At least Adam Wingard gets it. The man who’s assumed the director’s mantle for the US’s monster movies gives people what they want. Leave Godzilla Minus One’s to the Japanese productions who can make the monster prestigious. This Godzilla x Kong is Adam Wingard’s New Empire, where big fun giant CGI’s monsters punch each other surrounded by prestige actors enveloped in green screen. A little silly fun never hurt anyone.
We’re a few years after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong. The two have found relative peace: Gozilla stays on regular Earth, keeping the other giant monsters at bay. Kong is doing all right in hollow Earth, but Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle) sense the ape is growing lonely, normally living amongst his own. The peace gets shattered when a beacon gets sent from hollow Earth that causes Jia to hallucinate. But that’s not all, Godzilla starts mobilizing, preparing for some fight, and Ilene brings in Podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) and animal wrangler Trapper (Dan Stevens) to go to hollow Earth, and see if Kong is involved in this signal that’s riling up the planet again.
A New Empire rehashes the beats Wingard used effectively in the previous Godzilla vs. Kong. Hall, Stevens, Henry, and others jump stupidly head first into techno babble jargon setting the stage for this film, really trying to convince the audience of the scientific audacity of this movie. Is that not working for you? Ok, it’ll get interspersed every now & again, but we’ll give you giant monsters on adventures next. Wingard does that same trick he did in the first as successfully as he did in the last one: sending Kong on his own little dialogueless adventure exploring hollow Earth and meeting new creatures. They even give him a little sidekick that makes this section of the film feel like a sitcom, as the pair get into a wacky adventure together. While that’s going on, Godzilla’s keeping up his end of the bargain, going to fight random monsters to get energy preparing for the big fight, then taking a nap humorously inside of the Roman Coliseum. It’s a bit of a CGI mess, but at least Wingard’s keeping the audience’s attention.
Which brings us to the third act. Unlike the last movie, this one’s a bit of a mess, especially the last fight which only really works with the big finishing move. As you can maybe see with the title, that’s because Godzilla and Kong really aren’t fighting in this one: they’re tag team partners against two other big creatures. There is one hella fun sequence though before the big final fight, where Kong has to lure Godzilla to help Kong fight the other creatures. The two go at it, where Wingard very winkingly turns the battle into a wrestling match, as Kong and Godzilla both use submission moves and suplexes to try to subdue the other. You’ll be cheering and laughing in equal measure when this is going on…and a bit sad afterwards knowing the final fight isn’t as great as this one was.
But more is good than bad here. We’ll need some more interesting creatures if we are gonna have more Godzilla/Kong films. I’ve always loved Hydras, and give Wingard and his creative team license to try some new stuff as they see fit too. Just tighten it up a little bit boys and girls: I’m on board, especially if you keep having one giant CGI monster suplex another giant CGI monster through a famous building on Earth.