A Home Movie Release
The monsters are back, and this time, the threat is coming from inside the planet’s core. These two titans must join forces and reclaim their rite in GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE, available on 4K Ultra HD!
Audiences’ fascination with monsters continues to endure as one of cinema’s most bankable premises. Look at movie-goers' long-lived love affair with the “Ape” Wonder of the World when King Kong marveled the masses debuted on the big screen in 1933, resurfacing in 1976, and ultimately getting the reboot in 2005. The king of Skull Island has proven himself a constant and celebrated beast of box office magnitude. Not one to loom in the background, Godzilla had resurfaced many times since its atomically charged debut in 1954.
Over the decades, cinema, stateside, and in Japan found ways of revisiting iterations of each of these monsters’ origins or pitting them against a cadre of similarly powered titanic foes. Every time, the creatures proved their impact and relevance with audiences and continued to inspire the imagination well into the millennium.
The MonsterVerse, as Warner Bros. has dubbed the modern-day merging of the franchises encompassing the worlds of Godzilla and King Kong, is aligned with the investigative agency carefully watching these titans every continent-crushing step. MONARCH has featured prominently since the 1950s and has a presence dating back to the original Godzilla features. In our contemporary continuity, the Apple TV+ original series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters provides an origin story that aligns with the 2014 reboot and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island.
Following the destructive path of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, it was inevitable that the next logical step would be to bring the two cinematic titans together in the ultimate brawl royal. The planet survived Godzilla vs. Kong, but it was just the beginning of an adventure that now had these two monsters inhabiting the same space. Director Adam Wingard has been handed the keys to the castle, and in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, continues to explore their existence in the modern world, with one ruling the surface and the other deep inside a hollow earth.
The World Isn’t Big Enough.
A key character trait that has always been present in the monster mythology is the isolation that Kong has to live with. Since transplanting to the planet's center and seeing all the Hollow Earth has to offer, the giant is still no closer to finding companionship. As the story progresses, Jia (Kaylee Hottle) receives psychic messages from Hollow Earth that connect her with her people, the Iwi tribe that inhabited Skull Island. Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) can interpret some ancient text that reveals a merciless Skar King who rules over the giant apes and enslaves the titan Shimo.
Meanwhile, something is rattling Godzilla’s cage, steadily moving across the surface, battling other slumbering titans and storing energy by eating up atomic waste bumps. After closer inspection, it is determined that the creature also follows the mysterious signals inside Hollow Earth! Ultimately, the planet's fate resides with these two monsters who must set aside their differences for the greater good, even at the cost of several hundreds of thousands of years of manmade monuments coming crashing down like Lego constructs.
Although littered with humans used as tools narrating the cause and purpose of the monsters’ actions, the stars are undoubtedly the film’s two leads in the title. That there is anything left of the planet, either above or in the hollow, is astounding, given the destruction in their path. In each of the movies since 2014, Godzilla, a major landmark, is leveled. It’s no different in GxK as the battle rages across Egypt’s pyramids to the shores of Rio. Early in the feature, Rome is practically laid to ruin before Godzilla makes the Coliseum a nesting place to recoup. It makes you wonder if anything will be left for the next match-up.
The Rise of an Empire.
Of its admission, Godzilla x King: The New Empire continues to extend the MonsterVerse mythology. Still, story-wise, we’re no closer to understanding these titans' true nature or purpose and continuing existence. This chapter fails to stand out except to give Kong a place finally, in theory, but I don’t know just how safe the upper world should feel knowing that below the thin crust, a tribe of giant apes exists alongside an entire ecosystem of predators. What is the purpose? It all made more sense and was almost more exciting when the titans were ruthless and unpredictable.
One has to shrug and relent.
The 4K package comes packed with Special Features that highlight the tremendous amount of effects work created for the film, including evolving both looks of our heroes. Several additional vignettes describe all the new monsters inhabiting the words of GxK. This popcorn-picture won’t strain your brain but doesn’t pull hard on the heartstrings. It isn’t as substantive as the other monster feature, Godzilla Minus One, which is far more textured and focused on the human element; the monster in that movie is a threat that must be dealt with and not harnessed. The stakes aren’t as dense in GxK.
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GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE | starring Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle | is available now on 4k Ultra HD and Blu-ray. Purchase at Amazon here for $29.95.
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