The person at the concession stand asked me which movie I'm watching the other night. I said, “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.” He placed the popcorn down and let out a sigh of relief. Gratitude? Hope? All of it. A mix of feelings, to go with the movie’s mix of species.
“Oh, man,” the concession worker says. “We really need that one.”
Even with the release of “Dune II,” it's been a challenging year for movie theaters. Now comes the new Godzilla/Kong battle — the marketing materials inform us that the “X” in “Godzilla X Kong” is silent, which is a confusing waste of a perfectly good letter. But I'm happy to report that the follow-up to the 2021 “Godzilla vs. Kong” does the job — unevenly, yes, but with a pleasantly reckless spirit of engagement.
It’s directed, as was the 2021 movie, by Adam Wingard and features the return of Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle and various digital MonsterVerse old favorites, from ‘Zilla to Kong to Mothra and more, polished up and full of energy.
Maybe the preview crowd on Tuesday was different, but I doubt it. The bursts of applause, especially in the carefree and destructive Rio de Janeiro climax — a team-building exercise for the headliners — had the ring of genuine approval, not just something you do because the movie’s begging for it. At one point Godzilla and Kong sprint toward their enemy, Scar King, the orange authoritarian nightmare whose territorial ambitions as a Kong-scaled antagonist know no bounds. You know the shot: the action-movie slow-mo dash toward the camera, executed here in such a way as to suggest Godzilla and Kong have spent many hours rewatching “Bad Boys.”
Silly, right? Well, sure. Also amusing, and exciting and genuine. For the audience, it’s a shameless attempt for applause that satisfies our deepest desires to see two endlessly competitive beings find the joy in starring, however briefly, in a Michael Bay action movie.
At the end of “Godzilla vs. Kong,” the atomically charged sea lizard and the woolly plus-sized simian reconciled, uneasily (without lawyers), after defeating the human-made Mechagodzilla. Despite widespread human fear and skepticism, Godzilla agreed (again, without lawyers) to keep a beady eye in his touchingly too-small head on monstrous threats to humankind on Earth’s surface. Kong returned to Hollow Earth, the gravity-scrambled inner wonderland of verdant beauty and violent predators. The film worked like a remake of “The Odd Couple,” proving that two lonely Titans can share a planet without driving each other crazy.
The threats double, triple and quadruple in the new movie. Scar King, whose miserably enslaved followers include a Titan “ancient” in the Godzilla vein, ranks as Headache No. 1. But there are others, and Godzilla gives up his post to chase down an unexplained distress signal emitting from Hollow Earth. The signal perplexes the humans in “Godzilla X Kong,” anxious about what might happen if Godzilla and Kong mix it up again.
We're talking about some remarkable humans, including the brilliant and always busy scientist Dr. Andrews (played by Hall). Her adopted daughter Jia (Hottle), the only survivor of the Iwi tribe of Skull Island, has been haunted by visions of Hollow Earth and imminent disaster. With her increased telepathic connection with her friend Kong, something is definitely going on. Reunited with the Titan-obsessed podcaster Bernie (Henry) and Andrews' former romantic interest Trapper (Dan Stevens), the humans rush to Hollow Earth to make their own astonishing discoveries on cue using green-screen technology.
Large parts of “Godzilla X Kong” push the human characters off-screen for extended periods, and few will be unhappy about that. I admire Hall in almost everything she does, and she and Hottle convey enough genuine emotion in their mother/daughter relationship to bring a tear to the eye. To be fair, some of that comes from the screenplay by writers Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slater, though the laziest explanation and standard dialogue make the “bored” in “cardboard” look engaging. (I stopped counting how many times Hall’s character says “Oh, my god!” in reaction to whatever is going on.)
Who cares; no one is paying for the dialogue here. “Godzilla X Kong” compensates for its own flaws with peculiar touches. Wingard and the writers work like unconventional chefs at a restaurant, trying everything they can to see what works. The image of Godzilla curling up like a kitten, taking a nap inside the Colosseum in Rome after partially destroying it to protect it from an attacker: very pleasing. Later, after consuming a large amount of free food (atomic energy stored under the Arctic ice), Godzilla’s bad breath and body odor change from blue to bright pink, as if he’s getting prepared for a Summer of ’23 weekend with Barbenheimer.
The movie involves intense MMA battles with 300-foot fighters. The more measured and selective action storytelling of the 2014 Gareth Edwards “Godzilla,” like last year’s excellent Japanese revitalizer “Godzilla Minus One,” seems quite different from Wingard's playful and overstuffed movies. However, they have their own relentless, overstuffed appeal; I wouldn’t recommend them if they didn’t.
I might focus more on Godzilla in this new film than Kong (the movie is slightly more Kong-centric), maybe because the best dog I ever had also had a too-small head. I'm not sure if that's enough to establish an entire Godzilla ethos, but I'll discuss it with my therapist.
And I prefer these Godzilla/Kong MonsterVerse movies over most other big studio franchises these days, especially the recent “Jurassic Park” outings, which were, what’s the word … lousy. Yes, Godzilla and Kong cause untold and unexamined human and property damage in Wingard's latest, so much so that I wouldn't mind seeing a whole movie at some point in this franchise's life focused on lawsuits and legal battles, if only to see how Godzilla and Kong behave in a courtroom. The destruction in Rio is quite extensive; earlier, there's a touch of sweet sadness in the sight of Godzilla clumsily moving around Rome, causing damage to priceless landmarks because he can't help it. Typical foreign tourist.
But let’s be realistic: What good is being realistic about “Godzilla X Kong”? Final question: Who added the extra exclamation point to the dire control panel warning “GODZILLA VITALS SURGING!!”? Whoever did it can be called employee of the month.
“Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” — 3 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: PG-13 (for creature violence and action)
Running time: 2:02
How to watch: Premieres in theaters March 28
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
