Part Two - A Nuanced Deconstruction of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

By Joe Gibson

The following is the second part of a larger Godzilla x Kong The New Empire Review focused on act two.  A link to the first part can be found here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-nuanced-deconstruction-of-godzilla-x.html

 

Act two begins with Kong encountering the scouting party as they are returning to the Hollower Earth.  In it are Suko, a young monkey Kong takes on as a son, One-Eye, an older ape that is low on the hierarchy but determined to rise in the ranks by being as loyal as he can to Skar King and two guards, presumably meant to keep those two in check.  Kong encounters Suko first, confusing through the mist Suko to be a much larger ape than he actually is.  When Suko reveals himself to Kong, Kong lowers his weapon and tries to touch fingers with the child.  This is where the greatest subversion of the film happens.  From the marketing, everyone expected Suko to be the token cute baby character, but he is actually a jerkish bastard, biting Kong’s finger and generally being a feral pill.  He will take an active role in the fight, but his appearance to Kong was meant as a distraction and trap.  As Kong chases after Suko, One-Eye comes from the back and the guards from the sides.

 

Kong loses his weapon as the guards hold him down but uses a rock to hit one of them off him and navigates One-Eye’s attack into the other.  While that one is down, the first has recovered, swinging a club as One-Eye grabs Kong’s axe.  Suko is readying himself to leap and attack Kong’s face, which will happen after Kong disarms the soldier and One-Eye back to back, knocking the armed soldier into the one that is just getting back up.  At this point in the battle, all five characters have consistently been taking the proper actions one would expect in a fight, rather than just taking turns as happens in so many modern fight scenes.  Suko’s attack blindsides Kong, but he adjusts by grabbing Suko to use as a weapon, knocking out the other three apes.  

 

The two soldiers recover, and Kong beats down one of them, with the other attacking but falling off the cliff.  Kong rescues the fallen soldier, who retrieves one of their weapons, prompting Kong to kick him off the cliff.  The other guard ape has disappeared, and that is the first major issue of this part of the film.  We do not see his unconscious body anywhere, suggesting he recovered from Kong’s assault but then chooses not to fight. However, Kong was distracted and physically by the Cliffside, and that guard could have killed him there.  With both guards gone, One-Eye retreats, and Suko hides in a tree, where Kong finds him.  Interestingly, it seems Suko and One-Eye did not have weapons during the start of this fight.  Kong notices that and offers Suko one of the knives.  Suko refuses, not trusting Kong but also unable to escape him unless he can get the big guy killed.

 

Andrews looks at the footage from the Outpost One camera at the ape that destroyed it, presumably One-Eye, when the electrical disturbance SOS happens again, knocks out the HEAV controls, and Jia senses the approximate location in a ridge.  Bernie’s motivation for going into Hollow Earth is to document his findings and prove his importance to trolls on the internet, and, 40 minutes in, this is the start of the scenes that will cut to him filming a mock documentary.  His arc in regards to that never exactly finishes, but it brings him closer to Trapper for scenes of comic relief and also works to explain Mikael’s increasing disdain for the pair of them. Among the comic relief bits is Trapper allowing a mosquito to bite him, which could start any number of disease outbreaks.

 

Trapper senses something wrong near a tree mimic, and Mikael is frustrated but asks Trapper what is wrong and checks his own sensors, still clearly annoyed but rational.  Trapper proceeds to insult Mikael and offer no real answers for what is wrong, prompting harsh words from Mikael.  Bernie, coming to Trapper’s aid, starts a freakout from Mikael, which alerts the conveniently placed tree mimic to food.  As a tree suddenly swallows Mikael, I am left to reflect on a character with a very small role but genuinely good character progression scene to scene.  Trapper, meanwhile, after the group has run away, indicates that the tree mimic cannot follow them that far, revealing he knew what it was the entire time and somehow did not notice it right behind Mikael.  This is the start of my issues with Trapper.  He is an expert on the Vertacines and tree mimics but only insofar as the plot demands. Bernie actually does react realistically to the traumatic death.

 

As Godzilla hunts after Tiamat, Hampton talks to a submarine crew following him to learn more information, and they have a file on Tiamat to pull up.  Once again, this is good integration of understandable exposition.  Tiamat, it turns out, is Titan 19 of at least 23 active, sitting on the largest energy stockpile in the world and an aggressive destroyer.  People criticize Godzilla evicting and killing her for the energy.  These same people missed the opening credits where it showed many Titan events already happening and did not consider that from Godzilla’s perspective Tiamat would be planning something by living near an energy stockpile.  There is no issue with Godzilla being as harsh to Tiamat as he is.

 

Jia finds man-made Iwi ruins, and hopefully Trapper is regretting the incident with the mosquito.  Andrews will identify the ruins as Iwi, which she should not be able to do given the difference in architecture that would arise from hundreds or thousands of years of isolation between the Hollow Earth Iwi and Skull Island Iwi.  That said, the larger issue with the scene is that we as the audience have no idea how far the group has traveled from the HEAV or if they even know how to find their way back since they ran off in a hurry from the tree mimic.  Later payoffs will require Trapper to run back to that HEAV from even farther in record time.  Now, the film will introduce the idea that the Iwi, Godzilla, Mothra and the great apes have some level of psychic energy that varies but allows them to know what is going on.  Technically speaking, the film implies Trapper to have this as well with him sensing the tree mimic instead of seeing it, sensing the camouflaged Iwi village guards later and sensing the Iwi psychic energy, but that does not fix the issue, since his abilities are vague, more of a Spider-Sense to danger than premonitions to guide the way.  So any farther into uncharted territory these characters go, the larger the issue is.

