Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Warner Bros. | Release Date: March 29, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 51 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
30
Negative:
11
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
84
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiMar 28, 2024
It’s no small compliment to say that 'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire' is expertly crafted drivel. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenApr 4, 2024
Kong brings the personality, Godzilla brings the power, and we get to have the fun. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 28, 2024
The CGI is off the leash. The manufactured chaos is unrelenting. Monsters punching monsters. The pyramids are peril. Awesome deconstruction there. Read full review
75
SlashfilmWitney SeiboldMar 28, 2024
"Godzilla x Kong" is infectiously fun, raucous, and, in the 8-year-old sense, awesome. One will not take much away from "Godzilla x Kong," but you'll leave the theater with a big damn fool grin on your face. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 28, 2024
Whole sections of “Godzilla X Kong” shove the humans off-screen for many minutes at a time. Few will complain. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsMar 29, 2024
It may be over-the-top blockbuster fare first and foremost, but Adam Wingard's love letter to monster movies is far more intelligently crafted than anyone could have predicted. Read full review
68
The Film VerdictAlonso DuraldeMar 28, 2024
If Hollywood insists on continuing its own separate monsterverse, it could do worse than GxK, a film where giant beasts wallop the tar out of each other with thrilling efficacy. Read full review
65
PolygonJoshua RiveraMar 28, 2024
Godzilla x Kong (yes, it’s styled like that, like a streetwear collab) is beyond “good” or “bad” or “movies.” It’s an arena show, a pro wrestler shouting in the squared circle, thumping their chest and raising the jumbotron hype meter before doing their signature move. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzMar 28, 2024
If you love the “what the hell, let’s try it” sensibility that the Legendary Pictures monster franchise has embraced thus far, you’ll still find plenty here to enjoy. But it shouldn’t have been necessary to go looking for it. Read full review
63
Washington PostAmy NicholsonMar 28, 2024
Wingard’s not a sentimentalist, and “Godzilla x Kong” stumbles whenever he tries to slap phony emotions onto the film to make it more like a generic crowd-pleaser. Read full review
60
Time OutOlly RichardsMar 29, 2024
Its brainless brawn is again pretty entertaining, until the credits roll and you can instantly forget the whole thing. Read full review
60
NMEJames MottramMar 28, 2024
Wingard does try out something different here, creating long dialogue-free sequences where it’s just the monsters going toe-to-toe. With Wingard relying on gestures, grunts and groans from his alpha-beasts, it’s like watching the most expensive silent movie ever made. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeMar 28, 2024
It’s a still fun yet far sloppier outing, a second round that’s less of a win for us and more of a draw. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMar 28, 2024
There’s a harried energy to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which is enjoyable until it becomes tiresome and deafening. Perhaps multiplication was too much — here’s hoping subtraction is next in the mathematical equation. Read full review
60
EmpireAmon WarmannMar 28, 2024
This doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and keeps you waiting too long for the final showdown — but when the creatures collide, it still delivers satisfying thrills. Read full review
60
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiMar 28, 2024
While there is plenty of fun to be had with the monsters and the buildup towards the final showdown, The New Empire’s story feels forced. Read full review
60
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsMar 28, 2024
Where this film excels is in the basics – it doesn’t take any risks and just choses to do the simple things well. Read full review
60
Total FilmJane CrowtherMar 28, 2024
Frankly, if you’re buying a ticket purely for the behemoth battles then you’ll get your money’s worth: take your pick from a trippy rumpus that defies gravity, a Copacabana beach-off, some Planet of the Apes-esque monkey business, and a literal dust-up at the Egyptian pyramids. Read full review
60
IGND. HoodMar 28, 2024
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire serves up a berserk dreamscape with plenty of payoff to please the MonsterVerse faithful. Shame about the human stuff, though. Read full review
58
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerMar 28, 2024
There was a point, midway through the film’s major third-act climax, CGI beast raging against CGI beast, when a thought came to this humble critic: “This shouldn’t be boring.” And yet this is what happens, when there’s no emotional weight to the stakes, and the characters themselves feel as hollow as the earth they live on. Read full review
51
Paste MagazineJames GrebeyMar 28, 2024
At no point does Godzilla x Kong skimp on the kaiju action, but despite—or, perhaps, because of—this Titanic overabundance, it never quite feels big enough. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleMar 28, 2024
It’s a empty chamber for movie spectacle and nothing else, where the only option is to pile elements on top of each other until you have, you know, a giant evil ape swinging a vertebrae like a lasso while riding a kaiju controlled by a crystal. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiMar 28, 2024
There is also something a bit off about CGI that makes these behemoths appear less sturdy and imposing. Oddly enough, the most gravitas comes from Hall’s all-business scientist. Read full review
50
ObserverDylan RothMar 28, 2024
The human ensemble is here to provide exposition and cringy comic relief, annunciating the finer points of a plot that doesn’t really require explanation. This is a wrestling event, and they’re the commentary team. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubManuel BetancourtMar 28, 2024
It may well be plenty for a fun enough ride at the theaters, but ultimately this is an exhausting trip into this increasingly unwieldy franchise. Read full review
50
Original-CinChris KnightMar 28, 2024
There’s a smidgeon more humanity than in the braindead Godzilla vs. Kong, but nowhere near the wit and spirit of Skull Island. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanMar 28, 2024
The director, Adam Wingard (who made “Godzilla vs. Kong”), knows how to choreograph a beastie battle so that it does maximum damage in a way that appeals to your inner toy-smashing seven-year-old. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonMar 28, 2024
