User reviews

As a hard-core Kaiju fan of many years, I love that we are being treated to all of these Godzilla movies as of late. My opinion of the first two in this series (Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters) is that they were (somewhat) reality based and not obviously made for children. My criticism of G v K (the ending in particular) and this movie is that so much of it is far-fetched and fantasy based. Much more cartoonish.

The bottom line is, they're making the monsters out to have too much human intelligence when they should actually be more animalistic. This was like watching a superhero movie and in my opinion, making the monsters out to be superheroes is a huge mistake. That's what happened when Toho did this in the 60's/70's which resulted in Godzilla movies becoming silly, low-budget kids movies, which has since been ridiculed for decades and has tarnished Godzilla's image. I understand the writers are trying to be creative and give the fans something different from all of the other monster movies out there, but this can be done without all the cheese. Please stop making the monsters so human!

I enjoyed the movie but have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed.

Monster = hurrah Humans = garbage

Another Monster-Verse installment to the collection gave me another reason to visit my cinema. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed, I got everything what I expected which might be summoned by the two equations above.

About humans: If you want to watch the movie at home, don't waste time on humans subplot. It's completely pointless. The dialogues aren't funny or smart. They serve poor exposition which is painfully exhausting to watch. You see the monsters fighting and these "characters" are explaining in between: oh, he is protecting! - Come on, who wrote this? In my opinion if Legendary Studios wants to include humans, they should at least try making them just little interesting or just remove them completely. None of them is doing anything necessary, furthermore whatever they're doing doesn't make any sense. Why the hell are they in the Hollow Earth without protection? One guy is just in a Hawaiian shirt. The amount of dangerous monsters is not alarming, I guess... Paper Boy is filming everything but the British guy in a Hawaiian shirt says something like: It's better to keep it in a secret, this ancient civilization shouldn't be exposed to our world. The girl from Godzilla Vs. Kong (she is from that world and has weird X-Men power (?)) is among modern people, so the world already knows the underground world. What does he want to hide? There is more of this stupidity.

About the monsters: Kong is the lead. His journey is simple, he feels lonely, he wants to have a family of his kind. From the trailers you know, there is more giant apes, so I am happy to see them because I am Team Kong :) I'd want to appreciate the "dialogues" between Kong and this little ginger fella. They don't use words as we do but believe me, these two are more interesting than the humans. You will enjoy it.

Godzilla and the rest are just monsters. Sadly Godzilla isn't intimidating in this movie, his only goal is to gain the pink level of nuclear power and then use it to fight the bad monkey. However, the fight scenes are awesome - this is why we are watching this type of movies, so if you're a fan of giant monsters, I recommend Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire... and don't expect to see raise of "the new empire" in this movie. It's a kinda awkward title generated by ChatGPT.

The movie features very few scenes with Godzilla, only a few fragmented shots, including the final battle. Godzilla's total screen time is probably less than 7 minutes. The movie is filled with monkeys throughout, making it more like an independent Kong film because it barely depicts Godzilla, with Kong having far more screen time than Godzilla. I feel like Godzilla's role was forcefully added and feels disconnected from the rest of the movie. Also, the portrayal of SHIMO is superficial, failing to showcase its power, while Skar King is portrayed as a clown; it can't even defeat King Kong one-on-one, lacking a strong antagonist that leads to a rushed conclusion of the final battle. Finally, I have a big question: why do the director and writers like monkeys so much?

It serves up a berserk dreamscape with plenty of payoff to please the MonsterVerse faithful. Shame about the human stuff, though. Director Adam Wingard has a lot of fun with textures, colors, and camera work, and he's adept at giving fans the over-the-top monster action that they demand via an imposing new villain. Unfortunately, there's no time to spend on making things make sense or even matter all that much, and what few emotional punches are thrown lack the necessary wind up to connect, save for some very well done moments between Kong and his Hollow Earth kin.

Overall didnt live up and the plot was mediocre at best.

Lots of Titans fighting. That's why we go to something like this, right?

G X K is about the same for entertainment wise as G vs K, though I'd give the newest entry a slight edge for a couple of reasons. For one, there's a bit less silliness. There's comic relief of course, but it's not out of place or goofy. The 80's throwbacks with the tunes, synths, and vibes were great. And lastly, the Titans were back to being the bad guys instead of humans. I always find it a bore when you watch a movie about monsters fighting, but have to bare through a story of human villains and their idiotic ideologies.

