Each of the recent kaiju films from Legendary Pictures has taken its own unique direction, and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is no exception. This film serves as a direct sequel to 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong,” which was a straightforward story inspired by the classic 1962 Toho Studios film “King Kong vs. Godzilla.” In that film, the iconic lizard and ape faced off before joining forces against a robotic adversary. However, instead of simply rehashing that formula in “The New Empire,” returning director Adam Wingard and his co-writers present a more fragmented and occasionally playful narrative, weaving together multiple action sequences across various locations that culminate in an epic showdown featuring numerous creatures.
From an artistic standpoint, this installment is the most inconsistent in the current MonsterVerse, lacking the cohesive and distinctive atmosphere that characterized its predecessors. These include the 2014 “Godzilla” (essentially “Close Encounters of the Godzilla Kind”), “Kong: Skull Island” (a quirky take on Vietnam films), “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (the first team-up film, infused with family drama), and Wingard’s original, delightfully absurd Godzilla-Kong adventure, which drew inspiration from 1960s exploration sci-fi like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and 1980s Hong Kong and American buddy action films where the protagonists must first clash before uniting against a common threat.
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This time, the central character is anthropologist Ilene Andrews, played by Rebecca Hall, who is focused on her adoptive daughter Jia (Kaylie Hottle). Ilene is trying to decipher the link between strange energy pulses detected by the Monarch Project’s monster-tracking technology and the chaotic drawings that Jia has been creating on school desks and scrap paper. The revelation—helped along by muckraker and conspiracy podcaster Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), another returning character from the previous film—brings back the “Close Encounters with Godzilla” theme, suggesting that there is a deeper connection at play.