Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
In Adam Wingard’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - a mess of a title that perfectly reflects the film it heralds - Kong has a toothache, Rebecca Hall has a parenting conundrum and Godzilla is more of a special guest than an equal share artist in the collab. It’s a follow-up to Wingard’s previous outing Godzilla vs. Kong, a film so forgettable that I genuinely thought I hadn’t seen it until Alex gave me a recap. As it turns out, you really don’t need to have watched any of the previous films in the Legendary Pictures Cinematic Monsterverse - a term that rivals ‘fetch’ in its creators’ attempts ‘to make it happen’ - and while that’s good for audiences who haven’t had the time nor the care to stay up to date, it is perhaps a sign that, deep down, the companies making these things know that no one is particularly gagging for more.
We open on the distribution of territories for the kaiju/titans. Godzilla has made the colosseum his comfy place, occasionally waking to carry out his pest control duties on Earth’s other surface baddies. Kong has been rehomed to Hollow Earth, a recently discovered wonderland within the core of our planet that houses a range of threatening flora and fauna. And the humans are tracking them all. But when Rebecca Halls’ non-verbal, adoptive daughter from a lost civilisation receives a signal from somewhere below, the gang starts to worry that something wicked this way comes. Godzilla seems to feel it too; he’s been gorging on radiation, seemingly in preparation for the inevitable final boss battle. Kong, fighting his own battles of self as the last of his kind in a strange new world, discovers a piece of the puzzle when he happens upon an uncharted region of Hollow Earth. The two behemoths navigate their own side quests before ultimately banding together in cringey slow-mo, set to the epic score of Tom Holkenborg and the embarrassing accents of Loverboy, KISS and Badfinger.
Unlike a glove.
Responsible for this mishmash of things that have no reason to co-exist are Wingard and his returning screenwriting team of long-time collaborator Simon Barrett and Pirates of the Caribbean’s Terry Rossio. Action cinematographer Ben Seresin returns to make the most of the CGI battles, and select members of the previous film’s cast - with the merciful omission of Millie Bobby Brown - reprise their roles, hollow as they are. Joining them is Dan Stevens as ‘Trapper’, an Ace Ventura nod so unsubtle that the writers even call it out in an attempt at humour somewhere in the first act. Godzilla x Kong was allegedly filmed in Queensland, evident only from a patch of coast that could arguably be anywhere in the world. That the majority of the film is computer generated makes any assertion that a real location exists onscreen kind of moot.
I spent the runtime of this film wishing I was elsewhere. The cast do what they can with their characters but it doesn’t stop them from becoming grating, and the CGI is not good enough at humanising the creatures to get much more out of the long stretches spent in their company. Despite the subpar effects, I found myself yearning for Kong, Zilly and the myriad of other pixels after minutes spent with Rebecca Hall - an actor I’ve generally loved in everything else - and her distractingly bad highlighted ‘do. This film also achieved the unthinkable in making me want less Dan Stevens, which is a crying shame and a waste of talent. The dialogue leaves much to be desired, the jokes don’t land and the fight scenes make little impact as they exist mostly in the animated Hollow Earth. When Kong and Godzilla do feature alongside humans, their changing comparative scales are an enduring source of puzzlement. As a renowned complainer I am at least thankful for one aspect of Godzilla x Kong: it provides an excellent opportunity for a whinge.
The Gollum of Hollow Earth
It is, however, frustrating to have to type such vitriol (as much as the film deserves it) when Wingard’s earlier work in the horror/thriller genre went down so smoothly. You’re Next is a fabulous slasher outing that invests time in its characters and made a formidable final girl out of Australia’s Sharni Vinson, and The Guest took Dan Stevens from Downton schlub to genre hottie in fine B-movie form. If Wingard’s filmography thereafter is anything to go by, these two films were flukes preceding the selling of his soul in exchange for the opportunity to direct flimsy adaptations and sequels for big money.
Now, it seems he gets his kicks from referencing better works (there’s more than a hint of Tartakovsky’s superb Primal in Kong’s Hollow Earth escapades with a former foe) and throwing in some classic rock à la Taika Waititi in his Marvel contributions. The problem is that these additions are of no relevance to the content of this film, so they come across as lazy homage at best and blatant theft at worst. Is it inevitable for a formerly lower budget director to have to abandon all craft once money is thrown in the mix? The recent critical success of another monster movie says no.
THE GODZILLA: MINUS ONE EFFECT
With a reported budget of $15 million, director, writer and visual effects supervisor Takashi Yamazaki brought everyone’s favourite kaiju to the big screen in an entirely refreshing way with Godzilla: Minus One. Inspired by Spielberg, Hayao Miyazaki and Japan’s earlier politically-tinged reboot of the franchise, Shin Godzilla, Yamazaki went on to create a piece of work that smartly blends themes of government unreliability and civilian anxiety in a story that is as relevant to its setting of post-war Japan as it is today. The film rightly earned itself the Oscar for Visual Effects and word of mouth remains strong, praising its dedication to human narrative as well as its stunning presentation of its eponymous monster. Godzilla: Minus One left cinemas early and is not on the agenda for streaming platforms, and the talk is that Godzilla x Kong is to blame. But the bar was set and for those who were lucky enough to catch it in cinemas, we now know what is possible.
Me at the halfway mark.
Speaking to Dread Central during the junket for 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, Wingard said:
“The MonsterVerse is at a crossroads now. It’s really at the point where audiences have to kind of step forward and vote for more of these things.”
I would like to offer a rebuttal: audiences need to step forward and vote for better monster movies.
For human stories being at their centres. Because that’s what gives the calamity of a big stompy foot actual impact.
For filmmakers that know when to show the beast. And more importantly, when not to.
For monster movies that either look worthy of their hundred million dollar budgets, or know how to make the most of one tenth of that allowance.
Because audiences deserve better. And if Godzilla: Minus One’s critical impact and trophy-backed success are anything to go by, they’ve started to concur.
Verdict:
★
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is in cinemas now. But so is Dune: Part Two, so see that instead.
