'Godzilla x Kong' Has Scales and Scale but Not Much Else

As the old saying goes, there are two kinds of people on this Earth: Those who like their movies with a giant evil ape swinging a vertebrae like a lasso while riding a kaiju controlled by a crystal, and those who don’t.

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The former types will have much to cheer in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” a ground-stomping, radiation-spewing monster-mash feast. Technically, we are not on this Earth. We’re inside it, in a subterranean jungle world that gives the movie’s filmmakers an exotic, untrampled realm in which they try to chart some new ground for a pair of well-traveled beasts.

But aside from the film’s strong Jules Verne streak, “Godzilla x Kong” is no drastic pivot for its long-to-the-tooth monsters. For that, you were better off catching last year’s Toho-made “Godzilla Minus One,” which grippingly returned to Godzilla’s post-WWII origins and in the process won the 70-year-old lizard its first Oscar.

Other, less respectable creatures might have used an Academy Award as a springboard for more dramatic roles. But not Godzilla. No costume dramas for him, unless you count the robotic fist that Kong gets outfitted with midway through the movie.