FilmSnobReviews

Title: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
MPA Rating: PG-13
Director: Adam Wingard
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins

What It Is: Monarch has separated Kong from the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla. Now it seems the Kong has opened up a rift within the inner crust of the Earth that unveils untold amount of new creatures…including many Mega Apes such as himself. But these similar animals are not family, they are not friendly and they are determined to show Kong they aren’t scared of him. Godzilla, feeling this disturbance must team with an old frenemy to resolve this.

What We Think: I continue to be amazed by just how much we here in the United States just cannot get these films right. This is a bloated overblown mess. It’s the same song and dance with the same lame results. These iconic characters are put into a film and an environment that is nowhere near as interesting as it wants to be. Sure our big bad lizard daddy looks as mean and nasty as ever but he’s also as boring as he’s ever been. Lazy filmmaking from Adam Wingard here. He hasn’t made a truly great movie since The Guest which was almost a decade ago.

Our Grade: C-, Meh. This is wholly meh. At no point in this film did I get excited. It lacks the narrative strength of Godzilla: MInus One which is some much better of a film than this. Maybe watch this or the television show Monarch on Apple TV+ which is a deeper dive into the parts of the film no one cares about. The humans. If that’s what you’re here for you’ll love this and frankly that’s not what I’m here for. I want to see big lizard boy destroy cities and big gorilla bro beat stuff up. There’s a little bit of that but not enough.