Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen, Rachel House
Intro:
There’s fun to be had and some cool-looking action sequences. But there’s definitely something missing…
There comes a time in every long running franchise, where a creative decision is made, a new direction is taken and the result is often a dramatic shift in tone or style. Back in the day, it happened to the Friday the 13th series, after 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. The franchise tried to continue sans Jason with 1985’s Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Then, because no one liked that very much, they resurrected the stroppy hockey mask-wearer in 1986’s Friday the 13th: Jason Lives. A more contemporary example would be the Fast & Furious movies that stopped being about street racing around 2011’s Fast Five and more recently became two and a half hour long video game cutscenes involving world-ending stakes and weaponised nonsense. The point is, every franchise eventually takes a turn, and with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire – the fifth entry in the series – it seems that time has come for the MonsterVerse. The result is… a bit mixed.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire continues the action from 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, which has established the Hollow Earth – a realm inside the planet that’s chockers with monsters, presided over by Kong – and the surface of our planet, which is pretty monstery as well, looked after by scaly mate, Godzilla. This new status quo doesn’t last long, however, as a strange signal and missing scientists in the Hollow Earth suggest that shenanigans are afoot. So, it’s up to scientist Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), conspiracy podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), monster vet Trapper (Dan Stevens) and young Jia (Kaylee Hottle) to somehow get the two big titans to play nice and team up against this new threat.
The thing that you’ll notice immediately about Godzilla x King is the shift in tone and style. Whereas previous entries have tried to give the impression of imposing monsters towering over us mere mortals, this flick front and centres Kong as the ageing hero and even gives him a tooth ache in the opening minutes. This attempt to make the gigantic ape more relatable makes sense, given that his story gets the most focus, but it does change the dynamic. There’s also an expanded emphasis on quippy comedy, Jin communicating with Kong (and being magic in general) and bizarre new additions to the MonsterVerse dropped with confounding regularity. We also spend most of the film in the Hollow Earth, which means fewer landmarks are stomped on and fewer civilians get chomped by beasties. Instead, we get a load of colourful nonsense, with pink energy, mystical prophecies, robotic augments, and even lost tribes. It’s mostly entertaining nonsense, mind you, with some genuinely enjoyable moments, but a lot of the film’s runtime is spent pissfarting about on baffling errands for nebulous (at best) reasons.
Performances are okay, with Rebecca Hall trying gamely and Dan Stevens clearly having a blast, but an overreliance on Brian Tyree Henry looking scared or mugging desperately, gets a little old. Director Adam Wingard – who did such a great job with the last entry, Godzilla vs. Kong – seems at a loss to add anything new to the formula here and the result is a movie that just feels a bit pointless, if amiable. It also seems to directly contradict aspects of the pretty solid Apple TV spin-off, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which is baffling.
Look, we’re not trying to tell you Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is terrible. There’s fun to be had and some cool-looking action sequences. But there’s definitely something missing, perhaps a sense of momentum or a narrative hook. Still, if you just want to see gargantuan creatures slapping one another like they just caught them DMing saucy nudes to the others’ misso, you’ll probably get some enjoyment out of this one. But hopefully, if the MonsterVerse continues, a bit more time is spent making the next entry feel essential, because this one’s a bit of a head-scratcher.
