Godzilla Minus One really did ruin every American monster movie, didn’t it? Granted, they were never great to begin with -Legendary’s MonsterVerse series has not yet produced a movie that hasn’t been mediocre; but Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla reinvention last year really highlighted both the flaws in this recent crop of kaiju-as-superhero movies and moreover how easily they could actually be made good. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire cost thirteen times as much as Minus One, and yet it looks and feels so cheap by comparison.
Yet even without that film so fresh in the memory, this latest monster mash, once again directed by Adam Wingard, spins its wheels in an effort to justify its continued existence. And it’s a problem baked into the fabric of the movie. Once you get to Godzilla vs. Kong there’s really nowhere left to go in terms of upping the stakes or creating new spectacle -especially considering the franchise can have no resolution to that match-up of dominance. And so, The New Empire (a subtitle as generic as they come) has to simply contrive more lore and more monsters that don’t carry with them any kind of gravity. It’s the kind of thing I imagine you’d find in a lot of the Japanese Godzilla sequels, but without any of the charming camp that comes with the hand-made tangibility of those factored in.
Nothing seems particularly hand-made on this movie, set largely in a digitally-rendered world where the impacts of these behemoth creatures make barely an impression. It is the Hollow Earth that was glimpsed in the previous film, a world deep within the Earth’s crust where King Kong has made his home among the many giant creatures that inhabit it. Drawn to a mysterious signal showing up both on the Monarch organization’s sensors and in the mind of the mute child Jia (Kaylee Hottle), last of an extinct civilization, an expedition is sent down there at the same time as Kong discovers more giant apes within a mysterious region of this world. Also, Godzilla wakes up and causes casual destruction across the globe as he supercharges himself.
Godzilla does often feel like an afterthought for this movie, as he rampages in the background of the main storyline concerning Kong and the journey of the human characters following him through the dense prehistoric jungles of the Hollow Earth. It’s not until the last act that there’s either a showdown or team-up between the two characters -Godzilla’s scenes throughout merely building up to that point and reminding the audience he’s still around. Wingard is clearly more interested in Kong, a character who can emote and express more than simply destructive rage. And so Kong is put through a more substantial narrative of finding his people, coming into conflict -particularly with one child ape who ends up his guide- and ultimately learning the truth of what has become of the apes. It’s all fairly vanilla though -a saviour-freeing-their-enslaved-people act we’ve seen played out many times, including with apes already.
There are of course human characters alongside these developments, who as has been typical for this series, function mostly to deliver exposition (and heaps and heaps of convoluted lore) or to be comic relief. Chief among them is still Rebecca Hall, trying her best to find something authentic to latch onto as she spends much of the film gratuitously expounding on complex and conveniently available information; one ridiculous scene has her interpret a long and highly specific prophecy conveyed in a forgotten language with absolute clarity. She does well enough with the sensitive beats around possibly losing her adoptive daughter Jia -though it's an emotional theme far too ambitious for this movie's capabilities.
Bryan Tyree Henry also returns to be a stereotype of both conspiracy theorists and influencers, the movie having no honest understanding of either, and Dan Stevens comes to fill the role of generic handsome white guy -a daredevil veterinarian and former fling of Hall's Ilene who Stevens plays as Crocodile Dundee (he seems to be having fun for what it's worth). Few other human beings matter at all except to be mere scurrying, faceless victims of the monster's carnage. This is yet another of these movies that indulges in the freeform devastation of cities and landmarks, including a climax that lays waste to Rio de Janeiro, while in-text still positioning Godzilla and Kong at least as heroes in the eyes of the world.
More than just the tonal awkwardness of such a disinterest in humanity, the monsters are softened by a context like this. With no human toll comes no tension. One thing Godzilla Minus One proved was that Godzilla works best as a figure of terror. And when Godzilla isn't permitted to represent this by the script, their foe at least should. But the enemy titans of this movie are pretty pathetic on that front too, even with the powers they wield. No creature is drawn in a way that could cast them as a credible threat to anything we care about. What’s left are a collection of giant monsters (who appear so infrequently next to humans that they don’t register for stretches of the film as giants at all) forced to carry the stakes themselves and being thoroughly unable to do so. Had the movie played up more a factor like Kong’s age (a lot of his hair is grey and early scenes seem to suggest he’s not as fit as he once was), some part of the conflict and drama could work -but it simply never takes advantage.
That may be part of the intent though. Some might look at the movie and discern all it needs to be is a monster fight movie -at which it is also a failure due to the fights coming very infrequently and condensed mostly to the end, where granted there is some decent action and creative carnage. It plays a lot of the notes you would want and expect from a movie like this, especially when Kong and Godzilla once more team up. But again, it doesn’t provide a whole lot that the last movie wasn’t able to. And still every scene, inside the action and out, seems constructed so as to maximize generic commercial appeal. Every broad situation and plot point, every relationship dynamic, every trail of dialogue, down to every move by the monsters in their epic showdowns. The script is credited to three very different writers (including former Disney and DreamWorks scribe Terry Rossio), yet it is entirely bereft of personality in its cynical transparency -it doesn’t even pretend to care about Henry or Stevens’ characters once the climax is under way.
The status quo at the end is exactly as it was at the close of the last movie. And fitting to that lack of movement, Godzilla x Kong accomplishes nothing -it is a $135 million excuse for Legendary and Warner Bros. to maintain the marketability of one of the few non-Marvel cinematic universes that hasn’t yet crumbled to dust, without the effort or courage to do something different or compelling. Japan’s just going to have to keep that ball rolling instead for the foreseeable future.
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