PHOTO COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES

A movie with this many giant monsters should be much more interesting.

When the titular titans in “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” finally show up and throw down — first fighting one another, then teaming up to take out some sadistic rivals — the movie becomes pretty entertaining. However we get there, seeing these kaiju smash, punch and rage is nothing if not cinematic; the look of the film is so over-digitized it’s more cartoon than live-action, but it works.

Everything before the smackdown, however, is another matter (and the marquee beasts don’t get together for about 90 minutes). During that time, a group of overpaid and underused performers — Rebecca Ferguson and Brian Tyree Henry lead the way — stand around explaining a convoluted plot to us.

I don’t know if I can distill that tome of exposition into a pithy summary, but here goes: Kong now lives in the dizzying subterranean area dubbed Hollow Earth, hunting for large, goopy beasts and occasionally getting melancholy about his lost life on the surface. Godzilla hangs out below the waves unless a fellow monster shows up, at which point he rushes to action to defeat the bad beast. (And then naps in the Roman Colloseum, one of the film’s rare visual treats.)

There’s more than just Kong, however, hiding beneath the surface. A (human) indigenous tribe hides behind a mystical wall; nearby, a group of fellow giant apes lives in bondage, serving a maniacal monster named Skar King. When Kong runs afoul of Skar King, the humans and monsters must unite to draw Godzilla (and a few others) into the fight.

It is, admittedly, in keeping with the tradition of the kaiju films that the human action is far less interesting than the monster fights. Unfortunately for “Godzilla X Kong,” we’ve been reminded that there’s a better way; just a few months ago, the film “Godzilla Minus One” arrived and established itself as perhaps the best kaiju film of all time by making the story as important as the carnage.

That film is part of a separate franchise, and the filmmakers behind “Godzilla X Kong” can’t have anticipated that “Minus One” would’ve become a global, Oscar-winning hit. But it has, and it makes soupy, overcooked monster flicks like “Godzilla X Kong” seem more than a bit silly — particularly when “Minus One” was made for a 10th of the budget.

We’ve seen that there are ways to do this sort of thing very well. Unfortunately, “Godzilla X Kong” is satisfied to simply give us more of the same old beasts.

My Rating: 5/10

“Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” is now playing in theaters.