Godzilla is having a moment. The classic kaiju is in the
middle of a monster renaissance following the critical and commercial success
of Toho’s $15 million Godzilla Minus One – which also netted the big guy
his first Oscar for special effects – and now his American counterpart is
stomping the box office alongside King Kong in Warner Bros. and Legendary
Pictures’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
I will preface this by saying I’m not always the biggest fan
of the films in this MonsterVerse franchise. Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla left me cold when
I first watched it – I still struggle with its pacing – and its sequel, Godzilla:
King of the Monsters, was exciting to me at first but it doesn’t hold up on
rewatches. Meanwhile, Kong: Skull Island is criminally underrated as a fun
creature feature period piece with a wild ensemble cast.
This brings us to Godzilla vs. Kong which, I feel, is
the strongest film in this franchise. Despite the weird Hollow Earth science
(more on that later), this movie gave me everything I wanted out of a movie in
which Godzilla and Kong, well, fight each other. The set pieces are satisfying,
the human cast doesn’t get in the way, and the inevitable conclusion in which
the Titans team up to battle a common foe – in this case, Mechagodzilla – was great
even though we all saw it coming. Director Adam Wingard nailed it, and I was
confident that Godzilla x Kong would be just as big of a crowd pleaser. It
is … but it also very much isn’t.
To start with what I liked most about this movie, I thought the
finale was FANTASTIC. Seeing Godzilla and Kong form the biggest tag team of all
kind against common enemies – all while a baby Kong-esque ape named Suko
scurries around the battlefield – is an absolute delight. I sat with a stupid
grin on my face watching monsters pull off honest-to-goodness wrestling moves, use
buildings as weapons, fight in zero gravity, and perform crazy anime-esque team-up
attacks. And sometimes, that’s all you need to walk out of a theater happy.
Unfortunately, that action only accounts for a few minutes
of the overall running time. In fact, Godzilla and Kong don’t even really
interact with each other until the final battle as the film inexplicably
chooses to keep them separated for most of the movie. You see, even though Kong
saved Godzilla’s life in the last film, Big G would absolutely MAUL Kong if he
ever left Hollow Earth. So, while Kong is dealing with Hollow Earth ape
adversary Scar King, his captive ice monster Shimo, and an army of simian servants,
Godzilla is … sleeping.
Yes, Godzilla sleeps a lot in this movie. Whether he’s
celebrating a victory over a giant spider in Rome by napping in the Coliseum or
he’s powering up with an arctic catnap to change into his new, slimmer, and massively
toyetic new form, Godzilla spends a lot of time not being in the movie at all.
This serves a narrative purpose for the most part (he senses danger in Hollow
Earth and is evolving so he can deal with it), but one wonders why you would
sideline the dude with top billing in the title for so much of the film.
That danger in Hollow Earth leads us to the human cast.
Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle return as Kong expert Dr. Ilene Andrews and her
adopted daughter Jia, who has a strong connection with the native people who
inhabit Hollow Earth. Brian Tyree Henry is back as Titan-obsessed conspiracy
theorist Bernie Hayes and Dan Stevens joins the group as Trapper, who is
introduced while extracting and replacing a broken tooth from Kong’s mouth. Yep,
kaiju dentistry is a thing.
The human cast does a fine job – Henry gets most of the one-liners
and laughs here – but unfortunately the movie stops dead whenever it focuses on
them. I know that’s a given in these types of movies, but I can’t stress enough
how boring this movie is whenever it isn’t showing us giant monsters. And yet, here
are the humans droning on and on about Hollow Earth science, gravitational
wells and, oh, a “Chosen One” prophecy that both pulls the attention even further
away from the main stars and seemingly retcons another movie in this franchise.
Cool, cool, cool.
But from the Hollow Earth to the haphazard expansion of
Titan lore, it’s beginning to feel like these movies are becoming a lot more
complicated and confusing than they need to be. Although it’s almost unfair to
compare the two at this point, I can’t help but think of how
Godzilla Minus
One told a compelling human story with characters that I cared about while
also delivering on the spectacle I would expect from a modern Godzilla movie.
There’s something to be learned here.
Overall, though, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a
bewildering homage to the kaiju flicks of yesteryear – for better and for
worse. You’ll probably love the giant
monster fights when they actually happen, but you’ll be tempted to look at your
phone during just about everything else.
