Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire movie review – Legendary ...

2/5 stars

While it should be acknowledged right out of the gate that the American and Japanese Godzilla franchises operate independently of one another, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire was always facing an uphill struggle to match the dramatic resonance of Takashi Yamasaki’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One.

Add to this the fact that the King of the Monsters is here relegated to the role of guest star in what is ostensibly a King Kong adventure, and the film may well have a frosty reception.

Adam Wingard’s follow-up to his surprisingly successful Godzilla vs Kong centres on the discovery of a hidden realm within the primordial Hollow Earth, which unleashes an ancient evil that can only be thwarted by a coordinated team-up between the film’s eponymous Titans.

The simpler days of “Let them fight” seem a distant memory, as what unfolds is a relentless onslaught of increasingly ridiculous twists and turns that challenge the boundaries of plausibility even within this hugely fantastical arena.

Last year’s AppleTV+ series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters sidelined show-stopping monster action in favour of more character-based dramatic plot lines.

Conversely, more than half of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is comprised entirely of computer generated sequences – which often give the impression we are trapped in a Kong-themed video game. They are interspersed with intermittent exposition dumps from a team of crudely drawn human protagonists.

Chief among these flaccid, one-note caricatures is that of Monarch scientist Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the last surviving member of Skull Island’s Iwi tribe. They are joined by Trapper (Dan Stevens), a wisecracking Titan dentist, and Brian Tyree Henry’s returning conspiracy podcaster.

Godzilla turns 70 this year, while Kong celebrated his 90th birthday in 2023, and over the years their on-screen exploits have varied wildly in tone, oscillating from the profound to the patently ridiculous.

At their core, however, has always been an appreciation for the sheer cinematic spectacle of watching giant monsters unleash titanic levels of mass destruction, either upon each other, or built-up urban areas.

With the possible exception of Gareth Edwards’ 2014 film Godzilla, all of Hollywood’s entries in the canon have favoured a more lighthearted grip on the material, but this new film trumps its predecessors as the most lightweight, chaotic entry yet.

The film wastes the tantalising premise of Godzilla and Kong joining forces to defend the planet, even as it occasionally acknowledges just how ridiculous it has allowed itself to become.

One need look no further than disco-loving Trapper, who fits Kong with a pneumatic power gauntlet after capping his broken tooth, for proof that Wingard and his writers are being knowingly silly.

Nevertheless, one can’t help but wish that Legendary’s films retained some of the gravitas that has energised Godzilla’s recent Japanese outings, rather than steer so willingly into a seemingly bottomless creative void.

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