Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Written by Cameron Geiser
If you’re looking for a rollicking good time watching giant apes battle giant lizards, then look no further monster movie fans, you’re home. However, if you’re more inclined to have an emotionally satisfying movie with Kaiju action and a script that cares about clarity and humanity- you’ll want the recent Academy Award winner Godzilla Minus One. This one’s for the Old School Godzilla fans, for people that love the Showa era Godzilla films. But especially those films from the late 1960s and 1970s, movies like Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs Hedorah, or Terror of Mechagodzilla. Specifically the tone and zany action of those films, which is somewhat ironic given that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is actually more of a King Kong movie featuring Godzilla than an even-handed sequel featuring the two most famous monsters in cinema’s history.
While the story here isn’t so much about what happens, it’s more about the execution of visuals, pacing, action, and comedy that make this Kaiju movie work as well as it does. There are long stretches of time where no dialogue is spoken when communication is depicted solely through giant apes screeching at each other (If that does not sound appealing to you, this one’s probably not for you- it got quite a few laughs from me). Which speaks to the clarity of where special effects and CGI are these days, the facial expressions depicted on the giant apes, and even Godzilla, are articulate enough to relay information in an understandable cogent manner. Even if they are simple expressions like “Bring me to who made this” or “I know you’re lying to me”. This attitude extends beyond the monsters themselves to the core of the movie itself, especially with the characters and acting, and even production design too. Speaking of which, I loved how the Hollow Earth stations established by Monarch (the international kaiju monitoring force established across the Monsterverse) clearly had notes from the filmmaking team to “Just make it look as much like the original Jurassic Park structures as legally possible”.
You can’t expect much else from Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire outside of big creatures breaking stuff.
Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, and Rebecca Hall all understood the mission here. They fulfilled the requirements of being “big” personalities while simultaneously embodying the self-serious science fiction nonsense spewing machines that they needed to be at times. Dan Stevens' introduction as ‘Trapper’, the Titan Veterinarian, alone perfectly encapsulates what this film needs from its performers. Self-aware charm with a pinch of naïveté and heart. This doesn’t need to make logical sense and they know that. The script also knows this and treats the world as the Fantasy world that it is with locations described as “Tiamat's Domain” or “Throne Room”, and Hollow Earth’s “Subterranean Realm”, the language reflects the reverence and power that the Kauji have instilled in Humanity since 2014’s re-emergence of Godzilla. Though he is much more choosy on which Kaiju he lets live under his subjugation now- until he decides he needs their power.
Wisely much of the film takes place in the Hollow Earth, with Adam Wingard and company using what worked on Kong Skull Island and expanding on that in entertaining fashion. Much of the plot revolves around what is eventually understood to be a distress signal coming from the Hollow Earth that Godzilla, Kong, and Jia (Kaylee Hottle)- the last living member of the Skull Island Iwi tribe, can all sense. It mostly exists as a narrative cudgel to move the pieces on the storyboard, but it’s effective enough for what the movie requires. While Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire isn’t as tight of a film as Godzilla vs Kong was, it’s still a good time.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.