Title – Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) 

Director – Adam Wingard (You’re Next) 

Cast – Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle

Plot – The lives of titans Kong and Godzilla clash once more as a new threat emerges challenging not only the giants themselves but the world as we know it. 

“Just try not to swallow your tongue”

Review by Eddie on 05/04/2024

The fifth feature film in the “MonsterVerse” series that kicked off in 2014 with the oddly serious Godzilla, The New Empire see’s returning director Adam Wingard (last seen helming 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong) back in the directors chair and overseeing this newest big budgeted exercise in CGI and monster mayhem that provides exactly what you’d expect from such a film and nothing more, marking down another forgettable if slightly passable attempt at giving two of cinemas most iconic creations more time in the spotlight. 

Achieving far greater financial success across its first official week of release in a global box office receipt point of view, Empire has clearly managed to release at a time and place in the cinematic landscape where viewers are content to be taken away on a mindless blockbuster journey but it’s a shame Wingard and his team that includes very capable performers such as Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry aren’t able to give us more than a film that has some decent eye candy but little else. 

Proving even more so that the Monsterverse’s biggest problem since its inception a decade ago has been creating a human element worthy of all the city destruction, animal grunts and CGI work, Empire struggles in its two hour time whenever the title characters aren’t front and centre and without any human glue holding everything together there’s only so much Kong and Godzilla can do, especially when Godzilla feels like more of an afterthought here with Kong taking up most of the screentime in a titan point of view. 

Appearing to be nothing more than exposition mediums or fact mouthpieces, the journey of our central characters venturing into Hollow Earth that Kong now calls home to investigate a potential new threat to mankind never gets out of first gear and while through this time we get to witness such cinematic greatness as Kong using a “mini-kong” as a makeshift weapon or Dan Steven’s Trapper performing a very unique type of dental procedure, there’s a lot of downtime in Empire that can’t be saved by a whirlwind finale that is decent but far from the final act saviour that Empire was in need of. 

Judging off what we see here it appears as though the MonsterVerse in its current format is starting to desperately struggle with maintaining narrative momentum or a reason for these crossover spectacles to exist and it’s hard for us viewers to look at what we’ve seen here and be excited about what comes next as it’s likely we’ve seen about all we can see from these behemoths over the past decade. 

With some strong audience sentiment and a likely healthy end box office haul, there’s no doubt we are going to see more of what’s been on offer here, lets just hope that if it’s to be the supports that work alongside our title characters are far more thought out and interesting as without growth in that area, future instalments of this shared universe are going to get harder and harder to endure. 

Final Say – 

If you’ve yet to enjoy the modern day MonsterVerse it’s unlikely Kong x Godzilla: The New Empire is going to change your mind, providing much of the same of what has come before, it appears as though this series has ran out of ideas to keep it moving forward, offering up some decent spectacle around a lot of forgettable and regrettable filler. 

2 alive improvised weapons out of 5