Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of April 1, 2024
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
Rated PG-13 for creature violence and action
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%
In Theaters
Now that Kong has been sent to live in the world that exists underneath the surface, he is trying to make his home one he can survive in safety and satisfaction. But when he discovers a new tribe of giant apes led by a real baddie with a secret weapon, the scientists at Monarch devise a plan to have Kong and Godzilla fight the new creature together. If you didn’t watch Apple TV’s new show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and you can’t really remember what happened in the previous film, don’t worry. It would be very hard to get confused here. This film might have set a record for least dialog as the human plot is more of that of a narrator to what the Titans are doing and far less for plot development and actual meaning. In fact, I would have preferred even less human interaction as almost everything the humans did was annoying and unnecessary. Most people are coming to see a film like this for watching monster battles, and those are a plenty here. The action sequences are quite fun, although pretty silly, and fully capable of filling up the time for a theatrically released film. A lot of this new universe they have set up does’t make much sense, and can be quite tedious on the brain if you try to do the mental gymnastics required to try to figure it out, but when Kong rips a monster in half, or when Godzilla destroys Rome only to fall asleep inside the Coliseum, it proves that turning off your brain every once in a while is a justified thing to do. And given that the movie was a smash hit on opening weekend, I’m guessing that we will see even more of these films coming our way in years to come. B-
Wicked Little Letters
Rated R for language throughout and sexual material
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%
In Theaters
From Thea Sharrock, the director of The One and Only Ivan, comes this little British comedy about an older spinster (Olivia Colman) who gets the police involved when she starts to get vile and sexually explicit letters from an anonymous literary attacker. She and her family believe the letters are from the single mother next-door (Jessie Buckley), who they assume to be a woman of poor character and loose morals. But as the police learn more about the “crime,” the story begins to get more and more convoluted. If you didn’t notice Sharrock’s name in the title, you might easily guess that this is a film by Mike Leigh (Topsy Turvy). Especially since its dry wit combined with a phenomenal cast are very much his signature. While the film is not a gut buster, it certainly is both very funny and quite entertaining. Colman and Buckley play off each other extremely well, and while the plot is somewhat predictable, it is still effectively written so as to not make you care that you guessed it correctly. If you are in need of an adult comedy that is slightly off-kilter, and full of loads of naughty verbiage, you will surely enjoy this dirty little picture. B+