I’ve mentioned in the past how much of a fan I am of the original Godzilla (1954), a stunning monster movie with themes of nuclear destruction that’s as deep as it is thrilling. I rated Godzilla Minus One as the second best movie of 2023 behind Oppenheimer. Peter Jackson’s King Kong is underrated and Kong: Skull Island is a super fun movie.
There is also a load of garbage Godzilla and King Kong movies. You can just look back at 2021’s installment Godzilla vs King Kong as a movie that is incredibly banal. I haven’t found any American production of Godzilla to be good. Don’t even mention Roland Emmerich’s 1998 film.
But maybe I have developed a slight affinity for this big monster movies.
Late last year AppleTV launched the series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and despite the positive critical reception, I had serious doubts. But Monarch ended up being a fun and campy show. The acting wasn’t always great and the storylines were predictable, but I think it eventually found its footing. Two storylines jumped between past and present and for perhaps the first time I can remember from an American produced kaiju series, I actually cared about the humans for once.
The human element is where the Monsterverse movies always seem to flounder though. Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, Millie Bobby Brown, David Straithairn, Elisabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Vera Farmiga, and Sally Hawkins are all actors who have appeared in Godzilla’s two standalone entries and I bet you don’t even know that. Or if you did, I doubt you remember any damn thing about their characters or story. But I bet you do remember Godzilla ripping through San Francisco and destroying the Golden Gate bridge.
In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I think Legendary Pictures has finally figured out the recipe for the humans: by making them take a back seat for most of it.
Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, and Kaylee Hottle are all the focus for the humans in this outing. It’s a simple and to the point story arc that plays it a little on the safe side. It’s entirely excusable because it allows the focus on the two monsters who people showed up for.
Well, maybe not for Godzilla.
This is King Kong’s movie.
And it works quite well.
The MonsterVerse to date has provided a much better story for King Kong than it’s kaiju rival. King Kong has been banished to hollow earth after the events of the previous film. While Godzilla maintains the balance between humans and monsters on the Earth’s surface, King Kong toils away down below. Thought to be the last of his kind, King Kong finds a portal near his hideout that leads him to a different world below Hollow Earth called… hollow-er Earth? I can’t remember. But he finds that more of his species live down below. And they do not welcome his presence.
Hollow Earth is as absurd as it sounds. It’s an entirely different world where monsters roam freely, below the humans. But I’ll tell you why I don’t care: in the age of Marvel movies, the amount of endless destruction we see of cities around the world has fried our senses. I feel like I’ve seen New York City blow up over a hundred times, witness destruction of ancient ruins in Rome, and people flee in terror in Tokyo. It’s old.
Hollow Earth allows freedom. Sometimes its for poor writing. Actually purely for bad writing. It’s an exchange I’m willing to make for a change of scenery. Somehow it’s more believable than King Kong hanging out on Mars. Though I’m sure that’s in a pile of scripts somewhere.
In the world of dumb premises, there is fun to be had. There is no other expression than joy when King Kong grabs a baby kong by the ankles and proceeds to beat the living crap out of his kong enemies.
After a long week at work, sometimes this is all you need.
★★★½
hunter albert 
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