:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mentormedier/RMPSWMGYCJB4PFP4PVN3KMT5YI.jpeg "The New Empire” provides a lot of fun with monsters – Dagsavisen")
—
4
FILM
«Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire»
Regi: Adam Wingard
USA – 2024
—
We just have to give Godzilla, King Kong, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. collective credit for succeeding where most others have failed miserably: they have actually managed to create their own cinematic universe modeled after Marvel. Their so-called MonsterVerse now spans ten years, five movies so far, the kid-friendly Netflix animated series “Skull Island” and the Apple+ spin-off series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” (let’s just say we had to wade through a lot of irrelevant soap opera plots to get a few quick glimpses of the monsters there). In keeping with the Japanese originals, the “Godzilla” movies have gotten progressively sillier over the years, and the attempts to link the increasingly obscure mythology to the hollow underworld theory dragged the entire series far into Showa tomfoolery. “Kong: Skull Island” (2017) remains the preliminary highlight of this uneven series, but personally I had a lot of fun with “Godzilla vs Kong” (2021) – which, despite the pandemic, was such a big box office success that the producers quickly turned around for to make a sequel in time for Giant Lizard’s seventieth anniversary.
Director Adam Wingard and several of the actors are back from the predecessor, but “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the first in the series written without input from screenwriter Max Borenstein. Which possibly explains why the dialogue flows a little better, and the lines aren’t so damn embarrassing. The film was shot under the alternative title “Son of Kong”, so it’s no big spoiler that this time King Kong is joined by a mischievous mini-me. And since Kong and Godzilla’s big basket attack was completed in the previous film, this time they must form a fragile “tag team” alliance to deal with a common enemy.
Researcher Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) has assumed that King Kong is the last of his kind, but since less than five percent of the underground’s lush flora and fauna have been mapped, humanity knows very little about what actually moves far beneath our feet. In any case, something is simmering dangerously down there, and sends out a telepathic distress signal to Ilene’s mute adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle). Hardly a good sign that Godzilla is gearing up for battle by soaking up the energy of a French nuclear power plant, and gathers his strength by snoozing sweetly in a cozy nest in the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. Meanwhile, King Kong resurrects to get help with a toothache (yeah, seriously), before jumping back into the underworld and discovering an entire enclave of giant apes like himself. So the good news is that he is not alone in the world.
Also read: Juliette Binoche: – Love is bigger than conflicts and sad things
The bad news? That the other relatives are slaves to the giant orangutan Skar King, a malicious bastard who intends to rise to the surface of the earth to create a new ice age with the help of the subdued Titan beast Shimo. To find out what’s going on, Ilene Andrews takes a trip back to Earth’s interior with Jia, paranoid podcast conspiracy theorist Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) and Titan vet Trapper (Dan Stevens). The latter a fun New Age adventurer in an Ace Ventura shirt, reminiscent of the kind of role Owen Wilson might have played some fifteen years ago.
They discover an entire tribal community of mute Iwi warriors, who worship the Atlas Spinner Moth-Titan insect goddess Mothra. So, like King Kong, little Jia is not as alone in the world as previously thought, and both have a central role to play in making sure that bad-ass Scar doesn’t freeze the entire planet to ice. Yes, this has some striking, coincidental similarities to the current cinema “Ghostbusters: The Frozen Empire” and the scenes where King Kong confronts Scar King are suspiciously reminiscent of something we could have seen in the “Planet of the Apes” series. And yes, once again: all of this will border on Dadaist if you haven’t seen the previous films in the series, preferably know the Japanese originals, and can pick up all the references. Several of the dirtiest elements come straight from them, and “Mothra” (1961) in particular seems to be a point of reference this time.
Read also: Assassin in the foggy home
It is difficult to claim that this fifth chapter in the series does anything groundbreaking, or that the big monster threat is on par with previous films. But Adam Wingard really does give us what we’ve come to see: giant beasts unleashing on each other and carelessly demolishing famous monuments. He avoids unnecessary dead time with character development, laughs mockingly at anything that resembles logic and keeps the gas on the line throughout. Rome, Cairo and Rio de Janeiro are particularly hard hit this time, which lose most tourist attractions, certainly significant parts of the population and are exposed to renovation costs that probably exceed national budgets. The basket roofs make up a significant part of the playing time, and are of course the big attraction here – which is creatively staged with relatively impressive special effects and a lot of absurd humour.
At one point, King Kong knocks a station wagon-sized tooth out of the jaw of one of the monsters, uses the little tormentor Suko as a sledgehammer, and is equipped with a bionic arm that can pulverize skyscrapers. So, all in all, I would not claim that this is a hundred percent realistic film. “Godzilla x Kong” has the lowest budget in this film series, but still cost well over ten times more than the Japanese success “Godzilla Minus One” – which came out of the blue in December, became an instant fan favorite and collected an Oscar statuette for best special effects.
It had a respectful angle to this mythology, and was very aware that Godzilla was born as a manifestation of Japan’s national trauma after the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. “Godzilla Minus One” is far from as serious, maybe a little more irreverent and definitely not a future Oscar winner – but serves exactly what we have come to see, and there is certainly no shortage of entertainment value here.
Also read: Don’t even cry