Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review

This was the most fun I’ve had watching a new movie in a long time. At first I rolled my eyes, as I’m beginning to do with life in general, at the idea of releasing another sequel with the same overall premise as Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). This is after all the third time in cinema the two have squared off with the first being King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962).

The plot is almost the same as the last one. Hollow Earth is still under scientific investigation. This time it’s populated with, not only the thought-to-be lost Skull Island tribe, but also an entire species of “King Kongs” and other giant monsters (the Titans). The deaf Jia (Kaylee Hottle) has premonitions of this dimension going haywire and begins to frantically beg her scientist mom Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) about impending doom. With the aid of Trapper (Dan Stevens), an eccentric giant monster veterinarian, and, once again, “conspiracy theorist” podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) the quartet venture into Hollow Earth to save the day.

It should be noted that Kong no longer displays any sign language skills to communicate with Jia as he did in the previous movie. It’s like it never happened.

Godzilla and Kong are still at odds with one another and periodically hash it out with the various giant monsters and ultimately each other. Kong, once again, gets more screen time than Godzilla. Nonetheless, the fights are awesome and nicely over the top. One even features Kong using a giant baby ape as a pair of nunchucks to fight off other giant apes. Overall, it’s entertaining and well over 65% CGI monster brawls if not more. There’s close to no boring back and forth scenes of one-dimensional human characters talking about nothing. Welcome back cinema!

By the way, Mothra is back! She was last seen in Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019). Of course, she assists wonderfully in the final battle between our two legendary giant monsters and their adversaries. There’s also Tiamat who is an evil Godzilla-type monster from the Arctic that has frostbite-inflicting ice breath rather than radiation breath. Kong also finds an antagonistic equivalent in Skar King who rules over a dystopian ape slave labor camp in Hollow Earth.

The color palette in this movie is awesome! The vibrant diverse colors really pop and offer a nicely rendered look to Hollow Earth with each area having its own color scheme. This is a nice change to the usual sterile and grey look we’ve been subjected to in movies for the last decade.

Let’s talk characters.

Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes, whose character I found outlandishly knowledgeable of government operations in the first one, comes off as typical Black guy comedic relief. It’s not racist but it’s definitely a tiring archetype I’m worn out from seeing. He’s sweaty, nervous and jittery the whole movie. Think something along the lines of, “Black people don’t do this dangerous stuff! Only White people!” or “How come White people aren’t afraid of Godzilla? What’s wrong with them?”. His “Black” hypersensitive survival skills in Hollow Earth are a foil to the otherwise comically “unaware” White people.

Let’s talk about the Mary Sue. Jia is adopted by the kind of cold Dr. Andrews. She obviously a.) couldn’t keep a man or b.) the man couldn’t keep her as there is NO father figure present like in a lot of recent movies. She has a bit of a “moment” where she corrects Trapper by reminding him she has two – count ’em two – master’s degrees. If that’s not one of the most worthless elitist appeals to authority I’ve ever heard then let’s hand her the keys to the kingdom boys. He should’ve responded with, “Hold on to those. I might need to wipe my ass later.” Even though Trapper doesn’t need to wipe his ass later the degrees do not help prevent the end of civilization. The monsters without master’s degrees do. Perhaps it’s symbolism for how worthless college is now.

I saw this twice with the second time being in 3-D. I probably won’t ever watch it again. It’s a movie forever bound to its theatrical presentation like all IMAX CGI orgies.

Godzilla vs. Kong review

Could this be Hollywood’s pandemic savior? Based off of its massive publicity and ceaseless social media chatter alone I think it is.

What do you say about a movie like Godzilla vs. Kong? For those of you who are Godzilla and King Kong cinephiles you’ve seen the Toho original, King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962 – Japan/1963 – US) which is done in the classic Kaju (guys in suits) style. At the time, that was the first time audiences saw Kong in a movie since 1933 which was also his original debut. The 1962 movie is one of my favorite giant monster movies and I know nothing can beat the original fun that radiates from that genre of film. It’s nice to see a movie like this getting a CGI makeover perfect for IMAX viewing. Right now, I’m plowing through the Criterion Godzilla Showa Era (1954 – 1975) blu-ray box set so this movie is good timing.