A side note, it's hilarious that these Titans seem to really enjoy having their royal rumbles in the biggest cities on the planet, or while destroying some of the world's most revered structures. Like really guys, you couldn't have thrown down in the middle of the Sahara? More destruction equals more entertainment I suppose. Also, Godzilla just casually murders hundreds if not thousands just walking around from point A to point B. I digress. Go pink Zilla!

Releasing merely weeks after the critically and commercially acclaimed "Godzilla Minus One" won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects is a boon as well as bane for "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" - while more people are familiar with the behemoth radioactive lizard, there is an undeniable urge to draw comparisons between the two movies. Adam Wingard's second Monsterverse film following 2021's "Godzilla vs Kong" delivers satisfying Titan action, but overall, the film feels like a step back, largely owing to dull and tedious human drama.

Personally, I found "Godzilla vs Kong" to be the best Monsterverse film. It embraced the absurdity and silliness of its premise and made the most of it to deliver one hell of a show, placing the Titans front and centre, while jettisoning any unnecessary human drama. "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" starts off much slower, with the actual plot taking nearly 20 minutes to kick in. Combined with an uptick in uninteresting human drama, this slows down the movie with certain portions feeling boring.

Much like its predecessor, "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" struggles trying to the connect the stories of the two leading titans. Kong is the heart and soul of the movie, with Godzilla largely feeling like an accomplice or sidekick. The first half of the movie is almost entirely about Kong's exploration of Hollow Earth, the subterranean ecosystem where the Titans live. While learning about the mystical world was engaging and intriguing, it lead to a delayed introduction of the villain, leading to the third act feeling slightly rushed and less rewarding compared to the enthralling finale of "Godzilla vs Kong".

The action sequences themselves are a whole lot of fun, with a face off in hollow earth with gravity slightly messed-up being one of my favourites of the entire franchise. The finale in Rio delivers plentiful excitement and fun too.

"Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" is best suited for fans of the Showa era. For Kong fans(like myself), there is a lot to like about the movie, owing to the humanisation of the great ape. The action scenes are fun, colourful and campy, similar to it's predecessor, but an increased focus on human characters and a slower pace make this a slightly underwhelming entry to the Monsterverse.

More than the enemy monsters. They really added nothing to the film. Except annoyance dumb rehashed mcu jokes, not even remotely amusing. Not even in the same league as the masterpiece like Godzilla minus 1. This will be my last one of these types of Godzilla movies they toss out tripe like this on a regular basis like EA churns out GaaS games that ultimately get shut down within a year. Why because they are poop. The Cranston one was good, then the Farminga one wasn't bad, though the milly brown family aspect made it cringe. Soon as we got to the ones with ms hall and skarsgard they went down the pan and in the gutter. All flashy bright colors felt like we were watching iron man. Such a shame because Godzilla Kong and the creatures really tried to carry the human cast. But every scene these collection of humans were in we wanted them to meet a grizzly end. Such a farcry from Godzilla Minus 1 directed by Takashi Yamazaki.

This movie has a real problem - It tries to cater to a wider audience by adding more 'Marvel type' action and storytelling rather than focus on doing what it could do really well and appeal to a more niche audience.

The "doing what it could do well" part I am referring to is the BIGNESS of the Kaiju's / monsters. Not just their actions but their presence and size.. a bit of slowness in how they walk and move, to feel that "thud" when they take a step and the sheer overwhelming presence that they represent - Like in Pacific Rim or in Godzilla King of the Monsters. You FEEL the bigness and the size.

A splash in the ocean can causes huge tide-waves due to the size.

A resounding BOOM that is felt when two Kaiju's collide.

Where is that?

There is no respect paid to the bigness.

It's just they took some superhero action sequences and applied them to giants and made them move like they were the same size as humans.

There is no FEEL or BIGNESS - It's simply a 6 out of 10 movie because it caters "enough" to enough people because it goes for what's popular and throws a lot of it while giving away the depth and the "feel" of a big monster movie that is what godzilla is meant to be.

You get what you paid for. Lots of CGI titans, going scene by scene, then culminating into a boffo end fight scene. I've read some write ups online stating "there's too much CGI.." The movie is centered around a fifty foot gorilla, a sixty foot lizard, and they are fighting other enormous titans in a world that does not exist. Great special effects, great action, and a it's paced well.

