A decade prior to the release of this film, American film studios made another attempt at a Godzilla movie to prove they were capable of making something better than the joke that was released in 1998. While far from perfect, it was moderately successful and proved that there was an appetite in the West for more Godzilla movies, leading to sequels that crossed over with the new King Kong. Toho, the Japanese studio responsible for Godzilla’s existence, has shown much more restraint than Warner Bros. in releasing new Godzilla movies over the past decade, having only released Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One. While I was a little harsh in my review of Shin, it’s still undeniable that these were two of the best movies in recent years to feature the radioactive giant with intelligent scripts and serious tones. As for the American films, I would argue that they have gotten dumber.

While I can find a fair amount of enjoyment in stupid Godzilla movies with ridiculous plots (of which there are many), I also have a limit on how much nonsense I’m willing to tolerate after a certain point, especially with one of the few franchises I still enjoy. Godzilla Minus One has not made things easier for the American movies, either, having proved that you can make a truly incredible and meaningful movie involving the iconic monster with great characters and a compelling story. Minus One set the new standard for which we should be expecting Kaiju movies to achieve, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is about as far from the mark you can get, for now....

Pros

Watching Kong wield a smaller Kong as a weapon made me laugh

Cons

Godzilla just cameos his way through the movie and is barely part of the plot
The story is incoherent and dumb; the plot relies on conveniences and contradictions to work
Exposition dumps everywhere
Characters are boring or pointless
Going deeper into the Hollow Earth shows more sky?
Visual garbage everywhere; CGI looks worse than Godzilla Minus One, which only cost $12 million to make
Why is this nearly 2 hours long when it feels so pointless?

Plot & Thoughts

Despite joining forces to defeat Mechagodzilla in the previous film, the alliance between Kong and Godzilla has become strained, and they’ve gone their separate ways. Kong has gone to the unbelievably dumb realm of Hollow Earth to reign over it and maintain balance, while Godzilla remains on the surface to kill any new monsters that arrive to keep his dominance. Kong occasionally returns to the surface for medical help from the humans, but he mostly stays in his monkey hole looking for others like him. One day, he goes through a sinkhole even deeper into Hollow Earth—which has a sky, for some reason.

Kong eventually discovers a tribe of apes like him, but they are not friendly towards him, which leads to an encounter with an ancient evil that has been secretly ruling over a section of Hollow Earth without anyone realizing it. This is tied to strange signals an outpost has been receiving, which have caused Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the mute girl who communicated with Kong in the last movie, to experience visions. Her adoptive mother, Ilene (Rebecca Hall), sets out to find the source of these signals in the hope of helping Jia, so she assembles a team of goofs to accompany her into Hollow Earth. Meanwhile, Godzilla is killing kaiju and taking naps…then his fins turn pink, I guess.

Going from Godzilla Minus One to this is quality whiplash. The two could not be more different in so many ways, so I won’t bother to compare them any further. However, I must at least bring up a grudge I hold against The New Empire that involves both films. Minus One came to theaters at a time that circumstances prevented me from seeing it for myself, so I had to wait until it came to streaming or physical release in the US. This was significantly delayed because there seemingly was a concern that doing so would hurt The New Empire’s chances at the box office. So this piece of garbage is responsible for making me wait nearly a full year before I could finally see the best Godzilla movie ever made. It’s a little ironic since Godzilla doesn’t really do much in this movie, and the plot is much more focused on Kong and his mute human friend.

And what a plot it is. I struggled to remember it after a certain point because I just could not care less about any of the characters and how they tied into it. When the “ancient evil” was finally revealed, I laughed at how underwhelming it was. Ghidora or Mechagodzilla were iconic villains that have been brought back again and again, but this was just pathetic. Not to be a huge spoiler, but who cares? The villain is just another big ape called the Skar King, who (somehow) uses a crystal to control a big lizard thing that can shoot ice from its mouth. There’s nothing really special about Skar King other than the color of his eyes and fur. There’s certainly nothing to make him or his ice lizard stand out as distinct villains in the pantheon of infamous kaiju. When he is first introduced, there are multiple moments Kong could have just buried his axe in his head and ended the movie. Alas, the film was allowed to continue.

