Monster Movie Mayhem: Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024)

 Written By: Danny Albers 

I wasn’t expecting, nor was I really desiring another Godzilla X Kong movie. My monster movie craving was fulfilled by Godzilla: Minus One. 

Three years after defeating Mechagodzilla, Kong is struggling with loneliness while living in Hollow Earth and finding no other creature like him (a land where other exceptionally large creatures live). On Earth, Godzilla is on a bit of a rampage that the government is monitoring. He’s going all around Earth and killing other Titans. 

Dr. Ilene Andrews works for a company called Monarch, a company that has outposts in Hollow Earth and are studying the mysterious world. She’s the adoptive mother to Jia, a young girl who’s the last surviving member of the Iwi tribe from Skull Island. One of the Monarch outposts begins to pick up an unidentified signal. During this time, Jia begins to have hallucinations and nightmares making her believe some type of danger is coming. Godzilla begins to act in a similar way as he begins to store up on radiation to power himself up to prepare for an oncoming conflict. 

Kong finds a new realm in the Hollow Earth. He meets a small infant Kong briefly before being attacked by the members of this little apes clan. Kong fights off the 3 foes, and befriends the kid. Kong is introduced to the rest of the clan where he meets their scared-face leader. The leader has a reptile-like creature similar to Godzilla that he uses to attack Kong and injure Kong’s right arm with frostbite. Kong manages to escape with the help of the smaller Kong. Andrews, Jia, a vet named Trapper, and the conspiracy podcaster from the first movie Bernie Hayes go to Hollow Earth to find the source of the signal. They find a hidden sanctuary of another branch of the Iwe tribe. They also find a badly injured Kong. Trapper replaces the frost bitten arm of Kong with a mechanical arm that will make Kong a lot stronger. The Skar king is a psycho, he had attacked the surface world before but was thwarted by Godzilla’s species. Shima triggered an ice age before they were trapped by Godzilla deep in Hollow Earth. Now free, they look to do the same thing. Jia’s hallucinations are that she’s the key to unlocking Mothra, the “Queen of All Monsters.” Mothra united Kong and Godzilla. The battle between monsters wages as Godzilla and Kong take on Skar King and the ice breathing dragon he controls. However, the device that Skar King was using to control this creature is broken by the younger Kong, allowing it to freeze Skar King. The conflict is over, Kong takes over the tribe, Mothra returns and creates another protective barrier around the Iwe tribe, and Godzilla returns to his nest and goes to bed. 

Again, I’m not sure anybody was really actively hoping for another Godzilla VS Kong movie. All these movies have kind of fallen a bit flat to me. This movie is probably the worst one made yet. There are so many questions. How did the Iwe people, a tribe with little technology, get from Kong Island to the Hollow Earth given how challenging it is to get there through that portal. Monarch’s high tech equipment malfunctions when going through it. Not to mention the portal lets you out in the sky, so did these people just drop in? Also, if Mothora had this much power and influence, how come she didn’t check Skar King to begin with? The other thing I wasn’t a major fan of was Skar King and his ice breathing Godzilla were way more wimpy looking than Kong and Godzilla. There was no doubt how this tag team fight was going to go. All of the Titan’s that Godzilla defeated alone were far more menacing than the foes in this movie. I hope this is the last installment of this franchise. 

Danny’s Star Grade: ★★★★★ 5