Jakarta. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”, which is now playing at Indonesian theaters, has come out packed with monstrous action scenes, but that is the only thing to say about the movie.

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the sequel to the 2021 film “Godzilla vs. Kong”. Directed by Adam Wingard,  the movie revolves around the two titular titans teaming up to fight against the gigantic primate creature Skar King and Shimo -- the icy reptilian titan. 

As expected, the movie tries to get the audience on the edge of their seats with non-stop fighting. The battle scenes come with a splash of colors as Godzilla goes pink, while Shimo’s ice attacks are of icy blue color. Visually, it is reminiscent of playing video games. 

Although seeing giant Titans brawling is fun, the action scenes are possibly the only thing that viewers will remember once they return home. The monsters fighting can get messy, particularly the last showdown of Godzilla-Kong versus Skar King-Shimo. Because of the flashes, sometimes you might ask yourself: “what is happening here? Who is attacking who?”. 

“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” fails to explore its human characters -- although this is something to be expected out of a monster-centered movie. The 115-minute film features Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her adoptive daughter and Iwi native Jia (Kaylee Hottle), among others. The movie also has conspiracy theorist Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry) as the token comic relief, although his jokes are just moderately funny. 

The film tries to explore Ilene-Jia’s mother-daughter relationship, but none of their scenes --nor dialogue-- really connect with the audience’s heart. Instead, it is Kong’s interactions with Suko that give the audience their dose of heartwarming scenes despite them not having any human-language dialogue: just animalistic gestures and expressions. And this leads to the question: “What if we take out the human storyline and have a movie that only stars the monsters?”. 

Overall, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is indeed action-packed. But that’s it.

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