Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire review

Watching a movie franchise crack the code of how to be its best self is a wonderful thing.

WB's monsterverse has been going for a decade now. It started with the okay 2014 Godzilla, then we had the excellent Kong: Skull Island, before the very disappointing Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

There was not much to indicate that they knew how to maximize the property.

But then came 2021's Godzilla vs Kong. This was the one where they figured it out. This was the one that took all of this franchise's potential, and splashed it all up there on screen. It was fantastic, and one of my favorite movies of that year.

The rather clumsily titled Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire emphatically proves that it wasn't just a one movie fluke. No, they've hit their stride, and again all involved deliver another sensational entertainment experience.

Godzilla and Kong are in kind of a truce. Godzilla stays up on earth, handling any threats that pop up. Kong stays down in Hollow Earth, discovered in the last film. But a new threat is coming, and that's going to bring them together again to fight.

That threat is the Skar King, an ape in Hollow Earth who has enslaved all of Kong's people, and rules using a Godzilla-ish creature called Shimo that breathes ice. Isn't this great? I mean, come on. 

Godzilla spends a lot of the movie going around the world absorbing nuclear energy, and getting ready for a fight. He's definitely a supporting character this time, but he's always been less interesting than Kong anyway.

It all culminates in just a pure blockbuster third act, kicked off with a great encore fight between the two titleists. And then a giant fight where Godzilla and Kong team up, and are helped out by Mothra. Yes! Mothra is in this and is really cool!

I love how unafraid these last couple movies are to just go full throttle at delivering the giant fights that are obviously the draw anyway. They do have human characters, but it never becomes too heavily weighted to them. 

A few characters return from the last movie: Rebecca Hall (what monster gave her that hair?), the little deaf girl who is friends with Kong, and Brian Tyree Henry's paranoid podcaster. There is also a fairly entertaining new character played by Dan Stevens. 

I would probably say that Godzilla vs Kong was a little better, cause it had a little more use for its humans. This movie does arrive in the aftermath of the surprise of 2023, Godzilla Minus One. But the intent of these films are so different that they can easily co-exist.

I hope they keep em coming. They know what they are doing with these things, and there is always a new monster to watch get a beatdown.