 

The characters take a few steps to ruins that double as a place of worship for Mothra and the Iwi’s irrigation hub.  Trapper notes that only the closest steps lack moss, and he clears away moss on a Mothra mural, seemingly the same Mothra mural from China in Godzilla King of the Monsters.  With that in mind, Andrews’ surprise at seeing Iwi architecture does not make sense, since, implicitly, the ancient Chinese are now Iwi too if they perfectly replicated unique Iwi drawing.  The other Mothra temple has a unique Mothra mural to these, meaning this issue was entirely avoidable.

 

A small glowing butterfly appears on the irrigation button for Jia to press.  No one else reacts to the insect, so one could make the case that this is a spiritual encounter for Jia since she will eventually be Mothra’s tether to full return.  However, there is nothing in the film to point towards that reading, and it is unnecessary since much of that meaning is already conveyed.  This insect is Mothra, specifically Fairy Mothra, a form Mothra could either send out as an emissary or collapse into a bunch of in the 90s films.  This reference is well integrated into the plot, being foreshadowing for Mothra’s return requiring psychic spiritual energy.  Many people criticize this turn, but Mothra was already spiritual in Godzilla King of the Monsters.  Following Fairy Mothra’s instructions, Jia starts the water, which leads very quickly, only past a couple turns, to an organic barrier that hides the Iwi village.  Jia rips open part of the barrier, Andrews and Trapper help her, and Bernie just witnesses this, slightly uncomfortable.  That sentence is the best single encapsulation of their subplot I am now realizing.

 

Returning to Kong and Suko, they observe a flock of Warbats, large winged snakes from the previous film, flying overhead.  In Godzilla vs Kong, they traveled in pairs but now travel in much larger packs.  This could either be an inconsistency with grave consequences (if the previous film had held consistent to this new pack structure, Kong would have died) or merely meant to foreshadow the kingdom of Kongs.  In Godzilla vs Kong, there was no indication of more than two Warbats existing anywhere, and Kong killed them.  But now the subterranean realm shows off many more, just like the previously thought extinct Kong species.  

 

We also see Hellhawks from the previous film, now in all colors of the rainbow, but the scaling is far more difficult to determine here than with the Leafwings earlier.  Hellhawks are supposed to be roughly human sized, but they are too far away from the one hundred foot Suko and trees or 300 foot Kong to be able to tell.  Honestly, they look far larger.  The original plan for the Hellhawks in Godzilla vs Kong was to have one far larger specimen, and I cannot tell whether this is a retcon to return to that scaling or not.

 

Suko is clearly uncomfortably leading Kong and wastes very little time leading him to water he knows contains the deadly Drownviper.  To convince Kong to enter the lake, he dances around in it, incidentally washing off Skar King’s red paint from his chest.  All of the other apes we have seen thus far have paint on their chest if lower in the hierarchy or on their face if a guard.  The Drownviper attempts to eat Kong, and Suko attempts to flee, but Kong foils both.  Suko expects Kong to beat him, but he is just retrieving his axe.  Suko trips on both the axe and a rock.

 

Kong, having chopped up the Drownviper is enjoying a meal.  Suko begs for food, but, even as Kong gives it, Suko is distrustful.  This is a good way to show off how hard and uncaring life is under Skar King, since Suko does not have the basic need of a child to trust adults yet.  Skar King is introduced very late into this film, but the conflict between him and Kong is present even now.  Kong offers the food to Suko, expecting nothing and not planning to hurt the child.  Suko eats it and finally begins to trust Kong, sitting a little closer to him.  As I alluded to, this film explores fatherhood with this relationship since the authoritarian control of Skar King contrasts with the authoritative parenting of Kong, and we see the change in Suko from those different influences, all done without words.

 

Godzilla attacks Tiamat.  Again, the fight is in character for both parties involved, and the submarine crew’s exposition is reasonable.  Now that there have been two very short fights involving Godzilla traveling across the world, it is worth labeling this what it is.  While Kong is adopting a son and freeing his people, the other side to this movie is Godzilla’s “Little Final War.”  In Godzilla Final Wars, he fought most of his 60s and 70s supporting cast in extremely quick bouts that did not seem to increase in difficulty or relevance.  While there are issues with how that film handled it, here, it is a valid way to communicate Godzilla’s strength, tease that the final opponents must be even stronger, and worldbuild that there are other monsters attacking at all times.

 

Returning to the human characters, it is annoying how unclear it is how far the characters have traveled in the Iwi village, because, again, Trapper will have to run this distance later and make multiple trips to Outpost One and back in a very short timeframe. In any case, he senses Iwi guards that bring them into the village, called Malenka in the novelization, at spear point and take a special interest in Jia, who they connect with telepathically.  It is a little odd to have the Iwi’s psychic nature both include the ability to read minds and have premonitions, but that vague generalized powerset is what makes me believe Trapper is meant to have some degree of it with his Ace Ventura sixth sense.  By this point, Andrews and Jia have shed their jackets, either indicating it was hot the whole time down there or that all of the running they did has overheated them.  I still do not like that Trapper took off his jacket far earlier, seemingly only to get bitten by that mosquito and doom the Iwi people to disease.

