What do you get when you take a walking reminder of nuclear holocaust and pair it with a symbolic parable of colonialism? Apparently, you get a dude bro tag team of epic proportions. Who would have thought? Warner Bros & Legendary’s monster universe has reached its final form, uniting the world’s most recognized kaiju for the super team of the year. For the many misgivings we may have with Warner Bros’ handling of its other high-profile properties, I must say that their recent treatment of Godzilla has served the icon quite well. Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla (2014) – sans a couple of underwhelming performances – was an intense and thrilling reminder of Godzilla’s cinematic power, effectively putting the viewer in the worm’s eye view to terrifying results.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) followed up on this momentum in an impressive feat of spectacle. Godzilla and company have not been captured on film so beautifully before or since that phenomenal assault on the senses. Considering the recent success of Godzilla Minus One and the influence of Shin Godzilla (2016), an argument can easily be made that we’re in the golden age of the gigantic lizard. Oh, and King Kong is here, too.
However, Kong has also enjoyed a fruitful return to the silver screen, including garnering the bulk of the focus in 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong. That movie seemed to inspire a lukewarm reaction from audiences. While the story choices could have been considerably better, I still enjoyed that silly movie that pretty much operated as a feature-length Saturday morning cartoon. Speaking of which, it seems that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (this title does not move me, but I digress) is taking the tone and feel of the previous film and injecting it with steroids. If words don’t communicate this feeling, then the first trailer more than speaks for itself:
Okayyyy…
Well, I will revisit one of my frequent criticisms of these recent movies: that the human characters and stories are not fascinating. This trailer doesn’t lend much confidence in reversing that trend. Not even 5 minutes ago, we saw in Godzilla Minus One that it CAN be done, but Hollywood film executives are unsurprisingly disinterested in a deeper story. However, I do find the change of pace hilarious, shifting from Minus One’s delicate characterization and moving back to the good ole American blockbuster formula, where one-note characters spout empty cliches like “What is that?” and “Who could have done this?”
But the good news is, our shallow audience-avatar characters may be entirely overshadowed by a plot that seems like it could be batshit insane. King Kong now has Iron Man armor? Godzilla is turning into some kind of Super Saiyan? I never asked for either of these things, but fuck it, sign me up anyway! Where there’s caution is in the other story elements, namely the developing mythology and potential antagonist. I’ll reserve judgment on Baby Kong, as pint-size sidekicks can usually go in either direction of quality, but what the hell is going on with everything else? We saw the Hollow Earth established in Godzilla vs. Kong, but the follow-up here seems bizarre as the potential villain looks to be a burgeoning usurper to King Kong’s throne. Yet, the details of who these new characters are and how they’ll rise to power seem murky. The official synopsis clears things up just a tiny bit:
This latest entry follows up the explosive showdown of Godzilla vs. Kong with an all-new cinematic adventure, pitting the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence – and our own. The epic new film will delve further into these Titans’ histories, origins, and the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.
Cryptic.
So it seems we’re going to get a lot of backstory in this movie that will effectively serve as the new canon for this weird mythology. I’m cautiously optimistic and half-anticipating a convoluted mess on the story front. Honestly, this is just a bit of calculus to get us back to seeing Godzilla and Kong team up against another monstrous threat. But it’s going to take a lot to top the deliciously theatrical and over-the-top goodness of MechaGodzilla. Nonetheless, I’m still looking forward to this bit of junk food. I’m not expecting some masterpiece; it probably won’t even be the best movie that features King Kong, Godzilla, and Rebecca Hall in the same flick. But as fans of these Titanic creatures, we’ve eaten well lately. Not everything needs to be a home run, and I’d gladly take a double here.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire commences its inauguration in theaters everywhere on April 12th, 2024.
