The new entry in the MonsterVerse, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, gives us what we want: fewer humans and more monsters.
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) is my favorite in the MonsterVersus series currently. While I have enjoyed all the other films, I feel like this one is a lot better than the others. I think Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a good second place, but all the other films seem to be a couple of notches below how good Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) was. This film was pretty short, compared to the others, as it was just under two hours. It also didn’t feel long because the pacing was fast and great. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) is action-heavy, which is a great change of pace.
I think the strongest point of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) is when we see the monsters interacting with each other. There was a decent amount of runtime where Kong was interacting with other monsters. There wasn’t any dialogue between them. It was just them speaking in their way. It felt like watching a cool National Geographic if these monsters were real. Of course, the CGI was great, so that helped as well. But having these scenes of him fighting other monsters and conveying his emotions toward them like they were having a conversation was awesome. Kong was very expressive in Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024), which helped a lot.
I’ve come into these films as a massive Godzilla fan. I’ve seen all of the Japanese Godzilla films, and I enjoyed all of them. I have not seen all the King Kong movies. I’ve seen the classics, but that is it. But Kong has won me over again with this new film. I was rooting for him the entire time and thought his interactions were so cool. Godzilla isn’t even really in the movie except for the beginning for a little bit and at the end for a little bit. So Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) is mostly King Kong.
King Kong probably has the most time out of any monster on screen and maybe even character. We learn a lot about him, and we see him go through an insane adventure in this film.
Throughout Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024), he is trying to find others like him. Eventually, he meets a whole race of enemies. Without giving too much away, there’s an adversary to Kong that he needs Godzilla’s help with. We have kind of figured out that Godzilla and Kong don’t hate each other at this point. They worked together in Godzilla vs. Kong and kind of earned each other respect. So seeing them together is so much fun.
The same human characters are back, and their storyline is probably the easiest to follow out of all the films. They don’t give them an insane amount of story to tell. We seemingly spend the least amount of time on them than we have on any of the new monsterVerse films. When we see them, it’s straight to the point as far as information and dialogue go; we don’t have to worry about all these long, drawn-out scenes.
Luckily, we have these returning characters, so we don’t have to spend a ton of time introducing new human characters as well. That seems to be an issue with a lot of these Godzilla and King Kong movies that have new characters, so we have to get introduced to them every single time we watch a new film. But they get to the point with Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) and have a pretty straightforward plot with the humans. You’re not going to have to look up the explanation for this one, like in some of the other movies.
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) only drags a little bit in the intro with the humans when they have to kind of get their footing in the story. Once they get to the human part of the film, it’s nowhere near as good as the monster stuff, which is to be expected, but it’s pretty tolerable.
The stuff that bothers me and is kind of cringe-worthy is the dialogue, especially the jokes. We have these jokes and one-liners that don’t hit with the crowd. I don’t know why a lot of films have these, as they usually don’t ever hit the crowd. They seem to be throwaway gags that aren’t good at all, and they should just hire someone who knows how to write comedy a little bit better if that’s what they’re going for. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) isn’t as bad as other action films. But it’s still there in this movie.
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) itself is basically what you want out of a summer blockbuster, even though it is not yet summer. You have great action, memorable scenes, and a big spectacle at the end of the movie. The spectacle of the monsters fighting was something awesome to see in theaters. It shook the place and was visually insane. I think one thing that MonsterVerse has excelled at is showing these visually appealing spectacles that seem to happen at the end of the film. They also have great sound designed for all the monsters, as each one has its own sound. Godzilla sounds so awesome in all these movies.
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) is what we want. We have fewer human characters and more monsters interacting. We don’t have to have boring dialogue that seems to go on forever. The pacing is a lot better because of that. We don’t seem to spend too much time on the human characters at once. We seem to jump around a decent amount, but not too much and not too little. Action scenes are great, and this is the best of the monster verses so far.
I think the future is bright for the MonsterVerse. I hope they continue to have Godzilla and Kong in movies together. Their chemistry and interactions are so awesome. They don’t love each other, but I don’t think they hate each other either. They make an awesome tag team.
I think they know what the people wanted in this film. They gave it to us, so it’s nice to know they listened and gave us what we wanted. It shows at the box office because this film is doing awesome. From the report, it’s looking like it has had one of the best opening weekend of the year so far. Even beating Dune: Part Two in China for the best opening weekend of the year.
So if you’re looking for a fun action movie with big monsters, great sound, and great visuals, yeah, you’ll like this one. If you watched Godzilla Minus One in theaters, you should watch this one, or if you like Godzilla or Kong even in the slightest, you will enjoy Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024).