 

Malenka’s pyramids are made of quartz, and they will use other chemicals and minerals to shift them, including something that may be mercury later on.  In Malenka are several vortices to the surface world, and this is where it is appropriate to talk about the retcon that has just occurred.  In Godzilla vs Kong, each Hollow Earth vortex was a tunnel with a clear point A and point B.  In that film, it was a little contrived that the energy source for Hollow Earth was directly underneath Hong Kong, but in this film, Malenka can lead both to Rio and Egypt.  Introducing the concept of a Hollower Earth and stating at the beginning of the film that they only explored less than five percent of Hollow Earth in Kong’s earlier film trek from Antarctica adjacent to Hong Kong adjacent means that geographically, it is impossible for these to still be tunnels.  The softer terrain of the Egypt fight will allow Kong to survive his rematch with Godzilla, and there is no effect of Rio’s terrain so the fix would be just setting both surface fights in Egypt.

 

The Iwi Queen emerges with less than an hour remaining, so, again I consider her a tertiary character.  She views Jia’s memories and shows our cast to both the Iwi beacon’s source and a second Mothra temple where Andrews can translate the Iwi script and Jia’s sign language to give exposition about Skar King, Godzilla, and a prophecy about Jia reviving Mothra.  If you accept what the film is saying about telepathy, in broad strokes, there is no large issue with this.  The exposition explains that Hollow Earth was on good terms with the surface world and that the apes protected humanity until Skar King took over, wanting to reach the surface world.  Once Godzilla sealed them away, there was no real reason for the Iwi to keep isolating from the rest of the world, but Mothra’s people in the Toho movies often had isolationist policies, so it is not the worst convenience in the world.  The previous Iwi SOSes that Monarch had on file corresponded to previous Titan events, and so, it makes sense that the Iwi are not omniscient and might have thought their great prophecy was coming to pass then.  The specific list has some issues, but it is not irreconcilable.  Godzilla, in the distant past, beat and imprisoned both the army of apes and Shimo, the frost Titan, seemingly in separate fights.  Now, granted, it makes a lot of sense to dump the apes into what you have already turned into a Shimo pit.  Godzilla would have no reason to believe Skar King would somehow be able to tame Shimo, and the Iwi must have informed him that Skar King now has, since the film shows Godzilla’s evolution corresponding to higher heat output.  This whole timeline has some issues, but the Monsterverse has always retconned the timeline in each installment, so we will have to wait and see if anyone can coherently organize all of the events we now know have happened.

 

Suko finally leads Kong to the ape kingdom, past a bone bridge of a creature so massive, Kong’s 300-foot stature means nothing (This is the most egregious scale issue in the film).  More importantly, they reach the kingdom, where well-fed guards command emaciated slaves to move rocks, infants play in the background, and the severed heads of dissidents remain on pikes as warning.  All of the guards have a cocky tempestuous personality, but the Red Stripe apes that receive characterization in this scene are One-Eye, Suko’s caretaker and weak slave Boots (so named by Wingard because he gets kicked for dropping a boulder), as well as The Skar King himself.  Kong is horrified to see his people enslaved and helps Boots, knocking out a guard.  Suko is incredibly stressed, and his caretaker attempts to comfort and later protect him from the Skar King.  Interestingly, once Suko has located his caretaker, he separates from Kong.  One-Eye notices all of this and alerts Skar King to Kong’s presence.  Seeing the abuse he suffers at the hands of Skar’s guards contextualizes why One-Eye is so driven to be so dependable and rise through the ranks.  The film definitely could have and debatably should have done a lot more to show how the ape society functions, but it is not impossible for negative alpha males to maintain control of chimpanzee groups if they have strong allies and control the hierarchy and breeding in the real world, which we do see in this film with Skar’s harem and Red Stripe hierarchy.

 

Skar King makes a grand entrance, paired with Suko’s nervous screeching.  Skar King shows off a lot of personality as an abusive dictator who strikes poses to look cool and mocks Kong for having a silver tooth.  When he notices Suko, he attempts to punish him and then kills his caretaker, when they try to step in.  Kong does not grab his axe until Skar King threatens Suko, indicating that he would have been willing to reason with the mad king, which is very interesting.  If the film were not structured under an ideological conflict between Skar and Kong within Suko from the beginning, it probably could have included scenes of these two bonding before Kong realizes the flaws in the kingdom.  People proposing this change without also rewriting Suko’s previous scenes are not improving the movie however.  Skar King killing Suko’s only other caregiver while staring Kong in the eyes enrages him, and they fight.  This fight is just as well choreographed as the previous 4 v 1 except here no other apes are unaccounted for since Skar King tells them all not to intervene.  One-Eye is the first one to start pounding the floor tribally, once again attempting to be Skar King’s most enthusiastic soldier.  The death of Suko’s caretaker represents a turning point in the boy’s arc.  He bonded with Kong out of necessity before, but now Skar King is pushing him by removing the only other person Suko had left.  From this point on, it makes perfect sense why Suko will work with Kong, and this was expressed all without dialogue contained to the second act of the film.  Suko will help Kong find the exit, set off Kong’s trap to wipe out Skar King’s hunting party (save One-Eye on account of using a guard as a shield), and help Kong to walk, perfectly coordinated partners just like Andrews and Jia.

