Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Spoilers ahoy!
A movie like this really makes you appreciate how good Godzilla Minus One is. This is not so much a review as a plot breakdown. If you are worried that this will spoil the movie: it will not. If you are going to enjoy this, there is nothing I can do to interfere with your pleasure.
The plot: King Kong fights some monsters in Middle Earth or whatever they call it, then goes to the dentist. He gets a new implant, then goes on a road trip with a little jerk monkey to find other apes. Since he can’t talk, he makes exasperated or disgruntled faces when the jerk monkey is particularly jerky. He has to fight things along the way.
Meanwhile, Godzilla fights a monster and takes a nap.
Then he fights another monster and climbs in a hole for half the movie.
Also, a woman goes to Middle Earth to find out why her kid is dreaming of triangles. She brings Kong’s dentist, a guy who exists to play the part of Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea, and a guy who saved the world but now is a failing podcaster. They find out that an Evil Monkey is trying to get to Earth with the unwilling help of a bunch of other monkeys and an ice dragon.
The Evil Monkey laughs at Kong’s new tooth.
Kong gets frostbite, but the humans happen to have a giant super-powered wrist brace with them (lucky for them it was made for the same side Kong hurt!) so it’s fine.
It turns out the kid was dreaming about triangles because she’s supposed to free a big moth. She does that, and everybody has a big fight. Many CGI fights are criticized because none of the characters seem to have any weight, but GxK:TNE solves this by explicitly having the fight in zero gravity. It’s not enough, though, and Evil Monkey gets to Earth, where he is defeated by everyone (including Jerk Monkey and Ice Dragon) teaming up to fight him.
Kong goes back to Middle Earth to celebrate with the other monkeys and his new pals, Jerk Monkey and Ice Dragon.
Godzilla takes a nap.
END OF MOVIE.
Also: Star Trek II was originally supposed to have the subtitle “The Vengeance of Khan,” but they changed it to “The Wrath of Khan” because they were afraid it was to close to the announced title of the third Star Wars film, “The Revenge of the Jedi.” Meanwhile, the Ghostbusters and Godzilla/Kong franchises both released movies with “Empire” in the title within a week of each other. I guess “Empire” is striking back.
Benny Loves You
This movie about a murderous toy that certainly isn’t an Elmo doll wasn’t great, but it was a lot more entertaining and inventive than Lizard X Monkey: FIGHT TIME. And it probably cost about as much to make as any random two minutes of the other film. Probably the best bloody puppet horror movie I’ve seen all month.