Obviously this movie has been out for a little bit. I hadn’t watched it until just recently. I’ll lead this off by saying that I do like Godzilla movies. And I do like King Kong movies. When they created the Monsterverse by combining them, I thought it was pretty cool as an idea.

I double checked as I watched this, because I was confused. It really felt like I had missed a movie, because I was lost when this started. But I hadn’t. Granted, I may not have remembered everything, but this movie felt like it didn’t care. Some of that may have come from how this movie plays out. Because there are large portions of this movie that focus on no dialogue.

So let’s dig in. We have Kong in Hollow Earth being chased by creatures. He seems to be leading them towards traps and impediments that will even up the odds. And Godzilla fights a bad Titan in Italy. So both behemoths have been established (in case you weren’t sure who might be in this based on the title.)

Don’t forget there are people in the world. People who have taken advantage of a portal between the surface world and the Hollow Earth. Down in Hollow Earth there is a base camp, which we find out has been overrun by something. Potentially Kong, but not really. Skar King is like an evil Kong that has enslaved the titanic primate race living in Hollow Earth. Part of the group going to examine what’s going on is the young girl, Jai, who is the sole surviving member of the Iwi race of Skull Island. She has been having visions that indicate things are happening in Hollow Earth.

Jumping ahead a bit. I noticed that it was about halfway through the movie and it felt like 50% of it had been silent. Kong scenes are no dialogue, sure there is grunting, but I don’t speak his language. Godzilla scenes have him doing his “hronnk.” Scenes with Jai tend to play out with communication happening in sign language. Then we meet a clan of Iwi living in Hollow Earth, and find that they communicate telepathically. Leading to more scenes where there is conversation happening that we don’t hear. And this is, in many ways, lead up story elements.

Kong gets hurt fighting against Shimo, the ice powered pseudo godzilla mount of Skar King. Luckily though the humans had been working on upgrading Kong to better fight against things, and the one thing they had finished is a bionic right arm exo-skeleton. Which is lucky because it was Kong’s right arm that got injured fighting Shimo. With the arm upgrade put in place, Kong is suddenly rejuvenated. And heads topside in Cairo to enlist Godzilla’s help. Naturally they fight destroying pyramids and stuff, but Mothra shows up and Godzilla calms down.

They go back to Hollow Earth and fight a bit with Skar King, but the fight goes back up. Unfortunately for Rio De Janeiro, they are ground zero. Kong and Godzilla follow Skar King and Shimo back to the topside. And essentially devastate the city.

But they win.

As defenders of humanity though, they kinda suck. The question of “Does Batman endanger Gotham because his presence attracts and creates epic villains” is taken to global level with Godzilla and Kong.

So much of watching this felt rather blah to me. And the next one is already announced for 2026. What more can they do? There is a power creep here combined with a lack of originality that is disturbing. Godzilla has a fan base that will go watch the next one regardless, so the movie will be a success regardless of the story quality. And at some point I will watch it.

I was toying with the idea of giving this a 5 star rating, but then recalled how jarring some of the bad cgi was. So its dropping to 4 stars.