If GODZILLA X KONG could fall somewhere on a Dungeons & Dragons alignment chart, it would surely be on the “chaotic” line. But it’s not good and it’s not evil and it’s not neutral either. We need a new “chaotic chaotic” box to truly explain the big, loud, dumb mess that is THE NEW EMPIRE. And I loved almost every minute of it.
Allow me for a moment, to take us back a step to Peter Jackson’s 2005 KING KONG. This film, at the time, got a lot of critique for being too long and over-indulgent. Personally, I loved it, but that’s not why I’m bringing it up. In the 20 years since that film was made, we haven’t seen a more realistic-looking ape on film. Sorry Ceasar & pals from the PLANET OF THE APES reboot series, you’re very close but still not as good. King Kong in Jackson’s epic looks like he could be real. Kong, starting in SKULL ISLAND to the present, looks like a giant CGI ape. In THE NEW EMPIRE, Kong looks like an old-man ape. As if he’s suddenly aged 100 years in the last 3. Hollow Earth hasn’t been kind to him. The most recent content I have to compare Godzilla to are GODZILLA MINUS ONE and Apple TV’s MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS. In the former, our favorite lizard-kaiju looked incredible. In the latter, he looked rushed and cheap like all the Titans did in that series. He’s somewhere in the middle here. The filmmakers copied & pasted him from previous installments, but didn’t give him a glow-up either.
GODZILLA X KONG asks us to suspend our beliefs about pretty much everything and I’m not even talking about the giant monsters roaming the inside and outside of the earth. In this world, the government works so fast that it’s finished studies on and built outposts all over Hollow Earth since the last film. It lets scientists take their children and unqualified friends on multi-million dollar work expeditions. There’s breathable oxygen everywhere it needs to be for our characters to explore, and gravity can change when it’s convenient. In this film, Godzilla is basically a giant cat. Obviously, he doesn’t look like a cat at all, but he sure does love to knock things around because he can. “He fits, he sits” is a quote you might say to yourself while watching this movie.
Does anyone ever really notice the human toll the Titans take when they start getting edgy and fighty? There are brief mentions of it in MONARCH and an earlier film installment, but anytime any of the big guys decide to get anywhere near the human population, A LOT of people die. One swipe from Godzilla’s tail or a heavy Kong punch can take out tens of thousands of people in seconds. But hey, we’re not here to care about human lives, right? It’s all about the monsters! But now, I want to talk about a few of these humans. Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler are gone and the focus is on Rebecca Hall’s Dr. Ilene Andrews and her adopted daughter Jia, played by Kaylee Hottle. Alexander Skarsgård is out and Dan Stevens is in. Brian Tyree Henry is back as conspiracy theorist/podcaster Bernie Hayes, in a role that Henry is far too talented for. I’m not complaining, let that man collect a paycheck, so he can give us some more indie goodness in the future. All of the human characters in this movie make one poor choice after another. Nothing they do has real consequences and successes aren’t earned. Stevens and Hall are supposed to be scientists and they’re the dumbest, most reckless people in their field.
At this point, you’re probably wondering how I could give this film a 🤩 because it probably deserves a 😊, or if I’m being REALLY critical, a 🤮. I loved the monsters. I loved the chaos, the energy, the absolute over-the-top wildness of it all. If you thought 2005’s KING KONG was indulgent, you haven’t seen anything until you see GODZILLA X KONG. Jackson’s film was a 3 on the current scale of how bonkers a movie could be. If you thought Godzilla and Kong fighting Mechagodzilla in the last installment was crazy, well wait until you see what this one has lined up for you. More fighting, more monsters, more team-ups. It’s like jumping into a blender of all things MonsterVerse and rolling from hollow-earth to middle-earth and back again. If this series continues, I can only imagine how further they can push the zaniness of it all. I guess Monarch could ship the Titans off to space? Or maybe there are more worlds within our worlds to discover. Maybe there are Titans on the moon! Titans on The Moon is a great band name, no?
GODZILLA X KONG isn’t even a fitting title for this movie. Of course, we know we’re getting these two, but we get so much more. And whatever you think will be included, there’s even more than that. Why? Why not?! NEW EMPIRE is like the INCEPTION of monster movies. Just one more layer in and we think that’s it, but it’s not. Yes, I laughed loudly at times that were probably unintentionally comedic. I cheered at the most preposterous things. I thought about how far into campgasm we’ve come from Aaron Taylor Johnson and Ken Watanabe in Gareth Edward’s far more serious 2014 film that kicked this whole franchise reboot off.
At the end of the day, you’re not going to see a movie called GODZILLA X KONG because you want a genuine character study. If you’re looking for drama and monster hijinks, I can’t recommend GODZILLA MINUS ONE enough. That’s a great film, one of the best of 2023. It’s perhaps the only Godzilla movie ever to care as much about the human elements as the monster ones. This is NOT that movie and doesn’t try to be. This was more ludicrous than I could have dreamed up..and I have a lot of peculiar, vivid dreams too, trust me. If you find yourself thinking, “Why did that person do that absolutely stupid thing?”, let it go! It doesn’t matter. There’s more fun to be had right around the corner.
GODZILLA X KONG is exclusively in theatres on March 29th.
