“Godzilla: Minus One” was a roaring success both critically and financially when it was released in December 2023. The film even earned itself an Academy Award. By setting itself in Japan immediately following the events of World War II, the film was able to explore the effects of survivor’s guilt, grief and trauma in the wake of unspeakable tragedy.
When met with a new, seemingly insurmountable threat in the form of Godzilla, this cast of characters must band together to fend off the beast in a last ditch effort for redemption.
Fast forward to March of this year, a mere four months later, and a new beast has entered the arena: a film entitled “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.”
This is a film that features one of its titular characters taking a much-needed nap within the Roman Coliseum. It is a film that features its other titular character being freshened up for battle with a deus ex machina in the form of a humongous robot arm. It is a film that features both of these characters sprinting and leaping into battle at speeds that completely disobey the laws of physics and common decency.
“Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” is a film that left me with a massive smile on my face long after the credits rolled.
As the Warner Bros. logo faded away and the opening shot was ushered in by Jim Reeves’s “Welcome To My World,” I began laughing and basically did not stop for the remaining two hours.
The film is inherently ridiculous, muddled with subplot after subplot of convenient avenues for our mostly bland cast of characters to traverse whenever the growls of the titular beasts are not quite enough to push us along the path of this thin narrative.
However, I found myself mostly unbothered with these contrivances this time around. Perhaps I have given up expecting anything but mediocrity out of seemingly never-ending franchises, or maybe this was just genuinely good popcorn entertainment. While I feel inclined to go with the former, this does not change the joyous whimsy my childish brain experienced throughout this latest “Monsterverse” installment.
The film, to my surprise, largely focuses on King Kong and his journey of self-discovery. While his screen time is often interrupted by that of the less interesting gang of human characters, Kong’s arc — if you could call it that — felt intact, for the most part.
Unlike the films before it, “The New Empire” features long, uninterrupted periods without a human onscreen and, therefore, no dialogue whatsoever. These scenes were a welcome surprise, as many fans of the franchise, myself included, have clamored for these films to focus less on the half-baked human drama and more on the monsters themselves.
This is not to say that the humans featured in the film are completely uncompelling. Dan Stevens, who plays a swashbuckling veterinarian, is a welcome addition to this franchise, and his camaraderie with Brian Tyree Henry, while not always effective comedically, keeps the human scenes afloat. Rebecca Hall also does well with what she is given, but her relationship with her adopted daughter attempts to serve as the film’s ultimate emotional anchor and, frankly, I felt nothing toward them.
What I did feel, though, was absolute euphoria when the massive monsters charged at the other massive monsters in slow motion.
Not everything involving the monsters works, of course. Godzilla — strangely — has very little screen time, despite being a massively successful pop culture icon at this moment in time. The film treats him as a supporting character until the final act, allowing King Kong to do more of the heavy lifting. Though, in many ways, the buildup to that final act was well worth it.
In the past few years, there has been much discussion about whether franchise films of this size can be considered cinema. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese faced much criticism after referring to films of this nature as “theme park rides.” I would say this film falls into that category.
Is “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” high art? Certainly not. But I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy the ride.
“Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” is in theaters now.
