Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Oh boy.

Maybe the most disappointing viewing experience I've had in a cinema in years, the bafflingly titled Godzilla x Kong doesn't stop its confusion at the title. How do you even say it? Godzilla times Kong? Godzilla ex-Kong? Should it be an ampersand? And what about the subtitle, The New Empire, which makes even less sense the more you unpack it. Godzilla was previously touted as King of the Monsters, but now he's an emperor? Or is Kong the emperor of Hollow Earth? Is it "new," really, and who exactly are their subjects after they've killed so many other titans?

And we haven't even gotten to the film itself yet.

The latest installment of Legendary/Warner Bros's MonsterVerse franchise crashes and burns in a way I feared but did not expect from this series. I've been a fan all along, from Gareth Edwards's Godzilla -- which, contrary to popular opinion, did the whole "focus on the humans, not the monsters" thing a full decade before Godzilla Minus One -- through the stylized romp of Kong: Skull Island, the soaring epic religio-fantasy of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and even the fabulously pastiched escapist mess that was Godzilla vs. Kong. Then, when the Monarch series launched on Apple TV+, I binged that and then did again because it's so much fun.

But Adam Wingard helms the latest and seems insistent on embracing schlocky nonsense over gritty pseudo-realism with his committee of screenwriters, at least two of whom should know better than to churn out this trash. Much like the absurdity of Godzilla's fiery radiation breath drilling a hole through Earth's crust to the Hollow Earth exactly into Kong's throne room (disregarding the film's own internal logic of a gravity well and inverted physics to get there and back), Godzilla x Kong throws its own dignity out the window in favor of cartoonish balderdash with about as much sense as Saturday morning shows under the influence of acid.

I won't waste time trying to recap any plot here, because there isn't a worthwhile one. A few familiar faces return, namely Rebecca Hall and her adopted Iwi daughter (an older Kaylee Hottle) and their friend, conspiracy podcaster Brian Tyree Henry. A new character, played winningly by Dan Stevens, is such an artistically bankrupt creation that I can only hope they paid him well; the character (I won't use their names because who can remember them when they matter so little) pops in to save the day as a titan veterinarian and engineer, replacing injured teeth and using Iron-Man like technology to mobilize a frostbitten hand. His deus ex machinas appear almost at whim, and you really have to wonder how and where and why but you can't because the breakneck pacing forces us to just accept it and move on. Suspension of disbelief should be the result of flawless internal fictional logic, not the result of necessity due to aggressively fast storytelling.

The endless plotholes, of which the titan vet's tech only scratches the surface, are not the film's only faults, though perhaps should be explored further. I still don't understand the dimensional portal to Hollow Earth, nor how there is sunlight down there, among many other issues. The film's insistence that the dual landscapes of Hollow Earth aren't enough space lead it to invent yet another secret, "uncharted" realm (as if most of Hollow Earth wasn't indeed uncharted) where an entire army of giant, violent apes prepares to wage war on their ancient foe, Godzilla, and conquer Hollow Earth and the surface world. Their leader, Scar King (I know, I know, I told you this is really stupid shit) controls a secret weapon through *some* mysterious means:  yet another titan, Shimo, who has the chilly power to change the world's climate and usher in a new ice age. Because somehow that would be good for giant apes, too? Hmmm....

This film works especially hard to anthropomorphize the apes, and it get less cute as it continues. Kong himself is treated like a big baby who fights good, and the humans just keep cheering him on and retrofitting him with artificial aid. When he discovers his own kind, one young one (who is objectively visually off-putting) acts like Tolkien's Gollum, repeatedly trying to trick and trap Kong to eliminate the potential threat to his master, Scar King. The lengthy scenes of apes communicating nonverbally bored me to distraction, and it all plays out much more rote than even I could give it credit for.

And all this has been centered on the Kong side of things because the film itself is Kong-centric. Godzilla is mostly absent from this film, apart from a few money shots like sleeping in the Roman Colosseum. The film globetrots more than a cheap spy flick as Godzilla hops around to eliminate other titans (one wonders what happens to those carcasses) before we even get to see or experience them. The humans, in their unforgivably exposition-heavy dialogue, suggest he's collecting and storing energy for a major upcoming conflict (for no clear reason), and when he goes to kill the most energy-rich one named Tiamat, he does so with almost no ado and very little screen time (which renders the whole climax of that subplot flaccid and facile). 

