More Worlds To Conquer - Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

2.5/5

While I love layered and complex dramas as much as the next filmgoer, every once in a while I like to go to the cinema, turn off my brain, and let the sounds and colors of mindless action wash over me. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the next installment in a series of films whose sole intent seems to be to fulfill this societal need. The film succeeds in this mission. As someone who has been granted the responsibility of writing about and analyzing films though (I don't know by whom; divine right or something), I have points of criticism. This fun and mindless romp where giant lizards and apes punch and smash is not a perfect movie.

As with most of these movies, the human element of the plot is...shallow. While the actors involved (among them: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Dan Stevens) are extremely talented, their plotlines are merely a framing device to bridge the Monster mashups. Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens serve as reliable comedic relief while Rebecca Hall and the young Kaylee Hottle take on the film's "emotional" plotline. The latter is mildly moving, but its execution feels a lot like manipulation. When walking to your car after the movie, memories of these human moments will have been sacrificed for the film's large-scale setpieces. This does feel like the correct order of things, but after Godzilla MInus One, I find myself craving more depth and earned investment from the connective tissue of these monster flicks.

The monsters themselves also go through individual journies. When we meet Kong at the beginning of this film, he is alone in Hollow Earth desperate to find other great apes (Hollow Earth is the world within ours where all of these monsters originate from). When he eventually finds a group of apes and a "Mini-Kong," the hope he feels is conveyed magnificently to the audience. The director, Adam Wingard, does a great job illustrating Kong's emotional journey to find a society of his own with no dialogue. Through mournful growls and half-hearted chest pounding, Kong's sadness is conveyed really well to us as an audience, and as a result, we can empathize with this "monster" really easily. Godzilla on the other hand just turns pink. That's it. That's his entire arc in this movie. While only one of these giants gets a developed plotline and emotional journey in the film, their punch-ups and action sequences are still incredibly entertaining and engaging. Would they have been better with more fleshed-out narratives and character arcs? Yes. But the film still succeeds at creating exciting sequences of giant lizards and apes smashing each other (and major cities) to bits.

Antagonists in these kinds of films are always hard to bring to life. Monsters on this scale are inherently hard to personify and human enemies are too tiny to be real threats. This film prioritizes creating a villain that shares the intelligence and strength of Kong, which, in theory, should work. But in practice, this villain fails to make an impact. The Scar King is just evil for no discernable reason and wants to usher in the destruction of the surface world because....I actually don't remember if they gave us a reason or not. As a tool to motivate the story and a figure for our heroes to punch at the end, he works fine, but his motivations lack the nuance and/or complexity that would make them interesting. That and he is one of the least visually interesting antagonists in this series both in his appearance and during the fights.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire briefly toys with some greater thematic ideas about humanity's treatment of indigenous populations and our place within the animal kingdom (not sponsored), but they aren't fleshed out enough to feel like the film's primary focus. To be completely fair though, they aren't the focus. The purpose of this film is to provide a thrilling spectacle of enormous monsters charging, punching, and kicking each other for the big screen. I still wish there was more depth in this story and that the cinematography for the humans had not relied so heavily on the "macro lens" style effect. However, it is hard to claim that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire fails to deliver exactly what it promises; two of cinema's greatest monsters smashing. *Editor Note: This final sentence could be misinterpreted. Maybe rework this before posting.