The Wasteland Reviewer

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) Written Review

What a time it is to be a fan of giant monster movies, right? Godzilla: Minus One became one of the best films of 2023 and blew everyone’s expectations out the window. This Godzilla film won an Oscar…let that sink in. Then you have Legendary’s Monsterverse which killed it again in 2024 with Monarch over on Apple TV+. The Monsterverse films deliver big crazy action with all our favorite giant monsters. They might not be the strongest films as they struggle with creating authentic and interesting human characters (which Godzilla: Minus One did so well) as well as telling engaging narratives to throw out monsters into.

Adam Wingard is back in the saddle and does Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire shake up this lackluster pattern for these big screen adaptations of Godzilla and Kong? Let’s start with the positives. All the monster elements are great. The story might be simple, but we have the Skar King who has a giant ice Titan, Shimo, as his slave. They are a threat, so Kong and Godzilla (and some new and old friends) need to team up to defeat them. Simple enough. There are long sections of the film where Kong is off doing protagonist stuff in the Hollow Earth with no humans around. These non-verbal sequences deliver impressive visual storytelling and physical acting from these CGI characters. The conflicts are understood, and they work well. If the whole film was this approach, you would need no humans and Kong and Godzilla would work as suitable protagonists to carry the film.

What is most important about the monster scenes? The action. Oh…Wingard certainly delivers on this front. The action is well shot. The scale of these confrontations is understood and felt. Watching Kong and Godzilla go to blows around the Pyramids of Giza was exciting and cool. The whole Hollow Earth is an incredible world with so much potential and This film did a nice job of capitalizing on a lot of the craziness and the creatures that inhabit it. The big battles mix grappling, hand-held weaponry, and elemental attacks to create fun, creative, and entertaining fight scenes. These were the crown jewels of the film.

What other elements work well to service the story? There are some elements including the Iwi, indigenous people of the Hollow Earth, that draw upon some fun Godzilla lore and bring about some fun surprises in the Titan front. There is also a fun campy feel to much of the film. Like Kong: Skull Island, there are some fun classic rock and pop needle drops that really capture the tone that this is a fun ride…don’t take it too seriously. That kind of tone is a rightful place in the long and beloved Godzilla franchise.

This film sounds great, doesn’t it? But does it go wrong? The human characters. Besides the minimal heart that Andrews and Jia add to the story, they don’t add much to the overall experience. Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens are having SO much fun making this film but even their comic relief can be cringey and off putting at times. But the biggest sin of this film is that it treats its audience like complete idiots. There is such great visual storytelling throughout the film through its Titans…but for some reason the writers decide to saddle poor Rebecca Hall with the most atrocious dialogue to retell literally everything we just saw on screen. You can only face palm and roll your eyes out of frustration so many times before you are not having a good time anymore. The film shoots itself in the foot by eliminating its own romping and campy good time by talking down to its audience and making them feel disrespected. On top of that, there are a whole bunch of added “scientific” elements added through the human storyline that just takes away from the fun of the film.

Is Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire still worth it? I am sure plenty of audience members will just ignore the dialogue and enjoy the monster action. If you go see this, please do that. If you spend too much time listening to how this film is written and all the extra faux scientific nonsense they add to the human characters, it will probably sour the good time. There was so much potential for this film and it is a terrible shame the writers decided their audience wasn’t smart enough to just experience this magnificent monster world.