By Jamil Weeks

Hard to believe it has been 10 years since the launch of the current monster franchise that has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars for Warner Brothers, with help from Legendary Pictures. The Marvel Cinematic Universe created a wave of copycats who wanted to cash in on the crossover of iconic movie characters. Warner Brothers clearly saw this as a lucrative opportunity to bring King Kong and Godzilla together in the same movie. The first clash between the two monster titans that took place in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong was set up and teased with a pair of Godzilla solo films, Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and a solo King Kong film, Kong: Skull Island (2017). Now the two return in the sequel to the monster mash-up with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Adam Wingard also returns as director. While the plot of its predecessor focused on pitting the pair against each other in an all-time epic clash, Godzilla x Kong features the former foes teaming up to take on a new threat to human civilization. The story takes us deeper into Hollow Earth exposing revelations of a new species and an ancient civilization. Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle, and Brian Tyree Henry reprise their roles as Dr. Ilene Andrews, Jia, and Bernie Hayes, respectively. The trio join forces partially to help Dr. Andrews’ daughter, Jia, who is experiencing frequent episodes, and also to uncover the latest threat to mankind at the hands of the creatures. Joining the team is Trapper, played by Dan Stevens, who is a pilot/monster veterinarian who is there to patch up Kong whenever he gets injured. Gorilla x Kong is the Fast and Furious of monster films. Entertaining and fun thrills blended with generic acting, a laughable story, and corny dialogue.

The fact the movie was released in March instead of the heart of summer blockbuster movie season speaks volumes on the confidence Warner Brothers had in this film at the box office. Godzilla x Kong is an experiment in the ridiculous. You have everything from giant mechanical arms for Kong to a pink colored Godzilla tail resulting from becoming “super charged” with radiation. The story parallels Godzilla on Earth gearing up for a clash with a mysterious unknown threat while Kong searches for a new species of apes on Hollow Earth. As a side story, Jia is being sent a distress signal telepathically from a supposed alien society. As you can imagine, the eye rolls I had while watching this movie were in abundance. The script is an exercise in turning off your brain to buy into the plot. There are so many sub-plots going on that are never fully fleshed out. The end result was me not being engaged in what is going on in the story whatsoever. Adding insult to injury are the poor attempts at humor in the film, which seems to come out of a bad Sam Raimi Spider-Man script. While the chemistry between Trapper and Bernie is a rare highlight of the story, those moments are quickly soured by cheesy comedic efforts that never seem to land. The most egregious aspect of the story is the sub-plot involving Jia. The psychic connection she has to an unknown entity leads her back to Hollow Earth to discover the source of her own origins. Unfortunately, that aspect of the story is easily the most forgettable and offers the slowest moments of the film. The scripts in the movies in this franchise have never been Oscar caliber. However, Gorilla x Kong offers a significant escalation in absurd storytelling.

One area where the movie has improved from the previous films in the franchise is the action. The reason these movies keep us coming back to theaters is because of the incredible and violent encounters amongst the colossal leviathans. The smartest thing the filmmakers did with this movie was focus more on the creatures themselves as opposed to the human characters. There are plenty of eye-pleasing and jaw-dropping fight scenes in the movie both on Hollow Earth and Earth. On Earth, you get to see grand backyard brawl-like combat scenes all over the world, from the pyramids of Egypt to the beaches of Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. To see these giant creatures engage in a contest of fisticuffs with the fate of the world hanging in the balance is worth the price of admission alone. The highly satisfying action set pieces balance out the mediocrity of the writing. All the creativity in the film seemed to be poured into making the coolest on-screen battles featured in any monster film ever created. The only drawback to the fight scenes is the way the film glosses over of all the human casualties that must have resulted from the destruction wreaked in highly populated areas. Despite that oversight, each fight scene is imaginative and inventive in creating entertaining matches between the creatures.

Another positive takeaway from the film are the CGI effects. Godzilla and Kong have never looked more realistic and life-like than as they do in Godzilla x Kong. We have come a long way from stop-motion animation and animatronic creatures. The technology has caught up where we can have a naturalistic fight involving Godzilla and Kong in a real city that looks believable. The three-year gap between Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong have served the film well in terms of the visual effects. All the creatures in the film look both beautiful and terrifying. Every last detail of the looks of the monsters, from eye color to the scars on Kong’s chest, is captured with accurate clarity. The only problem with the CGI is the size of the monsters seem downgraded on most of the scenes that take place on Hollow Earth to the point where the creatures appear to be normal sized or smaller than they are. However, that is more of a nitpick as the CGI effects are a clear strong point of the film. Especially when the battles are waged in real cities where the CGI beautifully captures the demolition of cities as monsters are hurled back and forth and collide with buildings and skyscrapers. Rather underwater, on the ground, or on Hollow Earth, the CGI content is rendered as best as it ever has been in any Godzilla or Kong film.

If you have seen any of the previous films in the franchise, you have pretty much seen this movie. The movie offers nothing dramatically different from the previous films, other than more of a focus on the creatures than the human characters. If you desire to see a movie with CGI monsters engaging in a high stakes royal rumble brawl, the movie delivers with a plethora of stunning visuals. You definitely get your fair share of fight sequences in the movie. However, everything in between, from the story, score, and comedic aspects of the story are generic at best. What started off as a promising cinematic universe with 2014’s Godzilla has spiraled into blatant cash grab by the studio where the characters and the story are not taken seriously. Ultimately what you get is a mixed bag where you do have a fun time, but you leave the cinema feeling underwhelmed. The movie is made for average moviegoers who want to turn off their thinking caps and simply enjoy a fun popcorn movie with the kids. Godzilla x Kong, as well as every film in the series, is a missed opportunity. With clever script writing, or just plain less lazy writing, the writers could have come up with a more compelling reason to pair these renowned mammoths together where there was an earned build-up to the contentious skirmishes between the creatures in the film. The lack of proper storytelling results in the fight scenes falling flat. If IMAX is not available, I would only recommend watching this film when it comes out on digital.