The disaster scenes here, as in the previous one, are woefully monster-centric, and you know that tens of thousands of people are just arbitrarily dying en masse without so much as a moment of respectful screen time. Like the climactic battle between Kong, Godzilla, and Mechagodzilla previously, here the fight scenes devastate heavily populated cities before a new and totally unexpected climax in Rio de Janeiro, which was dispiritingly nihilistic in its lack of a human element. Even the sudden emergence of a new Mothra -- which completely ignores the previous hint of a Mothra rebirth from earlier in this same franchise -- doesn't help refocus things on the human element despite a bizarre quasi-religious sect of Iwi people who apparently worship her and share a psychic link with her through Rebecca Hall's daughter. The kaiju take center stage in the end, no matter how hard Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens try to let their humor win the day.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Shaun seems happy enough, working as a valet on the famous hills of San Francisco. He clearly takes care of himself physically, and he has cultivated a strong social life with his best friend and co-worker Katy. So when they are attacked on the bus by martial art henchmen, it feels as shocking and violent as it might in real life. An extended sequence follows, much longer than I expected, in which Shaun heroically fights back as if he's been trained as a ninja; the sequence has some of the most eye-popping and beautifully choreographed fighting in any MCU movie. It's also bubbling with humor, gliding past the nihilistic violence of other, similar movies in the genre. By the time it ends, we have a burgeoning hero casting off his urban alter-ego, his friend eager to join him on a globe-trotting adventure, and the threat of an emotionally complex big bad. All the makings of a proper installment in the franchise.

Simu Liu plays the newest hero in the MCU with panache and heart, proving himself an action star who can also navigate the conflicts of his inner life. A cursory summary of his character -- even the film itself -- reveals little of note, because it's about as standard an origin story as Iron Man. But Liu is no Stark, and his own daddy issues prove to be the beating heart here. His father Wenwu (Tony Leung) is a power-mad warlord who has toppled armies and kingdoms for a thousand years, with the help of ten magical "rings" he wears as bracelets. His own force, called the Ten Rings, we might remember from that first MCU movie as the terrorists who attack and abduct Stark in Afghanistan. He once fell in love with a mystical woman and raised a family with her, but after she is killed, a grieving Wenwu forces his children to become killers before the family breaks apart.

The film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy, Short Term 12, The Glass Castle), knowingly jumps across space and time to give us the story we need to get to know Shaun better from the inside. We are organically shown flashbacks that flesh out darker parts of their family history as we need them, avoiding pitfalls of chronological doldrums. And it helps that the excellent cast are able to economically utilize acting shorthand to jump right in and show us the history -- often non-verbally -- without lots of expository ado. This is the rare MCU flick that manages to wow us into silence from the action, and then let us sit in the silence for a while as the characters come to term with emotionally shattering revelations. Nowhere is this more clear than near the end, as Wenwu single-mindedly launches an attack on his late wife's homeland in a desperate attempt to get her back. As the news settles in, Shaun (now embracing his real name of Shang-Chi) sits by a lake with Katy and the two are comfortably, if sadly, silent.

And then the film shifts into high fantasy, not unlike the Thor movies but still fresh, particularly in style. Wenwu's goal is the dark side of Ta Lo, a magical land that holds a dark secret in its mountain; Wenwu thinks his late wife has been hidden there, but everyone else knows that a giant soul-sucking demon has been imprisoned there. As Wenwu and his army break it open, tentacled spawn emerge and turn the tide of battle. The intentionally excessive climax leads into even greater giddy energy when a dragon magically explodes from the lake to aid our heroes. While it's a little hard not to think of this water-dragon in terms of Raya and the Last Dragon, and it's certainly an unexpected move from the filmmakers, Cretton's direction and an emotionally gripping screenplay keep you rooting for more. It doesn't even entirely feel like an MCU movie at this point, and that's actually a good thing.

In what is otherwise a novel and delightful film, I find myself returning to one annoyingly sticky spot time and again. Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, is a really interesting character who gets disappointingly little screen time. In flashbacks, we see her training herself to be as good  -- no, better, I think is the word she uses -- a fighter as anyone else in the Ten Rings. Though Wenwu seems determined to destroy the world because he can't move on from his wife's death, his children seemed content enough to simply disappear into other worlds. Xialing's criminal enterprising has led her to a place of power and secrecy, and while she puts it on hold to help stop her father's death march, the movie leaves her in a shocking and fascinating place. If only we had more time to appreciate her growth and experiences before the film reminds us that a sequel will surely be on its way.

But, then, why deny the far more numerous pleasures of this movie? Michelle Yeoh plays Shang-Chi's aunt and a guardian of Ta Lo with her usual grace and beauty. Benedict Wong pops in a few times as what will hopefully become the new Agent Coulson-type comic relief in the franchise. Ben Kingsley utterly steals the movie from under everyone's feet as soon as we hear his first off-screen dialogue as Trevor Slattery, the intoxicated actor hired by the Ten Rings to act as the terrorist "the Mandarin," who is now clean and excited at the opportunity to not be Wenwu's court jester. And what review or discussion of this movie would be complete without a single mention of the awesome skyscraper melee on scaffolds above a Macao nightscape? As the MCU works to rebrand itself after Endgame, Shang-Chi offers refreshing new visions of a cinematic future. We can hope this helps to curtail the onslaught of shows and miniseries on a streaming service, but let's take things one punch at a time.