Wait, Mothra is in this? Okay, now I’m excited.
…and at this point, if you have no idea WHY I’d be pumped to see ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ because of the appearance of something called Mothra – not only do you not understand the basics of monster movies, you probably should stay far, far away from this one.
Now, if you know EXACTLY who Mothra is….well then, pull up a chair, and don’t forget the large popcorn.
I’m going to show my age here, but there was a time growing up when my home only had two channels on TV. On Friday evenings, one of the channels, immediately after the 11pm news, broadcast old movies. Sometimes….rarely, but sometimes….it would be a Godzilla film. And I’ll be darned if what was on that screen was guys in cheap rubber suits knocking over plaster buildings, it was magic to ME, so I’d cash in all favours with my parents in order to stay up late and watch the fireworks.
Why do I share this? Because if I seem to give a hall pass to movies like ‘The New Empire’, it’s because I’m sentimental. And trust me, for all the things it does relatively well, ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ NEEDS a hall pass.
The direct sequel to 2021’s ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’, this too is a loud, CGI-infested, hyper edited slab of adrenaline with a thin comic book script. Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle return as scientist Ilene Andrews and her now adopted daughter, Jia. After being rescued from Skull Island, Jia isn’t exactly adjusting well to her new surroundings, feeling lost and disconnected to Kong. So when odd seismic activities begin to perculate, and Jia is somehow mentally getting odd vibes because of it, it’s off to Kong’s new digs for the girls, along with the comic relief department, Dan Stevens, who plays sort of an Indiana Jones-style veterinarian, and Brian Tyree Henry, a wisecracking podcaster. See, Monarch, Ilene’s employer and mysterious company that’s invested in giant monsters, has discovered a subterranean world within the core of our planet and houses the overgrown gorilla there so he won’t have to share real estate with a certain towering nuclear lizard because, as we’ve all learned previously, the two don’t really get along.
Eventually, they’re forced to find a way to work together, along with a host of other towering critters (hello, Mothra) to take on an especially big and very bad behemoth. What a movie like this really boils down to; is it impressive looking and is it exciting enough? And the answer is a resounding yes, on both counts. Who cares that the plot would probably fit on the back of a gum wrapper? King Kong, Godzilla, Mothra, Mecha Kong, Barbzilla……ALL throwing punches and knocking over bridges and skyscrapers?? I’m in.