Obviously, even if you haven’t seen the movie you know what to expect and you know what it’s going to be about; giant monsters kicking ass and right crossing each other in the face mixed with copious amounts of property destruction and explosions. That’s all. The original formula of the 60s and onward Godzilla has been retained. Generic (usually likable) characters and giant monster fights are here to stay. Interestingly enough, while the Godzilla movies are usually formulaic, the Kong movies have always been well-written and involve much more chiseled out stories than his competitor.

The movie follows IIlene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and Dr. Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgard) as they try and turn Kong’s Skull Island into a safe habitat for him while also setup a base that tracks Godzilla’s movements who makes an attack on a scientific facility early on. The two scientists are trying to prove the Hollow Earth Theory and eventually believe the hole to the inside of our planet, which is inhabited by monsters who are a part of the Titan kingdom (a huge conglomerate of monsters who are a part of the Godzilla universe), can be reached through Antartica. They also believe there’s a power source of some kind there. Somehow only Kong can lead them there. There they find an underground base that tunnels straight to China (could there be an agenda?). They make it so Kong can “speak” using sign language. A little girl named Gia (Kaylee Hottle), who is deaf and is the last of the island’s natives, is the only one who’s able to communicate with him. Trouble ensues when Godzilla emerges from the ocean (as usual) and decides to interrupt Kong’s sedated barge travel with a giant monster royal rumble. Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown) is the daughter of another Godzilla-monitoring scientist, Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler – who was in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake) spends his time ignoring every plot point about Godzilla’s behavior lashed out by his brainiac snotty daughter.

In the spirit of most things contemporary, the kids are always smarter than the adults. His daughter predicts the movements of Godzilla and Kong based off of a conspiracy theorist’s podcast she listens to hosted by the mysterious voice of Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry). From there on out the protagonists all team up to try and prevent the eventual epic showdown between Godzilla, a mind-controlled Mechagodzilla (who was assembled in China – first debuted in 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla), the Titans and Kong which takes place in Hong Kong (not Japan?). Mechagodzilla is being controlled by a group of villains led by the respectable and underwritten badass, Maya Simmons (Eliza González) who wants the energy source as well. There’s other needless characters but these are the ones who “matter”.

The fights are amazing. The CGI choreography is beautiful. Kong, who usually has his looks slightly altered movie after movie dating back to 1933, looks different here. Godzilla has maintained the same round fat physique and heavily-cracked muddy-looking skin he’s had since the 2014 American remake. I have to say, from my point of view, I think Kong gets more screen time or at least more continuous screen time whereas Godzilla seems to be placed throughout the movie. The podcast angle is weird. It takes much more of a suspension of disbelief to wrap your heard around a podcaster accurately knowing about top secret scientific projects than it does believing in giant monsters.

The movie delivers on what it’s advertised to deliver however it seems to spend a lot of time giving exposition as if they’re expecting a large audience of people who don’t know anything about the monsters are going to see this. That could be true, but still, it’s a giant monster movie and you’d be incredibly absent-minded to not know what type of movie you’ll be seeing. That being said, if they don’t know anything about the 88-year old Kong and the 67-year old Godzilla where the hell have they been and do they even know what shoes are?

I have to single out the female characters here. They suck with the Mary Sue awards going to Millie Bobby Brown and Rebecca Hall. They could’ve been worse had the movie not been in the giant monster genre but nonetheless they perfectly fit the archetypes most female characters do these days. They’re pissy, bitchy, and abrasive with deeply chipped shoulders. They’re arrogant assholes who somehow can predict what’s going to happen with the abilities of infallible prophets whose predictions are literally laid out. There’s no Nostradamus allegories here. They have straight up accurate predictions almost as if they’re time travelers . They can predict what’s going to happen yet suck at preventing it. I’m sure they’d blame it on men as they do a decent job of bossing them around throughout the movie. Gonzalez’s character isn’t this bad even though she’s a villain! Then again, it could be because she’s an underwritten pure evil villain-type. Of course, there seems to be an agenda of the ‘you know what’ variety here as there usually is with new female characters in movies and TV shows.

As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be anything political here. You could have fun guessing why they chose to have it take place in China for certain parts and depict the monsters destroying a portion the mainland hates.

I’d recommend seeing this in IMAX. There’s no other way. Do not watch this at home whatever you do. That’s as pointless as swimming on dry land. For me, I’d say Kong: Skull Island is slightly better but this one holds it own.