Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a 2024 American monster film directed by Adam Wingard. Produced by Legendary Pictures, it is a sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), and the fifth film in the MonsterVerse franchise

Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island’s mysteries.

This movie review will contain spoilers!!!

Overview

The continuation of the MonsterVerse that sees Kong team up with Godzilla to battle the new titan Scar King and the legendary titan Shimo together and save humanity and Hollow Earth from the rule of Scar King.

After three days, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has surprisingly done well at the box office with it flying past $194,000,000. Making the movie a third-highest-grossing movie of the year in its opening weekend, standing only behind Dune: Part II.

Story

While the story revolving around Kong, Godzilla, Scar King, Shimo, and Hollow Earth was very interesting and very action-packed, the human side of the movie sort of let the overall story down in terms of interest.

Honestly, this story, while it was amazing for the Monster side of things within this universe, felt like it could have done without the human aspect of the story, although Jia did fit into the story of resurrecting Mothra, the rest of the humans just felt like they were there for comedic relief and to have people there.

I feel like this story was not so much a standalone story within the Monsterverse but more so a filler story to show the evolution of Godzilla and to see Kong become king of the Hollow Earth. While this isn’t a bad thing by any means, for me it was just that, a filler story but a good movie nonetheless.

Characters

The development of Kong in this movie from the last movie was actually pretty decent, it showed him happier, and more at home, and honestly, it showed him that he can not take the world on his own, he needs friends.

In this movie, we once again see the evolution of Godzilla once more this time turning his back dorsal spine turning pink, and the energy he creates turns pink too. This movie absolutely showcased him as honestly, the savior of the humans, although he does a ton of damage to the world he also protects it from evil titans.

I will admit, I wasn’t a fan of the human characters in this movie and that was purely down to how the story was. I will say I did tolerate the relationship between Andrews and Jia. You can tell Andrews became more of a mother figure to Jia over the course of a few movies.

For the full cast list, you can visit IMDB by clicking here.

Hype

Honestly, after the success of Godzilla Minus One, I fully believed the hype for Godzilla x Kong would be at an all-time high, and after seeing the box office numbers, my beliefs were correct. The hype for this movie is there and honestly, I think it’ll be here for a couple more weeks.

Favorite Moments

1. I absolutely love the relationship between Godzilla and the human race, while Godzilla does absolutely wreck the city and any surrounding areas when he’s engaged in a fight with a titan but it works. Right away in the movie we see Godzilla defeat Scylla and then go to sleep in the Colosseum.

2. Seeing Kong get his ass absolutely wrecked by Scar King. This shows that Kong isn’t the most powerful ape titan there is. Although Kong was alone he still battled Scar King and Scar King used Shimo as well to badly hurt Kong’s arm.

3. The backstory for Scar King. I’m so glad they didn’t just bring him in but they also connected him to Godzilla. We get to see how Skar King once attempted to conquer the surface world and waged war against Godzilla’s species. However, Godzilla trapped him and his tribe deep within the Hollow Earth.

4. Seeing Godzilla defeat another Titan and get empowered even more causes him to evolve into pink dorsal spines and Kong realizing he needs help from Godzilla travels into his territory to lure Godzilla to come help him but Godzilla wants the fight anyway so he fights Kong before traveling to Hollow Earth.

5. The end fight scene. We get a tag-team match between Godzilla and Kong against Scar King and Shimo in Brazil. All four titans go at it until the crystal is destroyed and Shimo helps Godzilla and Kong defeat Scar King by freezing him and Kong smashing him to pieces becoming the main titan of the titan apes in Hollow Earth.

Dislikes

1. Movies have to have product placement for sponsors and stuff like that but they should always be in the background when they basically put an ad in the movie where we see two main characters get into a Volkswagen car quite clearly showing off the brand new car is insanely bad.

2. Honestly, the story revolving around the human side of the movie was slightly boring. Basically, it was finding out that Jia who was the last known survivor of the Iwi tribe to find out that she wasn’t in fact the last and there was a hidden tribe in Hollow Earth.

Recommend?

Would I recommend this movie? Of course. It’s a Monsterverse continuation movie that shines a new light on Godzilla and Kong. I would definitely recommend it.

Verdict

If you want a Monsterverse action-packed movie then this is what it is, but the overall human side of the movie was slightly underwhelming with a boring plot. The movie delivers some amazing action scenes and just is a fun experience as a viewing.

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Rating: 9.1/10

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is available in cinemas worldwide. You can visit here for more information on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

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