Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Director: Adam Wingard
Screenwriters: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen
Three years ago Adam Wingard delivered a spectacle of giant monsters clashing in neon-lit Hong Kong with Godzilla vs. Kong. It was loud, silly, and energetic—visually striking even when the premise didn’t ask for deep thinking. Wingard returns for a sequel, the fifth installment in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The film separates its two titans: Kong resides in Hollow Earth while Godzilla patrols the surface. When a new, existential threat emerges beneath the surface, the film sets up the inevitable need for both monsters to confront it.
The movie’s intentions are clear: deliver blockbuster kaiju action. Unfortunately, the execution is uneven. The screenplay offers flashes of character-driven themes—family, belonging, and the bond between Kong and Jia (Kaylee Hottle)—but these emotional beats are few and underdeveloped. They feel inserted to justify human motivations rather than genuinely earned. The result is a film that toggles between moments of human drama and long stretches of CGI spectacle that rarely connect in a convincing way.
A persistent weakness is the thinness of most supporting characters. Many exist only to populate set pieces and advance the plot mechanically. One example is Mikael (Alex Ferns), a pilot whose abrupt fate early in the story is treated as a throwaway moment: the film neither explores the consequences nor returns to his subplot. That omission exposes how disposable some plot beats are. At another point, a major in-story problem is solved in a rushed montage that makes earlier story needs feel arbitrary. These narrative shortcuts suggest the film aimed for a longer runtime or more breathing room, but settled for a compressed, often hurried pace instead.
The plotting leans on conveniences and instant expertise. Rebecca Hall’s Ilene Andrews deciphers ancient hieroglyphs with effortless certainty, offering exposition with zero ambiguity. Small realistic frictions—research setbacks, misreadings, or the need for collaboration—are largely absent, which speeds the story but weakens its credibility. Likewise, several antagonists appear briefly, engage the heroes in short skirmishes, and then disappear off-screen without meaningful development. Potentially intriguing monsters are introduced only to be dispatched too quickly, denying them and the audience a satisfying arc.
Structurally, set pieces sometimes impress visually while contributing little narratively. An adventure-style sequence through a temple provides some clever environmental traps and a sense of exploration, but it ultimately functions as a detour that leads the characters to the same places they would have reached with less spectacle. Other sequences—most noticeably a climactic encounter staged at the Egyptian pyramids—deliver fun blockbuster moments, proving that when the film focuses on pure monster mayhem it can be entertaining.
Visually, the movie frequently succeeds. Action choreography, creature design, and large-scale destruction are handled with the kind of polish expected from a modern tentpole. Yet visual polish cannot fully mask the thinness of dramatic stakes. Godzilla and Kong increasingly feel like action-figure superheroes—powerful, inevitable, and lacking the sense of menace or mystery that once made them compelling. A few supporting monsters stand out as more interesting than the leads, which highlights how flattened the protagonists’ portrayal has become.
Some production details also feel careless. One jarring example is an incongruous title card that looks like a placeholder carried over from marketing materials; it interrupts the film’s visual flow and suggests an inattentive final pass on presentation. Small choices like this add up and reinforce the sense that many elements were assembled with haste rather than careful intent.
Despite its flaws, the film can be enjoyable if you come for the spectacle and are willing to overlook narrative holes. Director Adam Wingard delivers the promised monster confrontations, and there are moments—particularly toward the film’s end—where the choreography and visual effects click and provide genuine thrill. The movie will almost certainly satisfy viewers who primarily want large-scale creature battles and cinematic set pieces on the big screen.
That said, within the MonsterVerse and in the broader realm of creature features, there are entries that achieve the same level of fun while handling character and story more skillfully. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire will likely be a box-office success and a crowd-pleaser for casual viewers, but it falls short of being memorable or particularly well-crafted cinema.
Score: 8/24
Recommended reading: Showa Era Godzilla Movies Ranked (1954–1975)