Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Year: 2024
Rating: PG-13
Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours
Having never seen the original Japanese series of Godzilla movies, I only have a loose sense of their progression from serious to silly. I’ve seen random clips that I couldn’t take seriously, but I also know some of the first films in the franchise were a grim analogy of nuclear war. While Godzilla Minus One (2023) nailed the serious side of Godzilla, the Monsterverse movies have steadily been drifting toward unhinged territory. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) is merely the latest proof.
There were so many things going on in this movie, it felt like a shotgun approach to see if anything would stick. It was a bit frustrating that the headliner, Godzilla, barely appeared until the third act. The humans were even more caricature-like than previous entries, and I hardly cared about their stories or struggles. When the universe can support any random thing happening, the whole thing ultimately becomes less grounded in reality. Not that these movies were ever truly grounded in reality, but the better ones didn’t suspend my disbelief nearly as much.
Despite the criticism, though, The New Empire had its fun moments of monster mayhem. I wished there were more of them, but the ones we got were well worth the price of admission. Of course, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) started this trend toward the silliness in this film. You can only really do it seriously once before the plot demands you add in pink energy crystals or cyborg prosthetics for a gigantic ape. As a popcorn flick, I could definitely turn my brain off and just enjoy the CGI carnage. Just don’t think about it too hard.
A Monsterverse film sliding further into “silly” territory, I give Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 3.0 stars out of 5.
