Godzilla X Kong the New Empire 

Godzilla X Kong the New Empire movie review 

By: Callen C Robertson 

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE!

Godzilla X Kong the New Empire was a pretty big roller coaster of a movie.  There were parts that were very satisfying, and some areas that were underwhelming. Overall I give it a 4/5 stars.  Read on to find out why. 

The movie moved very fast, the only movie I can compare in terms of pacing  is Avengers Infinity War, which stopped for no one. The film oppended with Kong escaping a pack of animals in the hollow earth. When Kong escaped with a dead animal, he injured his tooth. Godzilla saves Rome Italy from Scylla, whose aggressive hunger grew beyond Godzilla´s control, and since she would not submit  without a fight, Godzilla was forced to kill her. This was a pretty stupid decision on Legendary´s part. It is very annoying how in Godzilla vs Kong and this film Godzilla  could have called Rodan, Methalusah, Behemoth, The Queen M.U.T.O., and Scylla to aid him in his fights, but now he can't rely on Scylla any more.

 Kong  returns to the surface because he knows that the Humans could help him. Trapper, played by Dan Stevens, who did a great job playing this character, removes his tooth and replaces it with a metal one, and says, "He could chop through the eiffel tower with that thing.”  Godzilla feels something in the Hollow Earth, and goes to supercharge himself. He sucks radiation from a nuclear facility in France. Then he seeks out Tiamat, a titan filled with radiation. Godzilla defeats this titan and then ventures into his den and evolves into the new Pink godzilla, who has grown on me quite a bit. It is a little annoying that Tiamat was only used for this purpose, but at the same time it kind of makes sense.  Kong is ready to go back into the Hollow Earth, when Bernie, who is back from Godzilla vs Kong arrives and joins Dr Andrew´s crew. Along with Bernie, Trapper, Dr Andrews adopted daughter Jia and A Heav Pilot joined her team. With both Trapper and Bernie together the whole movie It was pretty hilarious to see them both interact, but it was also annoying because the tone was very lighthearted and not that serious.  And the Bernie/Trapper combination was the main reason for the fun and lightheartedness of the movie.   Which I think is fine except for it was not what this movie needed. Godzilla breaks out of the ice in a new Pink form, which is more  powerful than the version of him  we saw in 2019 and 2021 in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and in Godzilla vs Kong. Dr Andrews, Bernie, Trapper, Jia, and the Pilot arrive at a destroyed outpost. They see Skar King´s  handprint on a stone wall off in the distance and decide to get out of there. Kong journeys through the Hollow Earth and eventually finds Suko, the Mini Kong. It takes a while for Kong to earn Suko´s trust, but eventually they develop a father-son relationship, which is adorable. Kong and Suko venture further into the hollow earth, where They find a few more great apes, who attack Kong and Suko. Kong defeats the apes. When one of the apes runs away Kong grabs a boulder and throws it over the Horizon and it lands on the last ape. Paul Noth, an EJHS 6th grader says, “I really liked that part.”  The humans continue on and find the remainder of the Iwi tribe. They find cave paintings about the villains.

Cut to Kong finding an army of young apes in a cave. On his throne in the cave in Skar King. He looked kind of  drunk in this scene, which was a little weird.  Skar King and Kong come face to face and Skar King laughs at Kong’s metal tooth. They get into a bit of a fight. Skar King injures his arm with his bone whip. Then Skar King uses the crystal on the end of his whip to control the ice titan Shimo. It is unclear how  he came into control of Shimo, and it doesn’t really make sense because Shimo is definitely stronger than Skar King, so this does not make sense.  Anyways Shimo blasts Kong and Kong blocks it with his Ax. Kong does manage to escape with the help of the traps he placed around the hollow earth to stop Skar King’s apes. Suko and Kong arrive back with the Humans. While Kong and Suko were out in the hollow earth.

WARNING! SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD, IF YOUR IGNORED MY FIRST WARNING I STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT YOUR STOP READING! 