Story? Don't fool yourself. The story is as thin as half of a single hair. You came for the fictional animals fighting. Not enough Godzilla. That was a shame. Go see this if you are a fan of dumb, popcorn films. Don't expect Othello.

Something is very wrong with American film making for some time. Nothing makes sense here, intelligence of people is sharply underestimated (on the level of insult) and nothing really works with story. This last film about monsters shows that while it is trying to draw some long forgotten mythology that works worse than in most cartoons for children under 12. Human characters exist only to remind us of long forgotten cliches and definitely not of characters. Destroying the cultural and historical heritage of mankind is order of a day. And in all that there's nowhere in the site possibility of simple 'just sit back and enjoy the rid'. What an insulting mess of corporate idiocy... That beautiful queen under the surface and some fights do save this experience, but the whole thing is not worth the effort at all...

What's with all these 9 and 10 stars reviewers?????? It's now they paying people to give movies high praise???

I went to cinema and i feel so uncomfortable the whole almost 2 hours time.

The comedic thing put on the movie make this looks so cringe and corny!

What? They want to transform the Monsterverse into a joke like Marvel? And the humans in this movie are all cringe, whyyyyy? Why they allow to transform every movie into a bad cringe/corny comedy? I don't want to see cringe/corny, i want to se some seriously dark movie about big monsters.

4 stars just for some very decent special effects and that's all! THE 2014 VERSION "GODZILLA"(2014) WAS the best! As well as the Kong: Skull Island! Now they transform Kong and Godzilla into some bad comediants! Don't listen to these 10 stars reviewers!

After decades using this site, this is my first review.

I think people got it wrong. This is what you should expect at this point for this kind of movies: monsters punching each other all the time, irrelevant humans that add nothing to the already weak "story" and no unnecessary side quests or subplots tho make it longer.

Now, about the plot: It is absolutely stupid. You won't be able to understand or find any sense in what happens, but it is definitely entertaining, just turn off your logic processing unit and enjoy CGI monster fights (there are quite a lot of those) and you will be fine. You will only get frustration if you try to make any sense of the "how's" and "why's".

When me and my friends went to see the movie, i really enjoyed it but friends went over the moon for it. They gave it a solid 10/10, so for the audience that doesn't want anything serious - this is hella perfect.

The story wasn't anything new that we haven't seen before but it serves the movie good. My biggest problem with it, was the human characters. Just like "Godzilla vs Kong", the characters are flat and i would rather watch monsters fight than them.

The direction by Adam Wingard is pretty good. The action in particulat is really well done and you can really see what's going on.

The actors were OK for the most part but for the script they are given, they are fine.

Giant praise to the VFX. Everything looked amazaing and you can see that the money went in the place, not like "Captain Marvel 2" for example, which had a 300 million dollar budget and for the money, it looked awful.

The music is good too. I wouldn't buy a soundtrack but it served the story.

Overall if you just want to have fun for 2 hours, this movie is perfect.

@somegeekguy

-Wow, I'm just as surprised as you are reading this right now, believe me. My expectations were kind of meh, me personally, Godzilla Vs Kong (GVK) was OKAY, nothing special, maybe about a 6/10

So who won this time in Godzilla X Kong & what is this New Empire?... well legendary studios of course!

After a victorious achievement for Toho... we all know what we've come for here at legendary studios, & the results are definitely not a minus one...

because this time we up the ante, and the people have spoken, we want this, legendary in this film is simply unlocking the massive cheese vault oozing into my optic stems, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is a hyper adrenaline rush energizer, it felt like my brain waves digested a high voltage energy drink kicking every inch of my brain cells.

Dan Stevens is a solid comic relief along with Brian Tyree Henry. The jokes land a bit better this time around. The aura & creative decisions in this film have almost an 80's vintage vibrant feel, the music & color palette compliment each other perfectly along with cinematography.

My issues? Well... why does the movie have Monarch being okay with bringing anybody down to hollow earth? Reliance on slight jumpy exposition, small things that could have been explored a little more to leave more an impact. It's not perfect for those, however I will argue this film was a lot closer to striking close to being perfect than you would think a film of this caliber could do.

This is what happens when Cinematography, awareness, consistency & finding the footing on following Kaijus, gets the best of a cinematic experience, it's just as much a kaiju story as it is a human story & It's a Love Letter to the showa era & fans should be proud.

I've never been more invested in the actual story of the kaijus until this movie, expositions & humans don't ruin it either this time. It's not anything special, but what is special are what we are here for, & that's the Kaijus.