 

Kong’s fight with the red king is interesting, since Skar’s agility and use of a whip initially catches him off guard, but Kong adjusts and wins the fight.  Skar King then reveals his Shimo crystal and nearly kills Kong by having Shimo give his arm frostbite and aim her ice beam after him.  One of the common criticisms of this film is Skar King being as weak as he is, but this is a benefit to the character writing.  This scene is so unfair that Skar King is instantly hateable, and we rally behind Kong.  Back to back, Skar King kills a defenseless ape, cheats in a fight, steals Kong’s axe and abuses an ice lizard.  This is effective characterization, especially when the effects of his actions have also been shown clearly through Suko and One-Eye.

The other apes chasing Kong out of the subterranean realm to an area where Kong has placed traps is a rather large problem.  Not enough time passes in Malenka to allow for Suko and Kong’s previous path to be tread again.  All that happens is that the Iwi get back to working their jobs and invite Jia into ritual play.  Others have suggested that Suko took Kong the long way and there is a more direct shorter path.  That doesn’t work to fix this because Kong would not know any other path.  Suko only has time to point to an exit of the cavern before the hunting party is chasing Kong.  Kong kills a couple guards with his traps, but One-Eye notices the larger trip wire and avoids it until Suko activates that trap on them anyway, and One-Eye only survives by using another guard as a shield.  It would seem that One-Eye got a promotion for his efforts, as he now carries a knife.  The wounded Kong gets from the sinkhole to Malenka in only a few minutes, but, come act three, the remainder of Skar King’s army will take far longer to get there.

Trapper calls out Bernie for wanting to publish his documentary for the consequences it will have for the Iwi, and this is the last that plotline is mentioned.  The film will show that only Trapper leaves Malenka at the end, but if Bernie were anything more than a secondary character, he would need proper resolution here.

 

Kong and Suko have somehow found the Iwi.  In the film, they say Kong must have sensed Jia, but, given that he lived with the Iwi for decades, it is more likely he sensed a mass of the telepathic people he once protected.  The issue arises insofar as he has never sensed them before when they are presumably close to the sinkhole, and he has been looking for people or apes to protect this entire time.  I also do not know how the Iwi can open and close their organic barrier with a wheel, but that has to happen for One-Eye to see Malenka’s vortices.  One-Eye will run back to Skar King much quicker than his army will reach Malenka.  Kong collapses in front of the humans with Suko, and Skar King mobilizes his forces to attack.  This is the darkest hour in the film, Kong thoroughly beaten and the bad guys with everything they need to win as Suko runs off.

 

Act two progresses Kong’s journey but really serves to show off Suko’s character arc extraordinarily well.  Rather than expecting the audience to enjoy the cute infantilized mascot, Adam Wingard and company crafted a dynamic character that the audience can hate, learn about and then love over the course of an hour.  It is for that reason that I would pick Suko as the best character in this film, a nearly flawless gremlin-to-hero journey that perfectly encompasses the themes this movie is trying to portray.  However, at the same time, the larger problems with this film are starting to set in, ones that will affect much of the third act, so I would rate this third a 5 out of 10.

Part Three will release in three days.

A Nuanced Deconstruction of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Part One

 

By Joe Gibson

Part One of Three

In following the discourse on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I have noticed a startling lack of nuance.  Apologists are motivated to say that every plot issue in the film is actually fine, and naysayers are motivated to say every merit of the film is actually bad.  This movie has sizable flaws and also merits.  We here at Plan9Crunch are devoted to cult films, often picking out the merits amongst a very flawed product, so we are uniquely suited to be able to explore this movie in all of its nuance.  GxK is a malformed puppy, as Plan9Crunch coblogger Steve D Stones would say, and it is one I will cherish, defend and chide when appropriate.

 

A couple disclaimers before we begin.  I will be analyzing this film from the perspective of Kong and Suko being the primary characters, Ilene Andrews, Jia, Bernie and Trapper being secondary characters involved in a subplot, and Mikael, Hampton, the Iwi Queen and submarine and Outpost One crews as tertiary characters.  The reason this is important is that these different levels of importance come with different obligations on the film's part.  

 

The primary character usually should be dynamic and grow or regress along a determined arc (except in such cases where the lead is deliberately static; the secondary cast must then learn those lessons from the lead, such as in many adaptations of Jesus’ ministry).  The secondary cast should support the primary, reflecting their journey or at the least not contradicting it.  Many films have a variety of subplots.  In a classic Agatha Christie mystery, there will often be the main plot of solving the murder as well as romantic and antagonistic subplots usually not involving the lead investigators but the suspects.  Internal consistency is important but technically speaking not as crucial.  Finally, tertiary characters show up more as plot devices.  We should not expect advanced characterization for a cabby who serves only to deliver the leads to a location (if their character or function has inconsistencies, it is the least important but can still ripple out with larger problems elsewhere).

 

I will admit that the film is worse off if you consider Andrews the true lead; I have not heard arguments sufficient to come to that conclusion.  This is not Godzilla vs Kong, where Nathan Lind is set up as an unlikely hero with the persistent arc of growing to respect and take responsibility for Kong until he risks his life to save Kong in the climax as well as being a foil to the main villain Walt Simmons in how they both treat their allies and rely on luck, with Kong not doing much until the second act (see my Godzilla vs Kong review on planninecrunch.blogspot.com here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html for more information).  

