Culture news There's no match for Godzilla Minus One. I saw Godzilla x Kong and it was an incredible experience!
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One Godzilla can hide another. After the Japanese tidal wave “Minus One”, it’s the turn of Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse to shake up the cinemas. The Japanese titan and his best enemy are back in force with the firm intention of shaking up the box office. Godzilla x Kong: Is The New Kingdom able to realize its ambitions?
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom in a few words
For a decade (give or take a few years), the fashion has been for connected universes spearheaded and showcased by an omnipotent Marvel Cinematic Universe. Faced with the steamroller of Disney, Warner Bros. Pictures has rolled out its DC Universe as well as the MonsterVerse. If the first is on hiatus following its total overhaul orchestrated by James Gunn, the second continues its crazy epic in the cinema, but not only. Godzilla appeared on Apple TV+ at the end of 2023 in the series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the events of which take place after Godzilla (2014) by Gareth Edwards.
All MonsterVerse films, series and anime:
- Godzilla (2014)
- Kong: Skull Island (2017)
- Godzilla 2: King of the Monsters (2019)
- Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
- Skull Island (2023)
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023-2024)
- Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom (2024)
Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom is a film directed by Adam Wingard already at the helm of Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), but also Blair Witch (2016) and Death Note (2017), and co-written by Terry Rossio (the Pirates of the Caribbean saga), Simon Barrett (You're next) and Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight). Following their confrontation and the premature end of Mechagodzilla in 2021, our two sacred monsters of the 7th Art are finally ready to collaborate in order to contain a new threat in the fifth cinematographic opus of the franchise.
The all-powerful Kong and the fearsome Godzilla join forces against a terrible, still-secret threat that risks annihilating them and endangering the very survival of the human species. GODZILLA always… – Warner Bros. Pictures
The cast of the film Godzilla x Kong The New Kingdom: Rebecca Hall (Ilene Andrews), Brian Tyree Henry (Bernie Hayes), Dan Stevens (Trapper), Kaylee Hottle (Jia), Alex Ferns (Mikael), Fala Chen (Iwi Queen), Rachel House (Hampton) and Ron Smyck (Harris )
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is released in cinemas in France on April 3, 2024.
A monster movie
It's time for confession. I'm a good audience, a very good audience even, and I'm happy about it. I always find one or more sequences, or even just one scene, that nourishes my cinephile and rewards the time spent in a session. Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom is no exception to the rule, even if I preferred Godzilla vs. Kong, and before him Godzilla by Gareth Edwards which remains by far the best film in the saga. Then it's impossible not to mention the Japanese titan which was seen offshore last December before docking on our shores in January 2024. The Oscar winner Godzilla Minus One defeats the MonsterVerse without a shadow of a doubt.
The film directed by Adam Wingard embraces a logic of blockbuster and franchise, where that of Takashi Yamazaki celebrates the 70th anniversary of the most famous kaiju. The first thing that surprises is the ultra pulp and totally assumed vision of this new episode of the MonsterVerse. He abandons all logic and diegetic coherence to better bombard the spectators with “money shots” who suffer from an uninspired production. Technically speaking, Godzilla x Kong does not live up to its ambitions and oscillates between sympathetic and “not finished”.
The majority of the plot takes place underground, in the heart of the Hollow Earth, which on paper is stimulating… but only on paper. The visuals too rarely do justice to a strong concept which inevitably recalls the novels Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864) and The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (1912). Unfortunately, having excellent references is not everything. You have to be able and know how to do something concrete with it, and that is too rarely the case here.
The film's biggest problem lies in its inability to choose a side, human or monster, and stick to it once and for all. From my point of view, human adventures are of too little interest. In other words, they serve no purpose in The New Empire. Another anomaly and not the least, Godzilla is absent (or almost) from his own film. And the worst is yet to come. There is strength in numbers… provided you reunite the two titans before time runs out. Godzilla and Kong meet again for the last 20 minutes (over two hours), which takes away from the film its main interest.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom is a blockbuster with a Nanardesque tendency (and I say this with the greatest affection, I love Nanards) to recommend to fans of monster cinema. This new episode of the MonsterVerse pushes the knobs all the way into kitsch and “cheesy” without worrying about the rest. I will keep a few fun moments from this epic CGI epic that made me smile with sincere satisfaction.