New Empire, by far, has the longest showtime for Kaiju action that I've ever seen in a monster flick. Beautifully shot cinematic camera scenes, there is one specific upside down shot unfolding to the right side up, just amazing camerawork

The gradual building blocks embedded in the story left exciting awe in entertainment & care of handling Kaiju moments. The humans are just enhancers for the monsters. Compared to GVK, they have a better direction here without getting lost.

It's a ride, took the issues of GVK & corrected it more, there's plenty of action if not more than you'd think... there's plenty of surprises, emotional character moments with humans/monsters, & although a not so perfect expositions still a solid fun plot/story following the elements at play... Godzilla X Kong was a lot better than I thought it was going to be & that's worth something.

7.5 / 10.

Godzilla x Kong is undeniably vacuous and as hollow as the imaginary world it portrays. It's essentially a very forgettable monster mashup that aims for the heights of the epic and terrifying; but instead serves an OTT nonstop chest-beating slugfest, smothered in tawdry CGI. It's overpowered monster WWE seemingly presented as something the filmmakers *believe* or estimate an audience will like; as if it were the product of a soulless spreadsheet.

These tired titans of bygone cinema have been pulled back into the limelight as the viewer suffers a nowhere-plot aimed at the lowest common denominator. The Kaiju terror is here, but in a very watered-down state.

No dialogue because it's just senseless roaring beasts? Don't need to pay anyone to write a good script. Excessive closeups of the beasts all the time? Well that handily means they didn't need to animate higher-budget complex scenes from a more interesting POV. Sensory overload to distract the viewer from the complete lack of actual substance? Check. The corner-cutting is so apparent the more you look; the buck is passed onto the consumers who continue to accept this poor standard of filmmaking time and time again.

4/10.

Godzilla and Kong: A New Empire is exactly what you are going to get. A movie about Kaiju finding their way in the world with the established notion of coexisting with humans on this planet! Here, hollow earth is vastly explored with great visuals and Kong delivers an exceptional performance! The fight sequences are to the point and give great depth to the brutality of the situation on earth. As a kaiju fan I could not ask for anything more than to see monsters go at it and save the planet. Such as any other monster movie people go see. Godzilla is true to form and is his usual reign of terror to other kaiju. The human provide the skeleton of the story but the monsters carry it! I had so much fun with this movie! No need to go with the expectation of cinematic dialogue and epic depth.

Just sit back, relax and watch monsters do their thing!

Look, nobody is watching these movies because they want water tight plots and engaging human stories. We're here because we want to see giant things smashing stuff up.

Movies like this are like a Big Mac. It's not real food but it has its place.

It is a whole load of silly, loud, goofy fun.

The opening of this movie sees Kong luring a pack of giant hollow earth hyena things into a complex mechanical trap. He then takes a shower after covering himself in the blood of one of those giant hyena things having torn it in half whilst letting out a trademark intimidating roar.

The first human moment sees Jia (the small girl from versus) having some psychic visions.

It is that ridiculous.

There was a "surprise" death that was possibly the most telegraphed in history and a scene where a monarch monitoring station, in hollow earth, has been destroyed. (Remember that hollow earth is huge, mostly uncharted and full of giant monsters) and the question is asked "What could have done this?" Giant mechanical arm ex machina. Loads of explanation for stuff we didn't ought to have figured out. Magic mind control. Magic gravity control.

There's a kind of anti gravity fight which is pretty decent and scenes of our favourite titans on Rio beach, Giza and even having a nap in Rome's Colloseum.

Honestly it's ridiculous. Ridiculous and very enjoyable.

When asked what his plan is, a character in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire says 'throw everything at the wall and see what sticks'. Director Adam Wingard has adopted this approach when making this film, but on this occasion very little that is being randomly tossed about actually sticks. The smackdowns between the film's creatures are loud, frantic and reasonably fun, but the plot is a sloppy turd of Titan proportions -- a stinky, contrived, overblown mess brought to life in a maelstrom of not very convincing CGI.

The script is absolutely terrible, and the majority of the film had me either scratching my head in confusion or laughing at its preposterousness. Kong being equipped with a metal fist is an undeniably cool idea, but the fact that the protagonists just happen to have such a device on hand in Hollow Earth is just crazy (especially one with built in anti-frostbite serum!). A vet who knows how to extract a Kong tooth also knows how to fly a Hollow Earth hover ship -- clearly a man of many talents. God only knows what the Iwi tribe were up to with their glowing pyramids. What was the deal with that glowing spike that nasty ape used to control the ice lizard? And why did everyone suddenly start floating around in Hollow Earth? (there might have been explanations for some of these points, but they became lost in all of the chaos).

