REVIEW: Godzilla and Kong’s New Empire is off to a forgettable start

At this point these films might as well just cut the human characters out entirely, they were barely necessary here.

That’s because, as expected, the latest movie centers on the big monkey and giant lizard. The former, Mr. Kong, has made a home in the Hollow Earth, a space between the planet’s surface and core. Kong is living his life as the Hollow Earth’s de facto ruler, but is rather lonely as the only giant gorilla there.

That changes when he discovers several other massive apes live nearby, but they’re led by a tyrant hell-bent on conquest of the surface. Godzilla, who is becoming aware of this threat, is preparing in his own way. But it’s going to take both rivals to handle the antagonist.

This is the fifth picture in this Monsterverse franchise and for the most part, they’ve ranged from OK to below average. In fact, just one film has reached a 4 out of 5 rating or better on this site. That film was 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island.” Why? Well, its characters actually had some character.

Look, no one is going to these movies for sensational acting and endearing characters, but it helps when the people on screen are at least entertaining. Because “Skull Island” featured the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Sam Jackson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly and Brie Larson, it had something memorable in terms of characters to go along with the giant Kong.

That’s a cast with a group of character actors and talented performers who all have screen presence, and it fits so well for a genre like this. Unfortunately, “Godzilla x Kong” is sorely lacking in this area. All of the characters are so bland and uninteresting, with little charm or charisma to be captivating between fights.

That’s not to say the cast is bad, Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry have both proven themselves as good performers in other work. But Hall feels miscast, and Henry is wasted playing this one-note giant monster fanboy blogger. It’s a series that desperately needs some action stars and wisecrackers.

I suppose that’s kind of the idea the filmmakers had with inserting Dan Stevens as an adventure-loving giant monster veterinarian. The issue is the film treats him as a character viewers should know and love, but this is his first ever appearance in the series. It’s not like Iron Man showing up in “Spider-Man.”

But as previously stated, what an audience is here for aren’t the characters and dialogue. It’s for the giant monster fights, and this movie does deliver some of those. However, it takes some time to get to the really good stuff. Case in point, the big bad of the whole film isn’t introduced until more than an hour in.

So, for most of this picture, the audience isn’t even aware of what kind of threat the protagonists are dealing with. Instead, we have a lot of exploring by the main characters which isn’t all too interesting. A plus, though, is that the audience also spends some time with Kong befriending a smaller giant monkey, who basically becomes this series’ Diddy Kong.

In terms of the monster fighting, it has its moments. There is a brief period where there is no gravity in the fight because of some random gobbledygook and the battle is harder to follow. But when it’s straight up punching, atomic breath blasts and slashing with massive weapons, its fun. The film just needed to cut 30 minutes from this nearly two hour feature to get there faster.

While the fights offer plenty of fun, though, a problem comes up with the surrounding. The world-building in this series has been rather poor, because the settings look, in a lot of cases, undisturbed. Godzilla first appeared canonically in 2014, so there’s been 10 years of monster battles across the globe.

Yet the final fight, for example, is set in a city that looks completely fine, as if there’s not a care in the world. Apparently in this movie’s world, if you live far from the ocean, you probably aren’t impacted at all. All things considered, at this point, the world should be rather dystopian.

For comparison, look at “Pacific Rim.” It was clear in that film that because there were many monster attacks, people were desperate for work, their clothes were worn, food seemed scarce and cities had to built around the bones of defeated kaiju. At this point, the Monsterverse should have a similar Earth.

If a person has liked the movies in this series or just loves everything “Godzilla,” they should check it out. As for everybody else, there’s not much of a reason to sit through two hours when the entertainment makes up a small amount of runtime. Truth is,  There are better action flicks out there. Some good big bouts earn some credit, though, for a 2.25 out of 5.