 

Kong starts this movie demonstrating the loneliness that will define it and takes the most active role in the most of the movie's scenes.  The film even employs a similar tactic in its secondary characters to what Godzilla vs Kong did to muddle whether Madison or Bernie was the protagonist of Team Godzilla: divvying up the focus in enough scenes and giving the less important character the biggest climactic impact. (In GvK, much of the focus is on Madison except recognizing Ren Serizawa as the pilot of Mechagodzilla, which by all accounts she would except that the filmmakers wanted Bernie's psionic exposition to be the focus of the scene, and finally, it is Josh, not either of them that spills the drink on the control panel, briefly stopping Mechagodzilla.  Similarly, Bernie gets scenes in the middle of Andrews’ where his reactions are emphasized, such as entering Hollow Earth, witnessing the tree mimic and documenting the multiple gravity manipulations, and it is Trapper that brings in the Vertacines, briefly stopping Skar King and Shimo, not Andrews or Bernie).

 

The second disclaimer I want to give is that Trapper, fan favorite as he is, is by no means the best character in the film.  People have been saying this because he is fun, but that is an entirely subjective assessment.  In terms of what we can show objectively with film evidence, I hope to be able to demonstrate to you that his inclusion and plot integration breaks the film's plot more than any other individual character.  The best character in this film, whoever it will be, would have to either have the least amount of problems or most ambitious and successful character writing.  I have my own pick for that that I will reveal later.

 

The film begins in Hollow Earth, focused on rather abnormal brightly colored crystals, to which nothing similar had ever appeared in the previous film.  This, as well as later oddities involving crystals of various sizes and uses, convinced people that this was foreshadowing for Spacegodzilla in a later film.  The actual answer is more mundane and should set audience expectations for the type of movie this is.  According to the film's audio commentary, the crystals made their way in early on, meant to answer Elon Musk’s criticism of GvK wondering where the Hollow Earth's light came from, but that part of the movie was cut.  Unlike GvK, which had extensive rewrites and reshoots, this movie is mostly how Adam Wingard envisioned it, but with a lot of story considerations that the crew eventually decided not to keep the explanations for.  He admits that in the commentary.  Consequently, many of this film's contrivances will emerge from removal of certain details or refusal to reedit scenes for logic over spectacle in the third act when that was possible (We will get there eventually).  What remains within this film of the crystals is basically just set dressing and two that intersect to form an X that actually are briefly framed between Godzilla and Kong, the most innovative and pointless way for a film to title drop that I have ever seen.

 

The film then shows us leafwings, a small green birdlike monster introduced in Kong Skull Island and revealed in Godzilla vs Kong to have red-skinned Hollow Earth variants.  These, along with the trees that resemble Kaiju film miniatures as well as the diversity of life big and small in the Hollow Earth will help to show off the sense of scale the film will otherwise miss set in the home of the giant monsters.  There are also instances where the film will handle Hollow Earth scaling poorly, and I will point them out too, but the leafwings are a good example.

 

From there, we pan over to a large horde of Wartdogs chasing a frantic Kong.  Many stories begin with a small action set piece that will grab the audience's attention but not overshadow later climactic events.  This is a good example of that: new monsters in extreme numbers that Kong will only be able to evade through intellect that will foreshadow his later problem solving skills.  Kong leaps over a chasm, and the Wartdogs follow him to the edge of a cliff, where he looks around nervously.  On a first watch, this is meant to put us into Kong’s shoes as he is out of his depth and cornered.  On a second watch, it can only mean that he is cautiously checking his surroundings before launching into the next step of his plan, but I would have preferred that deceptive look of worry not existing. He activates a trap, an evolution of his character and intellect that makes sense given that he was experimenting with luring enemies into traps at the end of Godzilla and Kong’s Hong Kong showdown.  The trap is very effective, skewering and burying many of the Wartdogs.  For what it is worth, the vines connected to the log part of the trap are clearly visible in the background when he is chased there.  

 

Somehow, one Wartdog corpse made it to him, and he gets the pack to drop the hunt by ripping it in half and spilling its blood and guts all over himself.  Adam Wingard in the audio commentary said that the gory dispatch of that Wartdog was meant to set the tone of the film, and, yet again, I think it does so for the wrong reason.  I still have no idea how the Wartdog got over there, and it is because it did that the sequence ends.  The scene would work without that display of spectacle because there were only three or four surviving Wartdogs, but including that moment weakens it slightly.  Still there have been no substantial issues yet.  Everything is workable so far.

 

Kong, noticing he is covered in blood, goes off to shower.  It makes sense that he would do this, and it also makes sense he would choose a home with running water given his habit of showering from the beginning of Godzilla vs Kong.  Finally, he sits down to eat his Wartdog, when his left fang breaks.  This will be very important in the larger cause and effect of the film, so it is important that this detail holds up.  When his trap claims its first Wartdog, you can see some faint discoloration around Kong’s tooth.  The level of infection we see when Trapper replaces the tooth could suggest a time skip that would mess with the film’s cohesion, except that Kong is an animal eating whatever food it can find, including dirty rabid Wartdogs, without the ability to brush his teeth.  

 

Titanus Doug, scavenger as he is now that his primary prey of spindly crab creatures are nowhere to be seen, steals Kong’s kill, and they wrestle until Kong hears the call of his species.  Kong frantically and quickly goes to the source of the sound, only to find a parrot frog, a spiny frog capable of replicating the sounds of larger predators.  Some have suggested this scene to be weak due to being too humorous, but the unexpected nature of the parrot frog is not leveraged for a joke at Kong’s expense.  We immediately see Kong’s face tighten into a scowl and he sits down dejected, sad and in pain.  We do not leave his presence until after he groans sadly.  If the movie wanted us to laugh at him, then it did a terrible job at it, especially given the abrupt nature of later physical gags such as Suko tripping unexpectedly.  I also wish to bring up that the parrot frog, as a creature within this ecosystem, makes the most sense out of anything we have seen thus far.  An amphibian with such a convincing method for appearing more powerful than it is seems like such an obvious thing for nature to select for, and its inclusion strengthens the worldbuilding rather than weakening it since this creature would not have been relevant before now but makes sense.  This sequence is also a cold open, meaning that the film has no obligation to further explore the parrot frog, even if such scenes would be interesting.

