy, mecha upgrades, kaiju dentistry, a “Baby Kong”, and a nightmarish bone-whip-wielding baddie that feels like King Louie from The Jungle Book if he had turned to a life of hard drugs and homicide. In other words, switch off the part of your brain that takes anything seriously.

However, while The New Empire is very fun, with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, it’s not quite as memorable in its staging as Godzilla vs Kong. There are fist-pumping moments like the aforementioned WWE-inspired slam and even a titano a titano brawl in zero-gravity, but there’s nothing quite as instantly meme-worthy as Godzilla and Kong’s aircraft carrier slobber knocker or as eye-popping as the neon-lit Tokyo battle with Mechagodzilla.

Say what you will about the MonsterVerse movies though, but their production quality has never faltered, combining CG wizardry with keen direction. And here that implementation is especially fantastic when it comes to humanizing Kong. The king of Skull Island may receive second billing in the title, but Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is most definitely his movie, offering him more range of emotion than ever before. Fully driving the narrative while Godzilla just reacts to it, this Kong is noticeably greyer, more world-weary. He’s still a devastating physical presence who bows to no one, but the mileage of a lifetime fighting other monsters is starting to take its toll. Worse than that, he’s lonely.

Following the events of three years ago, the new global status quo sees Godzilla rule the surface, occasionally putting down any other titans who decide to run amok, while Kong roams the undiscovered expanses of Hollow Earth, searching for any clues as to what happened to the rest of the great apes. It’s this tragic quest for the family that Kong’s never had that kickstarts everything as he inadvertently stumbles onto a malevolent threat known as the Skar King.

Mirroring Kong’s desire for a place to fit in, his erstwhile human child companion Jia (Kaylee Hottle) is not adapting well to life off Skull Island. Her unhappiness is pushed to breaking point when she starts experiencing strange visions which her adoptive mother, Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), can’t decipher. Ilene has a lot on her plate in her day job at titan-observation organization Monarch though, as Godzilla also suddenly starts to amass power and goes all punk pink. But why the sudden upgrade?

“Why?” is also the very loud question of the day when it comes to the other returning character in Brian Tyree Henry’s conspiracy theorist podcaster Bernie Hayes. While equally annoying then, Hayes at least had a purpose in Godzilla vs. Kong as the inside man in Apex Cybernetics. There’s not a single valid reason for his return here. He’s all irritant, no value. And if Wingard and co really felt a need to have an audience surrogate for the bulky exposition dumps about the mysteries of Hollow Earth that sometimes threaten to arrest the film’s setpiece-to-setpiece momentum, franchise newcomer Dan Stevens’ titan veterinarian Trapper is right there.

Having previously worked with Wingard on the filmmaker’s indie hit The Guest, Stevens is again an immediately charming figure. Wingard even dips right back into his The Guest bag of tricks whenever Stevens is onscreen with a delightfully retro and synth-heavy musical playlist (which is appreciated as the score from the usually reliable Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL is disappointingly boilerplate). The problem is just that Trapper doesn’t really have much to do.

The same can luckily not be said for Hall’s Ilene though, as she brings real emotional pathos to the screen, even when the script veers into eye-rolling cartoon nonsense. It’s her relationship with Jia, alongside Kong’s well-muscled arc, that forms a one-two punch combo of surprisingly solid character work that makes up for some of the other filmmaking stumbles.

Of course, nothing makes up for a stumble more than the spinetingling joy of Godzilla turning a mountainside into glowing pink slag with atomic breath or Kong ripping a Hollow Earth wolf-thing in half and showering in its innards. What can I say? I’m a simple man with simple needs. If you’re looking for a kajiu movie with a much higher thematic and emotional IQ though, I will heartily recommend the Oscar-winning Japanese masterpiece that is Godzilla Minus One. For your more primal monster mash movie fix, “x” marks the spot.