After Godzilla Minus One, I suggest leaving all future films featuring the big lizard to the Japanese.

3.5/10, rounded down to 3 for Kaylee Hottle's perpetually anxious look -- doesn't the girl have any other expressions?

I don't know what I expected going in to see this at the cinema, but it wasn't this. I guess I expected more focus on the humans (again) and less on the Titans (again)...but this? This was not that. Yeah they had humans, but they were mostly more of a footnote in the story, which could have been almost completely told without the humans, but they did add a little flavour to the mix. Especially Dan Stevens. But then I AM kinda biased towards him as I've loved his work in everything I've seen him in so far.

All that aside, Kong was great - and MASSIVE - and Godzilla was pretty damn impressive, too - and just as massive as Kong - but more than that, we got a look at a few other Titans as well, and they were ALL pretty impressively brought to life here. My ONLY gripe about Kong himself is that, in the early going the filmmakers tried to humanise him just that little but too much, and it kinda fell flat to me. Once things actually got moving and shaking, though, it all got a lot better.

A filmmaker could have demonstrated better judgment in selecting the cast. The CGI is top notch. Still it remains perplexing who authorized the casting decisions, particularly the expressionless demeanor of the team, including the child artist whose acting falls short. However, a positive aspect is that her performance may inspire confidence in aspiring actors , if she can make it to hollywood then believe me anyone can. The screen time allotted to the actors was limited, leaving room for improvement. A more adept short film crew could have potentially achieved better results.

Kudos to the CGI team; every moment is enjoyable except for the live-action performances.

Note : 6 star just for the CGI.

I think I've been spoiled by the masterpiece that was Godzilla minus one. Going back to this ultra generic brainless 0 story nonsense is just disappointing. I don't expect a great story but the dialogue was so bad and the story so pointless I almost wanted the humans dead so I didn't have to listen to them. Several Uber generic rehashed MCU jokes that weren't even funny. I love Godzilla and the monster verse started off great with Brian Cranston and that first Godzilla film but since then it's just slowly gotten worse imo. Like I said, I knew this would be dumb and I went in with low expectations but left feeling almost insulted at how ridiculous and stupid it was. I hate to say it because I love the idea of Godzilla movies.

Wow, just wow. Now the thing is, the reason I am saying wow, is for a few big reasons that can probably relate to a lot of regular humans like me because I am most definitely human and not Godzilla trying to promote his own film. The reasons being; CGI, Big monster go rahh, and epic battle scenes. Anything else is boring and I frankly could care less about in this film because it affects nothing and all I care about are the things that THE FILM IS ACTUALLY ABOUT (humans).

First, I wanna start off by saying that comparing this film's CGI to Godzilla Minus One (greatest Godzilla film that actually made me care about humans), budget wise, is like an insult. GMO had a budget near abouuuut 20 million or so, while GXK had 10x the budget. GMO managed to achieve winning an Oscar with 100x less visual art employees and having the best and probably the most realistic large scale CGI I've seen ever. BUT, the CGI even with such a smaller film beating it, is still excellent as always and doesn't look like some PS5 game that was reprogrammed to run on a Nintendo Switch, unlike other films. It has definitely been one of the consecutive aspects of the MonsterVerse.

Monsters; I'm a sucker for Godzilla, not so much Kong, but this version of him definitely catches my eye. Godzilla and Shimo were what really brought this film together, and the funny thing is, before I saw Godzilla with pink atomic breath, it was my most disliked color, but on him, it's my preferred look for him. I also already loved cold related things so a big beast like Shimo definitely made me see this film.

Battle Scenes. Now I know, I know, not all Godzilla films can entirely be epic fight scenes, I'M JUST SAYING, I wish they were longer. They are definitely what everyone, including me, came to see, and I am beyond glad with the outcome of the film, that I totally didn't see coming (that's sarcasm), and I actually would love to see more of the franchise, whatever it may be. Also to anyone who disliked the movement speed of Godzilla, watch literally any dated Godzilla film.

In summary, I love Godzilla, Dune Part Two and GMO still beat it by an inconceivable number, but if you like big monsters or just Godzilla in General, watch this, maybe watch it again, or just watch the fight scene clips.