 

One more thing to mention during this segment is that Kong sports a scar on his back from where Godzilla grazed him with the atomic breath in their Hong Kong battle.  That is nice attention to detail alongside the chest scar pattern updating in accordance to his other wounds.

 

As the credits sequence begins, Ilene Andrews gives a press conference and a talk show interview, befitting the more administrative and public relations role we see her in.  A monitor shows at least 24 Titan incidents happening that Godzilla have been stopping, with that 24th, a crab monster Scylla attacking Rome.  People complain about Godzilla’s aggression in this movie because they overlooked this title sequence.  Godzilla sensing Scylla is in line with previous movies, but he is a bit too agile in their fight in such a way that renders his later evolution into the skinnier and faster Godzilla Evolved irrelevant. As we transition to Outpost One, we hear that the public is suspicious about one Project Powerhouse.  Project Powerhouse will be brought up again later very abruptly and needs more setup; this is still better than nothing.  The Outpost One staff does not have much to their characters but quip and observe the major plot points happening around them as effective exposition.  It is effective because their confusion and following of protocol feel realistic for characters to say.  Both the scene and these characters would make less sense without the dialogue.  

 

What they observe is a mysterious energy signal coming from somewhere and Kong’s Wartdog trap collapsing into a sinkhole.  The former is complicated, but the latter is surprisingly simple: the sinkhole is the inciting incident.  As far as plot contrivances go, inciting incidents usually get a pass due to one very important facet: they are not prolonging a story illogically; they are the story.  Godzilla x Kong The New Empire is the story of what happens if passage for Kong in the subterranean realm forms.

 

Monarch has set up a Hollow Earth Access Point and Outpost at Barbados, where Andrews has to manage public relations, and Director Hampton follows up on Outpost One’s report, telling Andrews of the sensor array readings.  Nobody knows what these are.  We will later learn that Monarch has recordings of these dating as far back as the 70s.

 

Jia is having difficulty fitting in, having visions of events to come, withdrawing socially and generally worsening at assimilating.  As this film and the previous show, this would concern Andrews a lot, since she adopted Jia very late and unexpectedly, learned Jia was keeping secrets about communicating with Kong years into their relationship and now Jia is spiraling out of control and neither one knows what to do.  This is sufficient stakes for a subplot and will mirror Kong’s arc since both Kong and Jia will turn out not to be the last of their kind when that was previously understood to be the case. The film will ironically more thoroughly explore parental themes through Kong’s adoption of Suko as they slowly learn to work together, but, again, that is why I view that as the main plot and this a subplot.  Andrews and Jia are already at a place of trust, as we see by Andrews assuming her daughter’s drawings must be connected to the weird sensor readings from earlier and easily being swayed into letting Jia come with her into Hollow Earth later.

 

An ape destroys Outpost One, and where Outpost One is in relation to the sinkhole is somewhat important. If it is nearby, the ape could make that trip quickly before Kong notices.  If not, there is a sizable amount of time where the scouting group of apes could be locating vortices, since we will eventually learn that is the apes’ goal, and there is one close enough for Kong to get to, in fact the same one that leads to Barbados.  I think it is forgivable for a scouting party to be overly cautious especially given the personalities of the apes involved that we will later meet.

 

Andrews locates Bernie to ask for his help, active here, but she will quickly become very passive and vulnerable to all of Bernie’s demands.  As aforementioned, Monarch has a lot of samples of the radio interference that nobody at Monarch has been able to sort out, so she is bringing them to Bernie.  Given how Monarch was presented in the previous films, specifically Godzilla King of the Monsters, with all of the thorough scientists with special interests, they should have figured out the relatively simple conclusion that Bernie comes to with the help of a discord chat: that some active agent is making these identical signals at points of high disturbance as a distress signal, an SOS.  Andrews’ dialogue with Bernie confirms her higher interorganizational status, second only to Hampton, explaining why Hampton felt it necessary to inform her of the SOS signal in the first place.

 

Godzilla has been napping in the Coliseum and awakens just as Kong reaches the surface to ask for help with his toothache.  Monarch flies in independent contractor dentist Trapper Beasley on a company transportation vehicle the yellow M.U.L.E. where he lip syncs and replaces Kong’s tooth.  This introduction, as well as half of his remaining scenes, comes off as incredibly cartoonish, but his subsequent conversation with Andrews is a more down to earth catch-up about where the two are in life now.  The M.U.L.E. vehicle will pop up again in Hollow Earth by Outpost One, and knowing it is a Monarch vehicle helps smooth that over, but that information comes from the novelization and Blu-ray special features, not the film itself, which is an issue.  Kong’s tooth replacement makes sense and helps to foreshadow that Monarch has considered prosthetics for him (Project Powerhouse) since the tooth exists.  Godzilla taking a liking to the Coliseum fits with his previous home in Godzilla King of the Monsters, built by humans with an ancient aesthetic where people can observe him as he rests comfortably.