Halfway through, the humans recede into the background, with Dr. Andrews and crew reduced to narrating monster shenanigans instead of participating in the action. Unlike “Godzilla Minus One,” humans are expendable in gargantuan Hollywood creature features. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckMar 28, 2024
Director Adam Wingard (reuniting with Stevens after the terrific 2014 thriller The Guest) orchestrates the monster madness with impressive visual flair even if he relies on an excessive number of ‘80s-era pop song needle drops to make things seem more exciting than they actually are. Read full review
50
The New York TimesAlissa WilkinsonMar 28, 2024
The best stretches involve Kong lumbering through the landscape, Godzilla stomping around crushing things, and of course the inevitable final confrontation, which has a few surprises up its proverbial sleeves. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMar 28, 2024
This goofy-ass, clumsily assembled Saturday morning cartoon of a movie might as well be called “Godzilla Minus Everything,” if only because the more accurate “Godzilla Minus Everything Plus Dan Stevens in a Hawaiian Shirt” wouldn’t fit on a marquee. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 28, 2024
Godzilla x King Kong: The New Empire is the definition of an old-fashioned (with new technology) popcorn movie and there’s certainly no harm in that, but at the end of the day, it feels like the stakes have never been more medium. Read full review
50
ColliderRoss BonaimeMar 28, 2024
Godzilla x Kong is a vacuous de-evolution into monster-on-monster action but also arguably the best possible version of that transition. There’s no doubt that this is fairly moronic, but it still manages to be an improvement over what we’ve seen from the last two installments in this cinematic universe. Read full review
50
ScreenCrushMatt SingerMar 28, 2024
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire serves one valuable purpose: It proves once and for all that bigger is not better. Read full review
40
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeApr 2, 2024
Dumbed-down and stripped of the symbolic subtext of the earlier movies, the picture is not without seat-shuddering thrills, but it’s like a tag-team wrestling bout for monsters rather than a picture with meaning and even a modicum of thought. Read full review
40
Film ThreatAlan NgMar 29, 2024
It’s a photo-realistic computer-animated movie. The animation of Kong, Godzilla, and the other Kongs is mediocre at best. The backgrounds should look photo-realistic, but they don’t. I’d rather watch dudes in suits duke it out over a cardboard city than watch this cartoon mess again. Read full review
40
BBCCaryn JamesMar 28, 2024
Some films can re-energise a genre, like last year's huge hit Godzilla Minus One . . . Godzilla x Kong is the opposite, a dazzling visual accomplishment that already feels old. Read full review
40
Rolling StoneDavid FearMar 28, 2024
What this feels like is a second-generation copy of a copy, and one that suffers from the typical franchise law of diminishing returns. No one expects the reinvention of the MonsterVerse wheel, but it’d be nice to have something that isn’t more of the same and less than the sum of its I.P. parts. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMar 28, 2024
There’s some commendable trippiness towards the end, but for the most part Godzilla Smooch Kong is all too ready to fall back on delivering the bare minimum promised by its title. It’s giant monsters fighting, the thing constantly shrugs: what else do you want? Ideally a bit more than this. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicMeredith G. WhiteMar 28, 2024
Director Adam Wingard knows how to make a movie, as seen with 2014's "The Guest," and the visuals are well done in this film, the CGI looks nice, the shots and angles are good. What's lost here is the plot. Read full review
39
The AtlanticShirley LiApr 5, 2024
Its spectacle is even duller than its story, which is already nonsensical. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliApr 1, 2024
Even for those who have an orgasmic reaction to kaiju confrontations, far too little of the film is devoted to them and the overreliance on CGI leeches away the immediacy and awe associated with the spectacle. This isn’t as bad as the 1998 Godzilla misfire but it’s perilously close. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 29, 2024
It’s a lighthearted spectacle, but so disconnected from reality, narrative and human emotions that there’s almost nothing to it. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeOdie HendersonMar 28, 2024
The problem with “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the same as so many of these franchise-based films: They’re all soulless special-effects extravaganzas where CGI takes the place of character development, good writing, and emotional connection. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithMar 28, 2024
The last 20 minutes live up to the promise of bludgeoning viewers with plenty of rock-‘em-sock-‘em combat and demolished human landscapes, but what any of it is actually for will be forgotten even before the dust begins to settle. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezMar 28, 2024
At this point, the Monsterverse needs the much simpler, dumb-fun, pleasurable joy of “Kong: Skull Island” because ‘New Empire,’ just ain’t cutting it beyond loud and senseless brawls that aren’t even a delight to watch. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithMar 28, 2024
Spectacular? I guess, if you’re wowed by soulless CGI chaos. Thrilling? Not really. At the end, I was left feeling the way Kong does at the beginning: tired and bored. Read full review
30
Screen DailyTim GriersonMar 28, 2024
For all the punches thrown and buildings pulverised, The New Empire barely leaves an impact. Read full review
30
CNNBrian LowryMar 28, 2024
“Godzilla vs. Kong” director Adam Wingard and a trio of credited writers probably make the right decision in treating all this with grave earnestness, which doesn’t render most of the situations, dialogue and the climactic encounter any less laughable. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreMar 28, 2024
The kaiju of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire don’t stand for anything but themselves. They’re just giant monsters that occasionally fight one another, which would be forgivable if the fighting in the movie weren’t so torpid. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Radheyan SimonpillaiMar 29, 2024
A slow and visually hideous crawl to an underwhelming brawl. Read full review
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