Would you eat from a sensible veggie tray when a chocolate éclair is right next to it? Would you settle in Council Bluffs when Omaha is mere miles away? Would you be a huge Superman fan when Spider-Man exists? Of course not. Nor would you center King Kong in your narrative over Godzilla. Because you have excellent taste, unlike the deciders behind Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
We get a multiplication symbol in the latest title in the series, which is only odd because it follows the release of Godzilla Minus One. I guess it’s true what they say: Forget sex. Math sells, baby. Unlike the sincere melodrama of Minus One, GxK is epic goofballery. That is mostly fine, except that it spends way too much time on the oversized gorilla’s lonely wallowing and nowhere near enough time on the atomic-breathing mega-lizard, who represents the promise and peril of the nuclear era. “King Kong sad because him no have friends” will just never be more interesting than Godzilla’s will they/won’t they sexual tension with Mothra, let alone other bigger metaphorical issues connected to the cultural icon.
Anyway, this whole dumb thing is about Kong finding a hidden hollow part of the already hidden hollow earth they found in the last movie. There’s a bunch more big apes in the newly found hole. One of them is mean and keeps an ice-breathing dragon on a chain. While Kong processes his feelings about befriending a baby giant gorilla, Godzilla is on the earth’s surface, fighting to defend humanity against hordes of evil monsters. No, it’s fine, Kong. You make some friends while the G-Man keeps the planet alive.
The human subplot is commendably almost nonexistent. Dan Stevens is a hilarious hippie kaiju veterinarian. Rebecca Hall is…I want to say a scientist? She’s been in these before, but I can’t remember where Vera Farmiga’s Godzilla character stopped and Hall’s started. There’s some maybe-uncomfortable stuff about a “lost tribe” that comes pretty close to the gross “native populations are literally made of magic” trope. Brian Tyree Henry plays a likeable podcaster, which is a character more fantastical than the aforementioned ice dragon.
Things are constantly happening in the movie. That much can be confirmed. It’s actually fine that they don’t really amount to much plot-wise, as nobody is hoping for Christopher Nolan-ian exposition. The problem here is really the same thing that has given Marvel’s superheroes heavy boots these days: The need to constantly “up the stakes” now feels somehow less interesting. Obviously, the sheer size of the characters involved necessitates a big problem to solve. But this feels less like an epic disaster spectacle and more like the obligatory comic book sequel that rolls out a new, scarred evil doer with a generic army of baddies.
Some of the visuals work. Stevens is a delight. I treasure the multiple shots of Godzilla sleeping in the Roman Colosseum like it was a doggy bed. But it is all too effervescent in its entertainment, all fizzy fuzzy CGI without metaphor or meaning. This is what you get when you hitch your wagon to what is basically the Hulk in need of a haircut instead of a living incarnation of humanity’s scientific folly. This is a carrot dipped in ranch, not custard-filled goodness. This is not the Good Life, but…whatever Iowa’s motto is (Caitlin Clark Plays Here, maybe?). This is not “with great power comes great responsibility,” but “up, up, and away” from your memory.
Grade = C
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Amy Nicholson at The Washington Post says “Wingard’s not a sentimentalist, and Godzilla x Kong stumbles whenever he tries to slap phony emotions onto the film to make it more like a generic crowd-pleaser. He’s a showman, a popcorn guy with excellent aesthetics. Let James Cameron give his Avatar organisms biological plausibility. Wingard just wants to tint one monster hot pink, another one gold and another the opalescent shimmer of a 12-year-old’s first bottle of nail polish.”
Radheyan Simonpillai at The Globe and Mail says “For all the buildup toward a slugfest between Godzilla, Kong (outfitted with a new mecha-arm), some surprise allies and an army raised from the Earth’s core, this one is egregiously dull. It’s just a bunch of cartoonish limbs flailing, with bursts of fireballs and beams, lacking any of the graceful or exhilarating movements that a little human choreography could have helped with.”
Charles Pulliam-Moore at The Verge says “those hoping for the film to establish a way for the franchise to keep evolving may be disappointed because it’s difficult to imagine where Legendary takes the Titans from here. The studio probably doesn’t want this to be the Monsterverse’s last chapter. But going out with a big, absurd, pink-hued bang might not be the worst thing for Godzilla and his ax-wielding friend.”