10 Recent Critical Duds We All Saw Coming
6. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, from its trailers, looked like a desperately mediocre flick that would offer up cool monster fights and nothing else. Sadly, it mostly lived up to those pre-release expectations, with one key deviation: it was outright awful as opposed to being simply mediocre. The New Empire, with its atrocious human characters, risible attempts at comedy, wasted cast, and sluggish pacing, was a lot worse than it looked, and it already looked pretty weak.
Even before the trailers arrived, it was hard to get excited to about The New Empire. Although Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was a successful televisual venture for the MonsterVerse, the franchise hasn't delivered a good movie since 2017's Kong: Skull Island. Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) had amazing action but floundered outside of those scenes, while Godzilla: King of the Monsters was downright awful.
Besides, when Japan had just showed the world exactly how to do a Godzilla story with the wonderful Godzilla Minus One, another braindead Hollywood version was hardly welcome. Unlike quite a few of the other films on this list, this one did do some serious business at the box office, so despite how terrible it looked people still went to see it in droves. Unfortunately, then, it looks like this brainless franchise is carrying on for the foreseeable.
Still, looking on the bright side, the team behind Godzilla Minus One are making another Godzilla film, so we should have a good Godzilla movie again soon.