Rent Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Terry Rossio & Adam Wingard & Simon Barrett (story). Terry Rossio and Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slater (screenplay)
Directed by: Adam Wingard
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island's mysteries.
Verdict
There isn't much plot to this, and what's revealed is ill-conceived. This is a bunch of ideas barely joined. It's isn't much more than a succession of images on a screen. The plot consists of people and creatures doing things we don't care about in the hope that we mistake it as plot. You could stop watching this at any point and never feel the need to return. This script is the idea phase of writing, and it wasn't developed further. There is nothing I like about this, and I had to fight to pay attention as any distraction was more intriguing than this movie.
Skip it.
Review
In the previous movie, Godzilla vs. Kong, the monster fights were the draw. Anytime humans appeared on screen I grew bored. This takes a similar concept and squanders it by separating Kong and Godzilla for most of the movie. Even the very basis for the plot is suspect. It continues the hollow Earth theory where in Godzilla: King of the Monsters a world inside of Earth is discovered. In this movie they find another world inside hollow Earth. If only they had acknowledged how ridiculous it is and called it the hollow of hollow Earth.
Kong resides in hollow Earth, the last of his kind, while Godzilla stays on the surface. As long as they don't encroach upon each other's territories they'll be fine. That's foreboding enough to kick off the plot.
Godzilla fights the battles humans can't. I'm not sure when Godzilla become a protector. Where did the giant spider originate? Hollow Earth seems to be empty besides Kong. Did I forgot all of this explanation from the last movie? Even then, the hollow Earth stuff has always seemed dumb.
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| Evil Kong and Godzilla versus prime Kong and Godzilla |
Kong leaves hollow Earth so that the humans can follow him back down because the plot demands it. Kong finds a hidden subterranean world in hollow Earth, much like the hidden subterranean world that is hollow Earth. If Earth is hollow and since we know the size of Earth, how did scientists not know that there was still space for another world? I hope in the next sequel they find another world buried even deeper and keep going all the way down.
Kong was in a barren world, now he's magically found one that defies space. He also finds other creatures and even fights a giant CGI snake. I thought this movie was going to be Kong versus Godzilla, but we're not seeing any of that.
We're introduced to an ancient civilization of humans and apes. It's just nonsense. Even the monster fights aren't much fun as this movie feels compelled to go too over the top. Kong get a bio-mechanical arm at the attempt of excitement. Kong also has an adolescent monkey sidekick that feels like Cousin Oliver from tvtropes. Then we get evil Kong and evil Godzilla doppelgangers. This is a prime example of sequel bloat. More monsters doesn't add anything. It's mindless, derivative, and worst of all just boring. I don't want to be harsh, but one could argue this is everything wrong with modern movies from the forced franchise and sequels to the paper thin plots. I could probably be just as entertained watching a panel of three light bulbs flash intermittently.
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