Films about big monsters have always stirred up something important inside the human mind. This theme was especially mastered by the Japanese, who are famous for their kaiju genre. But the West is trying to keep up. Over the past few years, it has even been doing a relatively good job with the MonsterVerse movie universe. «Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire» — is the most recent part of this universe. We tell you in our review how it turned out.
Genre a science fiction movie about monsters
Director Adam Wingard
Starring Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kelly Gottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2024
Website IMDb
Godzilla and Kong managed to reach a conditional truce after the events of «Godzilla vs. Kong». The former is engaged in «patrolling» the surface of the Earth and destroying other monsters, while the latter is exploring the underground part of the planet. It is on the fact that the two great monsters do not cross paths that the precarious peace and tranquility of humanity rests. However, numerous signals indicate that something more terrifying will soon attack the Earth. And only a forced truce between old enemies can save everyone.
Let’s get right to the point. «Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire» — is a great movie that gets it almost perfectly right when it comes to telling stories about big, bombastic monsters. It looks and sounds amazing, and the final battle has no «but», it will definitely make you tense up and enjoy every second of it.
To a certain extent, the entire review could be made up of only gifs of monster battles — and it would tell you everything you need to know about this movie.
Well, as it is already clear to attentive readers, almost everything. Because «Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire» — is not 115 minutes of pretentious monster battles. And even if you realize with your critical thinking that in this case the whole amazing effect would be somewhat nullified, you still partially want this development of events. However, Hollywood tends to shove family drama into almost any story, even when it doesn’t really fit in. The example of «Five Nights at Freddy’s» clearly proves this.
The movie «Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire» did not escape this attitude. There’s a general consensus among fans that the weakest moments of MonsterVerse are the segments with people. This movie is no exception.
Here they try to show us a family drama, to reveal the relationships of bright, albeit stereotypical, characters. Everything here is of a minimum acceptable quality, even if it does not evoke any special emotions. Some segments with the traditions of one nation are rather boring, but look nice from an aesthetic point of view.
However, there is one point that is indicative here. One of the characters, whom the script tries to make seem like he is not even the last, is eaten by a monster in a second somewhere in the second act of the movie. And that’s it, no tragedies or unnecessary dramas.
This segment characterizes the whole movie, and for many people it is a positive one. It’s primarily about monsters, and people here serve as a kind of glue between the plot segments. Yes, it’s not the most interesting, but the authors seem to have realized this themselves, so they very competently focus your attention on the battles of the giants.
However, Godzilla and Kong do not only fight here. Rather, Kong is responsible for the more dramatic component, and he has turned out to be as human as possible in the movie. In addition, he was given more interaction with his «relatives», which brings him to a fundamentally new level of empathy. It is interesting that there are peculiar «dialogues» between the giant apes, which you understand without any extra words or explanations.
In local history, Godzilla — is the embodiment of aggression and relentless strength. It’s not for nothing that he was given several monsters to play, who could have been the central villains in other circumstances. But Godzilla deals with them without any difficulty, much to everyone’s delight. The same sound effects are in place, so fans of the classics will rejoice separately.
Of course, you can try to analyze the film from a more serious point of view. You can analyze dialogues, directing, cinematography, editing, narrative pacing, and other nuances. But here we have a case where this is not necessary. This approach will only ruin all the fun. Giant monsters are beating each other up with extravagant methods, what kind of film criticism is there?
From a technical point of view, the movie looks great. This is very important for projects where you need to look at computer graphics most of the time. The CGI in IMAX looks great, and the vast landscapes are particularly attractive. Music and sound effects are also on point, and Junkie XL is still able to create a unique sound for seemingly simple Hollywood blockbusters.
It’s a movie where the action is so all-consuming that even people who prefer quiet stories will enjoy it. The adrenaline is off the charts here, and dopamine is produced. What more do you need?