By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Thanks to Oscar season, most movie lovers have dramas on their minds. The kind of heavy films that move you to tears and serve as emotional showcases for their actors. Let’s be honest, though: sometimes you want to skip all that and just watch a couple of hours of monsters kicking the crap out of each other. And if you’re in the mood for that kind of creature feature, you need to stream Godzilla x Kong: New Empire on Netflix.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire On Netflix
While we like to think it has better production value, Godzilla x Kong: New Empire has the kind of plot you’ve probably come to expect from monster movies on Netflix. In this CGI-heavy sequel, Kong is now chilling out inside Hollow Earth while Godzilla keeps the surface world clear of any fellow kaiju that might threaten his rule. But after a mysterious signal goes out, Kong learns more about his people and Godzilla learns more about the threats he faces, forcing them to either team up against a common enemy or destroy each other in glorious combat.
Godzilla x Kong: New Empire may have a delightfully deranged plot, but the nonsense story is anchored by a better cast than you normally find in a Netflix monster movie. The cast includes Rebecca Hall (best known for Vicky Christy Barcelona and The Town) as well as the always-entertaining Brian Tyree Henry (best known for Bullet Train and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse). Rounding out the core cast is Dan Stevens (best known for Downton Abbey and playing the furry lead in Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast).
Before Godzilla x Kong: New Empire landed on Netflix, it left a Titan-sized impression on theatergoers. Against a budget of $135-$150 million, this film went on to earn $571.9 million at the box office. Thanks to earning enough green to cover Godzilla, the movie is getting a sequel, though it will be directed by Grant Sputore rather than franchise veteran Adam Wingard.
Warner Bros. enjoyed how financially successful Godzilla x Kong: New Empire was, but there was one group this film failed to impress: the critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie currently has a critical rating of 54 percent. In general, critics griped that the film’s appeal began and ended with its abundant monster-on-monster violence.
At this point, you’d be forgiven for asking the obvious question. Namely, why I’m encouraging you to watch Godzilla x Kong: New Empire on Netflix after critics dropped an A-bomb on it. Part of the answer, though, is that audiences loved it: in addition to its killer kaiju box office, this movie currently has an audience rating of 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. As if in synchronized rebuttal to the critics, the majority of those who saw this film agree that monster-on-monster violence is what they came to see, making this monster mash a smash hit.
Additionally, Godzilla x Kong: New Empire is a perfect Netflix watch for franchise fans new and old. If you have fond memories of these two Titans’ earliest cinematic showdowns, you’ll find this film very much a love letter to what came before. And if you’re a newer fan of the franchise, this film is a great follow-up to Wingard’s earlier work and will help you perfectly cap off your next movie monster marathon.
Another way of looking at it is that Godzilla x Kong: New Empire delivers on its title fight much better than, say, Batman v. Superman. That film made us stomach scene after scene of overwrought, self-serious BS before finally giving us what we wanted to see: Batman using a toilet to fight dirty. With Godzilla x Kong, you get plenty of entertaining monster fights from start to finish, all wrapped up in an entertaining plot that never takes itself too seriously.
Will you find Godzilla x Kong: New Empire as monsteriffic as I did when you stream it on Netflix, or will you want to throw this film into Hollow Earth on your next trip? You won’t know until you check it out for yourself. By the time the smoke clears, I’m pretty confident you’ll join me in my excitement for the upcoming sequel to modern film’s most exciting cinematic universe.
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