Hampton clears Andrews to make a survey team for Hollow Earth with pilot Mikael, and Andrews will invite Trapper, Jia and Bernie in rapid succession, none of those three people that should go down there and two of which ones that actively strongarm her into it.  From this point on, Andrews will only follow other people’s leads, noticeably letting Trapper do whatever wants, listening to Bernie’s explanation of the gravity manipulation, and helping Jia with everything she does.  She would be a poor protagonist, but I honestly do not find her to be a protagonist, so it is fine.

 

Mikael is set up as a stern character, annoyed by Bernie’s antics and subtly teased by Trapper, who he still seems to respect based on Trapper’s competency in making Hollow Earth voyages, something Trapper seems oddly familiar with since the biomimicry controls are in his seat.  This raises some timeline questions, since he and Andrews had reconnected in the prior scene, but she is the only character we have seen reckless enough to bring people down into the Hollow Earth just because they want to.  According to the novelization, there is 3 years between Godzilla vs Kong and this, with the HEAVs being a previous model then for an unspecified amount of time after.  Conversely, given Trapper’s Titan dentistry, he would be interested in the Hollow Earth fauna for his practice, as he calls out the Vertacines with accurate information once they appear.  Mikael thus far is a consistent character despite his minimal role, who raises no such questions.

 

As Kong separates from the human characters, Godzilla has attacked a French powerplant, absorbing the radiation spill.  Once again the exposition from Hampton and the nearby soldiers are things people would realistically say in this situation, since this is an incredibly concerning turn of events that people would want to understand.  The humans find Outpost One destroyed except for the Armory and M.U.L.E. vehicle, and it is convenient that those were not destroyed, but that is revealed later in the film, so there is no issue there yet, just an impending one.  In other news, Trapper has removed his jacket for no reason other than to eventually get bitten by a mosquito.  Kong returns home, sensing something different.  Wingard’s intent was to show Kong realizing that his house had been ransacked, but he hears a noise anyways and goes to investigate with the axe, so, unlike the crystals from the beginning of the film, the scene translates smoothly even with the cut context.  Kong investigates the sinkhole, sliding down the glowing walls with his axe.  People have questioned why his axe glows once he reaches the bottom when there was no Godzilla energy to stimulate it.  The answer seems pretty easy.  The friction of sliding down the chasm would have provided an initial jolt, and then the axe clearly reacts to blue crystal pillars at the base of the sinkhole.  Kong hears an ape cry and heads through a waterfall, crossing a threshold into the subterranean realm, a Hollower Earth inside of Hollow Earth.

 

Per the three-act structure and hero's journey, crossing a threshold in the story should denote the end of act one, and act two will largely be about meeting allies and enemies, so I will count Kong entering the sinkhole as the end of act one, since he will next encounter Suko, his eventual ally and One-Eye, a persistent enemy.  All in all, the issues that will plague this film later on have not set in yet, and this act fares well in regards to cause and effect in the plot as well as foreshadowing the characterization that will come.  I am inclined, pending better arguments, to rate this part of the film an 8 out of 10.

We will release Part Two in three days.

Valley of the Zombies: Republic does poverty-row horror

 

This 1946 Republic Pictures poverty-row horror film is a lean and mean 56-minute programmer. Ian Keith is a mostly forgotten actor today, but he was one of the finalists to play Dracula in 1931. In Valley of the Zombies, he plays a vampire-like character who forces a doctor to help him murder and get the blood he needs. Keith is creepy in the role and the film is a great, spooky hour to kill.

Keith also was considered for the role of Dracula in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, so he lost out to Bela Lugosi twice. Republic was known mainly for low-budget westerns and better-than-average serials. This film, very cheaply done, is kind of a mix with sparse sets similar to an ‘oater and enough shocks and surprises for a few serial short episodes.

Robert Livingston and Adrian Booth are mediocre as the man and woman romantic heroes, but it really doesn’t matter. The action moves so fast and there’s a really exciting climatic scene. It's odd that Keith is billed fourth in the credits. He's the reason to view this film. You can watch this film via YouTube here and of late this film has actually received a Blu-Ray release. If not above $20, it’s worth a buy.

-- Doug Gibson

The Best of Scenes and The Worst of Scenes: Gamera vs Viras

 

A Plan9Crunch essay by Joe Gibson

Gamera vs Viras is a conflicted, almost frustrating film to watch.  The tropes that will define the rest of Gamera’s Showa era are established here, such as AIP’s mandate of American boys starring alongside the Japanese boys and extraterrestrials menacing Earth, but there are still the last vestiges of early Showa Gamera here as well, as it is Kojiro Hongo’s third appearance as a prominent adult hero (though by far his least prominent role) and the protagonists here are mischievous, not entirely virtuous as their introduction is sabotaging a minisub and inadvertently endangering their scout master.  The practice of extensive stock footage use begins in this film, but it was not as refined as in later entries to the point of being distracting.  All this to say, the film fluctuates wildly scene to scene in the tone, writing quality and creativity to the point where the simplest way to describe the quality of Gamera vs Viras is in its juxtaposition.

