Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Releasing merely weeks after the critically and commercially acclaimed "Godzilla Minus One" won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects is a boon as well as bane for "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" - while more people are familiar with the behemoth radioactive lizard, there is an undeniable urge to draw comparisons between the two movies. Adam Wingard's second Monsterverse film following 2021's "Godzilla vs Kong" delivers satisfying Titan action, but overall, the film feels like a step back, largely owing to dull and tedious human drama.

Personally, I found "Godzilla vs Kong" to be the best Monsterverse film. It embraced the absurdity and silliness of its premise and made the most of it to deliver one hell of a show, placing the Titans front and centre, while jettisoning any unnecessary human drama. "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" starts off much slower, with the actual plot taking nearly 20 minutes to kick in. Combined with an uptick in uninteresting human drama, this slows down the movie with certain portions feeling boring.

Much like its predecessor, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" struggles trying to the connect the stories of the two leading titans. Kong is the heart and soul of the movie, with Godzilla largely feeling like an accomplice or sidekick. The first half of the movie is almost entirely about Kong's exploration of Hollow Earth, the subterranean ecosystem where the Titans live. While learning about the mystical world was engaging and intriguing, it lead to a delayed introduction of the villain, leading to the third act feeling slightly rushed and less rewarding compared to the enthralling finale of "Godzilla vs Kong".

The action sequences themselves are a whole lot of fun, with a face off in hollow earth with gravity slightly messed-up being one of my favourites of the entire franchise. The finale in Rio delivers plentiful excitement and fun too.

"Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" is best suited for fans of the Showa era. For Kong fans(like myself), there is a lot to like about the movie, owing to the humanisation of the great ape. The action scenes are fun, colourful and campy, similar to it's predecessor, but an increased focus on human characters and a slower pace make this a slightly underwhelming entry to the Monsterverse.

This movie has a real problem - It tries to cater to a wider audience by adding more 'Marvel type' action and storytelling rather than focus on doing what it could do really well and appeal to a more niche audience.

The "doing what it could do well" part I am referring to is the BIGNESS of the Kaiju's / monsters. Not just their actions but their presence and size.. a bit of slowness in how they walk and move, to feel that "thud" when they take a step and the sheer overwhelming presence that they represent - Like in Pacific Rim or in Godzilla King of the Monsters. You FEEL the bigness and the size.

A splash in the ocean can causes huge tide-waves due to the size.

A resounding BOOM that is felt when two Kaiju's collide.

Where is that?

There is no respect paid to the bigness.

It's just they took some superhero action sequences and applied them to giants and made them move like they were the same size as humans.

There is no FEEL or BIGNESS - It's simply a 6 out of 10 movie because it caters "enough" to enough people because it goes for what's popular and throws a lot of it while giving away the depth and the "feel" of a big monster movie that is what godzilla is meant to be.

I think I've been spoiled by the masterpiece that was Godzilla minus one. Going back to this ultra generic brainless 0 story nonsense is just disappointing. I don't expect a great story but the dialogue was so bad and the story so pointless I almost wanted the humans dead so I didn't have to listen to them. Several Uber generic rehashed MCU jokes that weren't even funny. I love Godzilla and the monster verse started off great with Brian Cranston and that first Godzilla film but since then it's just slowly gotten worse imo. Like I said, I knew this would be dumb and I went in with low expectations but left feeling almost insulted at how ridiculous and stupid it was. I hate to say it because I love the idea of Godzilla movies.

Monster = hurrah Humans = garbage

Another Monster-Verse installment to the collection gave me another reason to visit my cinema. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed, I got everything what I expected which might be summoned by the two equations above.

About humans: If you want to watch the movie at home, don't waste time on humans subplot. It's completely pointless. The dialogues aren't funny or smart. They serve poor exposition which is painfully exhausting to watch. You see the monsters fighting and these "characters" are explaining in between: oh, he is protecting! - Come on, who wrote this? In my opinion if Legendary Studios wants to include humans, they should at least try making them just little interesting or just remove them completely. None of them is doing anything necessary, furthermore whatever they're doing doesn't make any sense. Why the hell are they in the Hollow Earth without protection? One guy is just in a Hawaiian shirt. The amount of dangerous monsters is not alarming, I guess... Paper Boy is filming everything but the British guy in a Hawaiian shirt says something like: It's better to keep it in a secret, this ancient civilization shouldn't be exposed to our world. The girl from Godzilla Vs. Kong (she is from that world and has weird X-Men power (?)) is among modern people, so the world already knows the underground world. What does he want to hide? There is more of this stupidity.

About the monsters: Kong is the lead. His journey is simple, he feels lonely, he wants to have a family of his kind. From the trailers you know, there is more giant apes, so I am happy to see them because I am Team Kong :) I'd want to appreciate the "dialogues" between Kong and this little ginger fella. They don't use words as we do but believe me, these two are more interesting than the humans. You will enjoy it.

Godzilla and the rest are just monsters. Sadly Godzilla isn't intimidating in this movie, his only goal is to gain the pink level of nuclear power and then use it to fight the bad monkey. However, the fight scenes are awesome - this is why we are watching this type of movies, so if you're a fan of giant monsters, I recommend Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire... and don't expect to see raise of "the new empire" in this movie. It's a kinda awkward title generated by ChatGPT.

Lots of Titans fighting. That's why we go to something like this, right?

G X K is about the same for entertainment wise as G vs K, though I'd give the newest entry a slight edge for a couple of reasons. For one, there's a bit less silliness. There's comic relief of course, but it's not out of place or goofy. The 80's throwbacks with the tunes, synths, and vibes were great. And lastly, the Titans were back to being the bad guys instead of humans. I always find it a bore when you watch a movie about monsters fighting, but have to bare through a story of human villains and their idiotic ideologies.

A side note, it's hilarious that these Titans seem to really enjoy having their royal rumbles in the biggest cities on the planet, or while destroying some of the world's most revered structures. Like really guys, you couldn't have thrown down in the middle of the Sahara? More destruction equals more entertainment I suppose. Also, Godzilla just casually murders hundreds if not thousands just walking around from point A to point B. I digress. Go pink Zilla!