My Review of "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the latest installment of the Warner Brother's Monsterverse franchise in 2024. It is big, loud and dumb but that's why someone would go see this type of movie. If you're a fan of the previous movies then you're going to love this one because it dials everything up a few notches. There are plenty of giant monster fights to keep you entertained.

In a way you don't really need to watch the previous movies to totally understand this movie but it helps. The movie isn't pushing its story too much because it came up with a totally different lore to push the narrative. We have a few players back into the foray this time around. There's obviously Kong and Godzilla as your main protagonists.

Then you have your human characters with Bernie who was our conspiracy theory expert in the last movie. Ilene returns as the monster expert but her role is now a mother instead of doctor. She's now adopted Jia from the last movie who was the lone orphan from Kong island.

Jia's role is pretty important in this movie because she's been getting visions and acting out all of a sudden. The drawings that she's been making resemble distorted signals that Ilene has been receiving in the Monarch instruments. As an expert in her field she decides to ask Bernie the crackpot conspiracy theorist for help in figuring it all out. Yes, none of it makes sense but that's not why you're watching the movie. They soon discover that the signs and signals all lead to some distress call in the hollow earth underworld of Kong.

Meanwhile, Kong is lonely and craves some sort of social contact as he's a primate. He starts to get signs that maybe there are more monkey's like him in this hollow earth. Pretty soon he discovers that there is and it's not exactly what he was hoping for and that's how he discovers the new main villain of the story.

As this is all playing out in the hollow earth, Godzilla is cleanout house and kicking monster butt on the surface. He's killing and absorbing radiation so that he can become bigger and badder than ever before. It's a sight to see how much more sinister and powerful they can make him look. This is part of the fun of this movie.

Ultimately, there will be tons of huge monster clashes but they have a lot of fun with it. I felt that Kong had a bit of a Conan the Barbarian feel to him as he's so savage and brutal with his killings. Though when he meets up with the other monkeys in hollow earth I thought this movie was going into another direction. It literally felt like they were going to go into a Planet of the Apes kind of thing. I was just waiting for Kong to tell the other monkey's, "apes don't kill apes."

You can't take this movie seriously or else you will not have a good time. This movie has cheese written all over it from the movie poster down to the theatrical trailers for the movie. They know what we want and they give it to us in spades. Gigantic monsters fighting each other in the most extreme violent and absurd ways as possible.

I know a lot of people aren't into conspiracy theories but I've read a few and this movie has done its homework. They have to get some props in some of their fun explanations of gigantic world events of the past. Many of these explanations will fly over a lot people's heads but I see what they've been doing in the last two movies.

Overall, I had a great tie with this movie with the caveat that it is more of a big screen going experience. I watched it in Screen X with the panoramic screens and it was a hell of an amusement ride. Watching it at home I don't think you can quite capture the same experience unless you have a kick ass hoe theatre system. Some of the story drags a little but they were necessary to keep the movie going. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. I would recommend as an experience and for people that can shut their brain off for 2 hours.