While the Fast and the Furious franchise may be trying if you are looking for franchises that have run decades and dozens of movies then must be talking about Godzilla. Comfortably beating out any English Super Spies the Japanese (or Original) series wrote the book on the Monster-Lore when it came to the big lizard which the 2nd US reboot hoped to capture. Now on the 5th time out does it still have ‘Big Lizard Energy’.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the 5th instalment of the US franchises if you ignore the original 1998/Matthew Broderick + Independence Day Director Roland Emmerich outing. Continuing from the rebooted Godzilla from 2014 the latest film follows our spikey boi in his ongoing quest to make up for that only 10 minutes of screentime in the first film. That first film was of course only an introduction to new Legendary Studio’s Monsterverse following the Monarch Agency as they continue their mission to monitor cryptozoic Kaijus that live in secret in our world.
The series, jumping between Godzilla and King Kong who was introduced as ‘just a baby’ in the Skull Island film set against the final days of World War II in the Pacific, the Monsterverse grew fast with King of the Monsters adapting original Godzilla lore and changing Godzilla from a one time natural disaster to one of many across the planet including Mothra and King Ghidorah. It all lead towards the big clash with the meeting between Kong and Godzilla in the previous film where the pair teamed up and fought Mecha-Godzilla.
So where can you go from there? The new film attempts to pick up on the new status quo where Godzilla is he checks and balance of the Monsters stepping in to restore balance on behalf of nature when required, and Kong the last of his kind living in the Hollow Earth (the Earth inside the Earth) and working with human allies in Monarch in his own turf. But what if he was not the last.
Godzilla x Kong is not so much a team up movie (except later in the film after Godzilla juices up and now has not so tiny arms) but more what happened to the rest of Kong’s kind and what if they were not as tolerance to people as Kong. For most of the film this is the focus with the A and B plot bouncing between a few characters who only appeared in the previous film and Kong in Hollow Earth tracing back the history of Skull Island’s lost tribe and Godzilla napping like a cat who found a cardboard box.
While previous films aimed to build suspense and draw you in by not giving you much more than a glimpse here and there the latest film knows that all of that has already happened in the previous films and aims to give you more of an experience like the Kong v Godzilla v Mecha-Godzilla for the entire film. Shot in Queensland with a few scenes and buildings that appear being familiar looking to inhabitants the latest film is a bit like Pacific Rim Uprising was to Pacific Rim, while it may be based on the same franchise it just has a different texture which really cannot be compared to the first few films in the franchise.
So should you go see it? As mentioned this one is very much about giving you a lot of Kong action with as much Godzilla has can be fit in. While there is some levels of world saving to happen for the most part the action is contained within Hollow Earth so expect less major landmarks being devastated and more Monkey/Lizard tag-team. While still approximately the same runtime as the other films in the franchise this one seems to go past really fast with the pacing more action movie than monster movie. If you are after some popcorn fun this will hit the spot, but if you need that monster mystery you might need to check out the Monarch series playing on Apple TV.
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is in cinemas across Australia from March 28th
