Film Review - Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is the new installment in Warner Bros/Legendary’s Monsterverse series and this time Kong is in Hollow Earth trying to find other members of his kind while Godzilla has been hunting Titans on Earth but when new trouble emerges these once deadly rivals will now have to work together to save their worlds.

Godzilla X Kong is not that different to how I felt about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in that it’s not a bad movie but its only an okay but I liked this one a little more than I did Ghostbusters because when the monsters were fighting I had a smile on my face even though at times I kept thinking “I bet people lived in those buildings that are being flattened like pancakes” as buildings and populated areas are being flattened like it’s nothing in this movie and sometimes that can be fun to watch but sometimes you watch that type of mass destruction and think “Um people might live there.” And this was one of those times.

As for the action scenes well their fun for the most part but after a while feel a bit video gamey as more often than not your looking at digital monsters fighting it out and hearing very loud noises and deep bass in the sound mix especially if you watch it in a theatre with a loud sound system like I did and I wish there was more of a sense of stakes or peril with those big battle scenes that felt more real instead of digital and the human eye is often pretty good at telling what is real and what isn’t.

As for the human characters well their okay but not the reason you’re watching it, Rebecca Hall is such a good actress but this role is doing little to nothing for her save for putting a roof over her head (those bills aren’t cheap nowadays), Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry are having some fun though I did get a bit annoyed with the needle drops during key action moments (seriously guys can we PLEASE stop doing this it’s getting very annoying.) while it was nice to see Rachel House a New Zealand actress from Thor: Ragnarok and Hunt for the Wilderpeople in a small supporting role.

And so that was Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and it’s fun for the most part but again it doesn’t help that this has come out in the shadow of Dune Part 2: Long Live the Fighters and that film has really shown up the laziness in this industry the last 10-15 years hopefully with streaming and Disney’s dominance starting to abate the other studios will start to lift their game, 2 out of 5.