Dr Andrews finds out that the Iwi have a giant Mothra egg and an Iwi from Skull Island is the only one  who can free her, and Jia is the last remaining Iwi from Skull Island. When Kong and Suko come back to the Humans Kong’s arm is in very bad shape. Trapper suggests that they use project powerhouse, which was a weaponized glove that was brought to the Hollow Earth for testing, before the project was shut down.  Trapper retrieves the glove  and puts it on Kong's arm. Kong goes up to the surface to find Godzilla because he knows he can help. Kong and Godzilla meet in Egypt and have a bit of a fight but Mothra comes and Calms Godzilla down. The three of them return to  the Hollow Earth as Skar King and Shimo blast through the wall. The four main titans fight while Mothra stops Skar King’s Minions  from going through the portals. But eventually the 4 big titans fall through a portal, Kong tries to use his Ax to save him from falling, but still falls in. Godzilla fights Shimo and Kong fights Skar King. Kong uses his new Glove on his arm to punch out one of Skar King’s teeth, now Kong gets his turn to Laugh. This part of the Battle was very poetic and I loved it.  They fight and eventually Kong knocks the Crystal that controls Shimo. Suko goes through the portal with Kong’s Ax and  comes flying in in the nick of time to smash the Crystal  with Kong’s Ax, freeing Shimo from Skar King’s control. Shimo blasts Skar King with his frostbreath. Kong then smashes his frozen body to pieces. Paul Noth stated, “ The Final battle was very satisfying.” He is right, the Battle is kind of what saved the movie. While it was short it was  still nice to watch, however the movie only had a 1 hour and 55 minute rune time, and that includes the credits, so they definitely could have slowed down in some areas with the run time the short length that it is. The only other downside of the battle was that there weren't any memorable attacks that the titans used against each other, Like when Godzilla Shot his Atomic Breath down the Female M.U.T.O.’s throat, or when Kong leaped in the air and brought his Ax down against Godzilla’s Atomic breath, Or when Kong used a boat motor attached to a chain to defeat the Skull, or when Monster Zero bit an electricity wire and Gravity beams shot everywhere, or when Godzilla used his thermonuclear pulse to defeat Ghidorah, the list goes on and on. The only move that is even in contention for this list was Skar King using his bone whip to try and strangle Kong, and when he wrapped it around Kong’s arm and then pulled it off leaving some blood. Other than that there weren't any  memorable attacks.  

The movie comes to a close with Kong and Suko riding Shimo down to the hollow earth and Kong rallies the rest of the apes to his side. This was a good choice for an ending, and I really loved how Shimo became a good guy in the end. It was an appropriate ending for the character and hopefully we will see her in future monsterverse projects. As for the Monsterverse moving  forward it might be a good idea to separate Kong and Godzilla  for a few movies and then bring Kong, Godzilla, Shimo, Rodan, Behemoth, Methalusah, and the Queen M.U.T.O. together for a big finale with a bunch of original Toho monsters like Destroyah, Gigan, Hedorah,  Biollante, and more.  

In conclusion Godzilla X Kong the New Empire was a pretty good movie. The Fights were great, so were the special effects and editing. It was very nostalgic to hear some of the same music from Godzilla vs Kong and the Acting was great, but however I an still very mad at Legendary for Killing off Scylla, I have mixed feelings about what they did with Tiamat, And Mothra, Skar King, and Shimo were underused. With rotten tomatoes giving it a 55%, IMDb giving it a 7/10  and IGN giving it a 6/10, despite bad reviews from the critics, the  average audience member rated it at 4.5 stars out of 5, my opinion is similar to the Audiences, I give it a solid 4 out of five stars I hope you also enjoyed this movie, if you haven't seen it, then I hope  you will now go see it in theaters. 

Author’s Bio: Callen is a 6th grader at EJHS who loves watching movies and playing basketball