Like the process shots of old, Godzilla rages above a foreground of running people. What would Eiji Tsuburaya say?

Giant Lizard and Big Ape against Big Lizard and Giant Ape.

GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE is another Monsterverse CGI glutfest that removes all gravitas, fear and nobility from the titular creatures and replaces it – with punchaboo.

Remember KONG: SKULL ISLAND? Where’s that enraged beast that brooked no interaction or interference from humankind? Remember 2014’s GODZILLA? Where’s that beast that killed threats to its planet without an inkling of thought to the human victims who ended up merely collateral damage… well, uh, actually, that guy is still here…

Kong, now a docile puss who needs to have a tooth removed by a human dentist pinup boy (Dan Stevens), goes exploring in his subterranean world and discovers a society of giant apes led by a tyrant red ape, who has enslaved a whole bunch of giant apes to move rocks from here to there. [Reason? No reason.] Red Ape carries a blade talisman that keeps a giant frost dragon under heel, who acts as his ride and his enforcer. Cute. (Kinda reminds me of those big “fluffy” creatures from HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2.)

Well, when Red Ape encounters Kong, he suddenly wants to invade our upper world. [Reason? No reason?] He’s not looking for territory – he’s already king of his domain; he’s not looking for mates (unless he has a predilection for tiny blonde humans); he’s not short of food – he’s the goddam tyrant of his subterranean world. Maybe he’s just looking for more rocks for his slaves to haul for reasons no reasons.

In this direct sequel to 2021’s GODZILLA VS KONG, beautiful Rebecca Hall returns as Ilene, the Kong scientist; still with an inconsequential role, but also saddled with a bowl haircut– Why do women (and producers who want to make women “strong”) DO this to women? And how come whenever a woman commits this abomination, she has to be told it looks nice? In this instance, the conspiracy podcaster Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry): “Oh, you cut your hair, highlights too, it’s nice.” Why this insecurity? If it was alluring in the first place, you wouldn’t need the constant affirmation.

Tyree Henry is once again comic relief, and thankfully not saddled with overactor Millie Bobby Brown as sidekick. Director/co-writer Adam Wingard explains that Brown’s role was just not needed – but in reality, her “role” (that of tween boy bait) is actually being fulfilled by someone else in the cast, and Wingard knows this, but is canny enough not to rankle the wokesters by saying it out loud.

Saddled with the role of tween boy bait is Kaylee Hottle as Jia, Kong’s sign-language human connection; in the previous movie, real-life mute Kaylee was a youngster, now a tween (with hips and those things and that), not only fulfilling Brown’s job description, but still being the best actor in the movie.

And who woulda thunk that Jia would be Mothra’s little human apprentice (a role usually fulfilled by twin girls)? The awakening of Mothra is one of the coolest aspects of this film; always a Godzilla sidekick/apprentice through the first three Godzilla Eras (Showa, Heisei, Millennium), displaying minimal power except the shooting of that sticky jism and the showering of her shimmering bling, here her powers have been brought in line with those of her compatriots (Godz and Kong).

“I’m just gonna stand upright like a reg’lar ole homo sapiens, if that’s alright with you.”

Suddenly – a bionic arm for Kong: a contrived piece of screenwriting that involved the pilot of the scientists’ underground craft dying without any fanfare, the dreamy dentist guy just “knowing” how to pilot the craft, flying it to a destroyed way-station that happened to be working on a giant bionic exoskeleton, and retrieving the iron arm as easily as picking up a rock, then installing the arm on Kong easier than installing Word on your pc. In one fell swoop, Monsterverse throws down more magic who cares fuck you than all four AVENGERS films combined.

Godzilla is so pink now, he looks delicious. It’s funny how Kong just walks around totally upright now. He’s as bad at emulating a gorilla as the actors who walked around upright in their gorilla suits in KING KONG LIVES.

Climactic scenes of protagonists battling against antagonists with exactly the same powers as them – Monsterverse learned well from Marvel – while buildings are being knocked down hither and thither with, I’m presuming, at least 100,000 casualties that are never seen nor mentioned. Against a backdrop of the most baffling needle-drops that throw us bodily out of the tone of the movie, including: KISS’s I Was Made for Loving you, Badfinger’s Day After Day, Golden Earring’s Twilight Zone, Loverboy’s Turn Me Loose…

GODZILLA X KONG is hella fun to watch (just that scene of Godz and Kong exploding from underground and running running RUNNING towards us together is simultaneously exhilarating and idiotic and juvenile and inspiring), but rated X for XTRA STUPID.

END

Ironic that Adam Sandler makes a GOOD movie about items that people usually use
to beat him across the head for his BAD movies.

These Boots are Made for Transmogrifying.

THE COBBLER is a modern day fairytale, a parable of what it might feel like “walking a mile in another man’s shoes.” If that man was Adam Sandler. Uh-oh.

But wait! The intriguing story (by Paul Sado and Tom McCarthy, who also directed) is written well, and Sandler eschews his usual lowbrow shtick, comporting himself commendably in a tragicomic role, about a lonely cobbler named Max who discovers he can literally become other people when he puts on their shoes. (McCarthy would go on to co-write and direct the Oscar-winning SPOTLIGHT directly after this film.)

His regular shoe-stitching machine breaks down one night, so Max (Sandler), in desperation, is forced to finish a thug’s shoes (Method Man as Leon) on an old-fashioned spindle bequeathed to his father decades ago (by an angel? devil? phantom?), abandoned in the basement.

Max puts on the finished shoes out of curiosity – and sees Leon looking back at him in the mirror! He slips them off. He’s Max again. In these first scenes, we take it for granted that Method Man is Sandler – which is a testament to how good Method Man really is. In his thug character, he oozes gangsta, but when he is supposedly Sandler wearing Method Man’s shoes, he loses all his swagger and menace – an astonishing transformation, physically and psychologically.

Seems that any client’s shoes that Max runs through the old spindle take on those magical properties – of making the wearer look like the person who owns the shoes. And that compliment to Method Man should be extended to all the actors who take on the role of Sandler-in-their-shoes. The thought doesn’t even cross our minds that they are actually other human beings who are Not Sandler!

Now the movie follows that flow chart of first treating this discovery as comedic, then dangerous, and eventually arcing to Max using the machine for something charitable.

Steve Buscemi is the barbershop store owner next door to Max’s shoe repair shop, who offers sage advice when Max is hardly listening. Ellen Barkin, with fakes that enter a room before she does, is a ferocious gangster boss. Melonie Diaz is a community worker, who will become Max’s love interest.

Needless to say, with his newfound metamorphosis power, Max unwittingly intrudes into other people’s lives, with results that are funny (when he tracks Leon while wearing the shoes of a transvestite), quirky (when he is invited into the shower by a girl who thinks he is her boyfriend – soon realizing that he can’t take off his shoes to join her, because he would revert back to himself!), or fatal – dabbling in Leon’s underworld business.

The last time I cried during an Adam Sandler movie (not counting all the tears of pain suffered throughout his catalogue) was CLICK (2006), when the main character realized he had lost his family. Here, Sandler once again coaxes tears of empathy when he performs his charitable deed – for family. Max’s old mother (Lynn Cohen) is lonely and forlorn without her deceased husband, so Max finds a pair of his father’s shoes and appears to her one night as his father – her husband (Dustin Hoffman in a superb cameo) – in a poignant dinner date… that nonetheless edges towards creepy as the night wears on… I mean, is mum gonna put the hard word on “dad”?

THE COBBLER makes us believe in the power of storytelling again; makes us believe in the power of empathy; and makes us believe in the power of Adam Sandler.

Now I really am in a modern-day fairy tale…

END