I could go into more detail about all the different things wrong, but the filmmakers clearly didn’t put much effort into their project, so why should I? This is just another example of a modern movie that has a script made up of circumstances and arbitrary events that just happen so that the plot can continue. The tricky thing is that many of these moments seem completely pointless or inconsequential, yet they’re quite the opposite. For instance, a fair amount of attention is paid to Kong having a toothache in the first act of the movie. Why would they do this? Well, it’s to set up the scene for him to return to the human base so he can get his tooth replaced by Dan Stevens with a metal tooth. Why does this scene matter? It’s to set up how Dan Stevens can replace Kong’s parts with metal things, which is why Kong has a metallic arm in all the marketing material. Kong’s return to the surface to get a new tooth is also the linchpin scene to set the rest of the plot in motion and make the humans go into Hollow Earth. If the whole plot depends on Kong having an infected tooth, which is quickly resolved and then barely ever mentioned again, why would you expect the story to improve?

I realize that the defense for this movie and other blockbusters like it revolves around the idea that the fun is from watching the big monsters fight, and that you should just turn off your brain to enjoy it. As a person who enjoys many of the Godzilla movies that work within those expectations and movies like Pacific Rim that are more goofy than serious, I can understand the perspective. I even enjoyed Godzilla: King of the Monsters for similar, non-serious reasons. However, there comes a point where the stupidity of a movie like this becomes intolerable, or even worse: boring. I was immensely bored watching The New Empire because the story gave me nothing to latch onto. This is a similar journey Transformers fans went on with the Michael Bay movies, which I never saw, but I heard about how they got progressively dumber and less interesting, with a few exceptions. The American Godzilla and live-action Transformers movies appeal to the simple part of the brain for big explosions, bright colors, wanton destruction, and special effects. It’s visual candy: it looks cool, but there’s not enough substance or nutrients for a full meal, and too much will make you sick. With this strategy of making movies, it’s inconceivable that the fifth or sixth movie would put any effort into actual world-building or coherent plots.

The American Godzilla and Kong movies have always been a bit weird when it comes to their scientific rules, but they have gotten progressively more ridiculous, peaking with this entry. Hollow Earth, as a concept, is one of complete fantasy. So, you already have to suspend your disbelief that there is this realm within the Earth in which there are extensive ecosystems and climates, in addition to there being a significant light source when there is no sun under the Earth’s crust. This movie has Kong and other characters go even deeper into this place through extensive caves, and there is even more sky to see, where they discover evil monkeys who are trapped there, but have somehow managed to escape at some point and destroy a human outpost…but they’re trapped. The movie cannot reconcile with its own plot and just breaks the rules when it needs the story to progress, making up complete nonsense if it needs to. If they want to keep this dumb franchise going, stop going into Hollow Earth and just go to space already, or follow the Leprechaun movies and go to ‘da hood. I’d personally prefer if they just went away altogether.

TL;DR

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an abject failure of a movie, without even taking into account the giant monsters. It has a lot of explosions and destruction, but no weight or impact. Kong and Godzilla are on the screen more than most other giant monster movies, but it’s not interesting because everything that happens with them is devoid of meaning. The plot is a mess, with countless contradictions that take place, as well as extensive exposition dumps to cover up all the conveniences and contrivances. The characters are either annoying or boring imitations of humans. The villains are lame and forgettable. I could go on and on.

In a post-Godzilla Minus One world, we have been blessed with a prime example of a modern film that uses giant monsters to tell a meaningful and compelling story. For decades, fans like me have just accepted that nonsensical plots and dumb characters are part of the Kaiju package. We don’t have to tolerate that anymore. We can demand better. I hope that the next American film that is slated for 2027 loses so much money that we can finally just give this franchise back to Japan.

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