We’re on enough of a regular cadence with Legendary’s Godzilla franchise—now expanded in the recent entries to give top-billing to an extra co-star in King Kong—that we should probably expect at this point when people say the new one is full of good dumb action and not much else. But, stop us if you’ve not heard this one before! Godzilla x Kong sounds like much the same.
The early reactions for Adam Wingard’s second crack at the kaiju whip in The New Empire are here, and… mixed isn’t the right word, perhaps, but more of a re-establishment of expectations. There’s plenty of praise for the action on display as Godzilla and Kong team up for more giant-sized spectacle, and… well everyone mostly otherwise skims over the bits of the movie that involving things that are smaller than your average skyscraper. Unless they’re Dan Stevens, apparently, who gets a ton of praise.
It’s kind of a shame—especially coming in the wake of the excellent Monarch TV show, which used its length to give us a bunch of interesting characters to care about in between them being chased by monsters—but perhaps unsurprising at this point. We’ve known from pretty much the moment we saw footage The New Empire would be following in the footsteps of its predecessors, and not a western companion piece to the likes of Godzilla Minus One. Now we can just be blessed to exist in a world where two Godzilla-focused movies are out in the ether at the same time offering very different takes on the King of All Monsters (or, well, would be if you could actually still watch the Oscar-winning Minus One anywhere right now. Womp womp!). Check out a few more reactions below, starting with io9’s very own Germain Lussier:
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire hits theaters March 29—stay tuned to io9 later this week for our full review.
Need more entertainment? Pedestrian Television has launched on 9Now where you can cult classic movies like Fright Night, and homegrown content like Eternal Family and Rostered On. Watch all that and more for free, 24/7 on 9Now.