GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE (2024)
Updated: Apr 21
What Killed the Titans?...THE ICE AGE!!!
Grade: C+
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an outrageous exercise in absurdity, vastly different from last year’s Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. It is goofy, ridiculous, and crazily entertaining, and people will either love it or hate it for those very reasons.
The movie is directed by Adam Wingard, who also helmed the last entry in Legendary’s Monsterverse series, Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). Here, he pays homage to the late “Showa” era, that time in the 1960s and ‘70s when Godzilla had discarded the darker tone of the earlier films in favor of a campier approach. Indeed, the semi-serious mood of Godzilla (2014) is nowhere to be felt here. In this flick, a giant orangutan rides atop an ice-breathing dinosaur while a young girl becomes a priestess to Mothra.
Continuing from the previous film, Kong has made a home in the subterranean Hollow Earth while Godzilla continues to ward off other giant monsters from attacking major cities. Jia, the deaf native from Skull Island, is now living with Monarch scientist Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and experiencing strange visions. Soon Kong returns to the surface suffering, of all things, a toothache, and a Monarch veterinarian named Trapper (Dan Stevens) replaces it with a synthetic tooth. That’s only the tip of the weirdness iceberg.
Speaking of ice, Godzilla kills another Titan at the North Pole and starts glowing pink. Meanwhile, the heroes and Kong find a whole colony of giant apes in Hollow Earth, ruled by the aforementioned orangutan, Skar King, and his icy pet Shimo (there’s a lot of ice references here). Through the urging of the newly awakened Mothra, Godzilla and Kong battle to stop Skar King from taking over the surface world.
At this point in the franchise, it's really a given that the monsters and their quarrels are the main attraction , and the human characters are just there. Wingard and his team of special effects artists succeed in giving the Titans personalities - especially Kong, who gets the most screen time here. The scenes where he interacts with the other giant apes, particularly a young one named Suko, are a major highlight, showing a degree of nobility and compassion about him. Godzilla is largely left on the back burner for most of the movie, but he is still a powerful character – his redesign, while controversial, is also interesting. The environment of Hollow Earth is imaginatively rendered, with its beautiful landscapes and crystalline pyramids and temples. The final battle is of course spectacular, as Kong and Godzilla tag-team Skar King and Shimo in Rio De Janeiro, throwing each other around and firing their particle beams.
In an age when just about every detail of a movie is analyzed online, there is a bounty of material here for viewers to jeer at. The human characters, as expected, are little more than cardboard cutouts, though the actors give decent performances and Ilene and Jia have good chemistry. One of the most ridiculous moments comes when Ilene instantly deciphers hieroglyphics on an ancient temple, laying out the entire situation. This is followed by one of the most groan-worthy examples of the “Chosen One” prophecy ever, as the native tribe in Hollow Earth believes that only a human from Skull Island – Ilene says that specifically – can communicate with Mothra.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is not an especially good movie; it is definitely not as good as its predecessor. But it is quite interesting. The film may fade from critics’ minds, but it will undoubtedly be talked about online for days to come, defended and attacked in (probably) equal measure. It was mentioned to me, upon exiting the theater, that The New Empire was practically self-aware. That makes sense – Wingard had to know how crazy this all was. Love it or hate it, one thing is certain: to full-heartedly tackle the franchise’s inherent silliness instead of skirting around it takes a certain kind of bravery, and one has to admire Wingard for that.
Director: Adam Wingard
Screenplay: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater (The Characters "Godzilla" and "Mothra" created and owned by Toho Company, Ltd.)
Producers: Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, Brian Rogers, Mary Parent, Alex Garcia, Eric McLeod
Cast: Rebecca Hall (Dr. Ilene Andrews), Brian Tyree Henry (Bernie Hayes), Dan Stevens (Trapper), Kaylee Hottle (Jia), Alex Ferns (Mikael)
Rated: PG-13 (for creature violence and action)
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