Two hours I'd like back, please

I think we should call it the Cranston-verse
after the actor's ten minutes of screen time.

I mean, I could have just turned the movie off and yet I didn't. I sat through all one hundred and fifty-five minutes of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and I have some thoughts. Fewer than when I started watching, but still, some thoughts. Oh, and this isn't a review. Watch it, don't watch it. That's your business. I'm just telling you how I spent the last two hours. Anyway, let's start with the obvious: how does one pronounce the title? Is it Godzilla ecks Kong? It's definitely not Godzilla ten Kong as there are only five entries in this particular series of U.S. produced kaiju movies, un-creatively called the "Monsterverse."

 

The real new empire is the friendships
Kong and Godzilla made along the way.

Traditionally, Godzilla versus other monsters like he's bringing a case against them, but in this movie they're on the same side. Mostly. They have a kind of "two cops from different worlds assigned to the same case who have to overcome their dislike for one another in order to work together." Together in a New Empire? I guess? There are no empires, new or otherwise mentioned in the movie, so I suspect someone just thought it sounded cool.

It's tough keeping kids away from
bad influences:alcohol, smoking, kaiju.

They were incorrect, but that doesn't mean it was a bad movie. It was, but I blame movies in general. And by movies I'm just talking about the big, splashy, CG-heavy genre films that are just about explosions and quips. This thing made me feel nothing at any point. There was a subplot about a mother and her daughter, and the daughter is the last surviving member of a tribe who can communicate with King Kong via sign language, but that took a back seat to the hollow earth lore. Yeah, you heard me. 

Above: poppycock.

The last couple Cranston-verse movies have leaned heavily into the long debunked theory--I mean, is it a theory if someone just made it up?--that the earth is hollow and contains a long lost prehistoric world. I'm pretty sure the real-world version of this hokum has some racist overtones, like, Hitler was into it because he thought the ündergründ--or whatever he called it--was populated by aryans or something, but the one in the movie is mercifully just full of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with ice ray breath, who are ridden by a villainous giant ape king. Ludicrous? Perhaps, but I'll take it over Nazis.

From left, Godzilla, Gigan,
Kirkland-brand Ultraman, and Megalon.

And this isn't the first time a Godzilla movie has dipped into lost civilizations. Godzilla vs. Megalon had him battle a giant cockroach with drills for hands summoned by the toga-clad inhabitants of Seatopia. My point is Godzilla movies have always been bananas. So if it sounds like I'm trashing this one, please understand that I knew full well what I was getting into. I knew this one was going to be far closer to the Godzilla X Cockroach lunacy than the thoughtful meditation on grief and trauma that was Godzilla Minus One.

Pictured: the smoldering remains
of a city of six milli--whoa! Check
out Kong's new bionic hand! Dope!

But where Minus One made every monster attack feel significant and meaningful, New Empire just felt weightless (pun unintended if you've seen the movie). There're several monster fights that destroy cities in this movie, but they're all pretty throw away. Just video-gamey destruction there to fill out the runtime. I mean, the climatic battle presumably killed hundreds of thousands of people in Rio de Janeiro, but I guess we're supposed to cheer when Kong and Godzilla throw the villain ape king (the one with the dinosaur) through a few dozen apartment complexes. 

Above: Godzilla doing less damage
to San Francisco than the tech boom.

I get that the action and visual effects are supposed to be the point here, but I don't know. After Minus One, Shin Godzilla, and even the Cranston-verse movie, the 2014 Godzilla, all of which dealt with the implications of giant monsters battling it out in major population centers, it just makes the characters feel callous and kind of shitty that they don't acknowledge the destruction. And sure, it's probably unfair to compare this summer popcorn 'splosion-fest to the more serious takes on radio-active dinosaur destroys world but it's also an unavoidable comparison. 

Again, I'm not trying to convince you to see or not see this movie. I'm just internetting about a movie I just watched. But if I had to sum it up: New Empire is 100% a part of the campy rubber-suit interpretation of Godzilla, and that's fine, but it's two hours long and spends way too much time lore dumping about hollow earth. And I just need the mass destruction and horror in these movies to either mean something or be stunt performers in foam rubber suits stomping on model cities. Pick a lane, is what I'm saying.

Pictured: Godzilla, a symbol of the dangers of both atomic weapons
and the toll war takes on a culture seen here drop kicking a cockroach.