Tone and Realism

The cold open of this movie is a remarkably effective scene of intimidating aliens stating their intention to colonize the Earth but being attacked by Gamera.  Gamera’s assault contains none of his characteristic warmth and keeps him out of focus, his face most visible only after he’s breached part of the spaceship with it.  When Gamera destroys a section of the ship, they jettison it, and when he flies around them, they attempt to extinguish his jets.  In this part, the film has put the viewer more in the perspective of the aliens, Virians/Virasians/Virases as they are called, as the commanding voice on the speaker becomes frantic then regains its composure to make some evasive attempts but ultimately seems to realize the ship is about to be destroyed.  This is easily the most destructive Gamera has been since the beginning of Gamera vs Barugon, and it is an effective contrast to have Gamera’s next scene be him warmly racing two boys in a minisub and protecting them from the second spaceship’s Super Catch Ray, as every action taken by these agents thus far is in line with their characterization.

However, a film that begins so darkly and semi realistically should not also contain a scene where the UN decides to surrender to alien invasion in order to save two children.  For those unaware, a major contributing factor for why Noriaki Yuasa, the director of most of the Showa Gamera films, made films wherein the children were smart, heroic and always had Gamera to look out for them was because he had briefly filmed at a home for abandoned children and wanted to give them a hero to look up to.  Yuasa had his own issues with adults, hence why as the series went on, there was less emphasis on heroic Kojiro Hongo type characters and more on how Gamera is willing to do anything for the children.  A world where the UN would surrender Earth to save two children is a world that arguably does not need Gamera to look out for the kids.

This film already has the Virians use Gamera’s “unusual and overwhelming kindness to human children” to their advantage, threatening to kill the kids if Gamera attacks their second ship, and the boys already take an active role in trying to escape their imprisonment, so nothing changes in the stakes if the UN were to refuse that offer.  It must be emphasized that a world that will sacrifice itself for two people strains credibility more and in different ways than giant monsters existing.  The cold open to this film already showed that it is possible to approach realism in the spaceship’s intelligent defensive moves and ultimate ill fate.

Cohesion of The Main Characters’ Arc

As alluded to, the boys in this film, Masao and Jim, are rather mischievous, especially compared to the earnest Eiichi in Gamera vs Gyaos before this, the introspective and reactive Akio and Tom in Gamera vs Guiron directly after this, and the dutiful teens that go inside of Gamera a couple films later in Gamera vs Jiger.  Indeed, their introduction to the film is wandering away from their scout troop to perform a shortsighted prank by switching the controls of a submarine, cringe at the consequences of endangering Kojiro Hongo and the friendly scientist letting them use the sub but then also laugh and spin the situation their way to be able to be the only scouts that can use the minisub (when if they had not sabotaged it, everybody would have been able to).  Once the aliens kidnap them, they learn what they can about the spaceship and try to use it to their advantage, easily some of the most dynamic protagonists of the franchise thus far.  After some failed attempts of escaping and a startling willingness to sacrifice themselves to save the world, their scoutmaster actually inspires them to repeat the prank on the Virian machinery to escape and free Gamera from the alien’s control.

 

Their selfish setup would have lent itself well to a coming of age arc where they would mature in order to achieve their victory.  During their time on the Virian spaceship, they show more compassion than before, promising to free what they think is a captive monster in a cage but is actually the Virian boss’ in his equivalent of a throne room, and, when they can finally reach Masao’s sister on their wrist communication devices, the boys are actually willing to selflessly lay down their lives for the good of humanity.  For whatever reason, it is the moral authority of Kojiro Hongo’s Scoutmaster character that encourages them to do the same prank to escape, seemingly vindicating their mischievousness.  Their arc seems to run backwards of how it should, learning a lesson offscreen with the screen time given to them embracing who they were before everything changed.  Their actual contributions to Gamera fighting Viras are minimal, just commands for actions he would have taken anyways, an awkward middle ground between Eiichi needing Gamera to save him and Akio and Tom assisting Gamera in battle by launching a rocket for him to use.

Creativity In Fight Scenes

The action in this movie is also rather varied.  Space Monster Viras, technically a combination of several Virians with their boss, was a rather inventive physical suit with a mess of spindly tentacles disguising the actor’s legs.  Coming off villains that were essentially a quadruped and a bird, this is something creative and new, and it is equally unique how Viras fights Gamera, where it is on the backfoot until it can set up an efficient and underhanded attack, goring Gamera’s stomach.  That is just the final battle though; outside of the cold open, all of the other action scenes in this film come from the previous films, administered in a few lengthy stock footage segments recapping Gamera’s rampages in the original film and Gamera vs Barugon as well as his fights against Barugon and Gyaos.  

 

Quite distractingly, some of these clips were in black and white originally, and the film putting a blue hue on those scenes does not fix the issue.  As far as repeating the previous movie’s fight scenes, there is a slight issue with that.  While it is the contrast from those villains that makes Viras’ one short fight against Gamera stand out, the film did not need to show them again to achieve that effect.  Gamera vs Guiron features multiple of the Gyaos species, and the different way Guiron kills it sets Guiron apart.  Similarly, Jiger later on is unique simply for having so many absurd abilities that her film explores throughout three fights and an impregnation scene.

Conclusion

The highs of this movie are exceptionally high, and there was a lot of potential for the best Gamera movie yet, but the vision was inconsistent, almost to a greater extent than the original Gamera (which itself relentlessly switches between Daiei’s desire for a Godzilla ripoff competing with Yuasa’s vision of a child friendly icon).  Consequently, it is difficult to justify a favorable review of this film, when other Gamera movies used the same building blocks as this film much more consistently.  Still, this film’s place in the franchise is a major turning point and important to remember.  Without this film, the later Showa Gamera films would not have happened the same way, and Viras could not have been one of the main villains of the recent Netflix show Gamera Rebirth.