Set after the battle between Godzilla and the Titans, revealing that monsters are real, follows one family's journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to Monarch. As I said before in my review of last year’s outstanding Godzilla Minus One, I am not the biggest expert of the Godzilla lore and am more of a casual kaiju movie enjoyer. As a casual fan, I can say that I’ve found varying levels of enjoyment in each of Legendary’s Monsterverse movies, with my personal favorite being Kong: Skull Island due to its distinctive Vietnam War era aesthetic, fun characters, and exciting monster battles. I also loved Godzilla vs Kong as that was the perfect big dumb popcorn crossover event it needed to be. Sure, none of these movies are anything “deep” per se, but to me they’re highly entertaining fast food blockbusters with great replay value. When it comes to the world building of the Monsterverse itself, Apple TV and Legendary have partnered up for a 10 episode series exploring the vast mysteries and mythologies of this world of monsters. So, how does it stack up? Does this series fix the problem of bland human characters that held back the two standalone Godzilla entries? Was it all worth it in the end? I will say, yes and no.
First off, Kurt and Wyatt Russell undoubtedly play the most interesting character of the entire series, Lieutenant Lee Shaw. Wyatt plays the younger version of Shaw in flashbacks while Kurt plays Shaw in the present day. This was a genius dual casting decision that allowed for the character of Shaw to have real depth and development from his past to present self. I also thought Anders Holm did a fine job as a younger Bill Randa (older Bill Randa played by John Goodman in Kong: Skull Island) and whenever he, Shaw and Dr. Keiko Miura played by Mari Yamamoto were on screen working together to figure out the secrets of the titans and hollow earth, the show was buzzing with excitement and emotion. The present day aftermath and different POV’s from the chaos that took place in Godzilla 2014 was intense and did a great job putting you in a terrifying disaster scenario where San Francisco gets utterly annihilated. There is a hydrogen bomb test episode in the middle of the season taking place in 1954 (the year the original Godzilla movie came out) and it was pretty neat how it actually showed the effect the bomb had on Godzilla. The special effects and CGI are truly stunning and the few moments Godzilla has in the series are visually breathtaking.
Having said all of that, the show really should have stayed in the 1950’s era, because I did not care whatsoever about the young adult Gen Z characters who were put on the forefront of the present day segments. I’m not sure why most TV producers think it’s a good idea to hire the same millennial actors to play the same type of young adult character suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety and have them come off as unlikable and quite insufferable. None of these young actors did a poor job, but the script made them in to such dull and boring characters, especially Kiersey Clemons as May. I swear, this character gets way more screen time than deserved and after she does one thing in particular that should’ve disqualified her from being trusted, I was truly shocked how the rest of the gang still kept her around. Genuinely the worst and most unlikable character in the entire series and I was hoping she’d get killed off, but unfortunately, she had too much plot armor. Anna Sawai and Ren Watabe as Cate and Kentaro Randa respectively do their best, but are also given a lame screenplay to work with thus making their screen presence feel like a chore. Speaking of chores, there is a stupid love story shoehorned into the show between Kentaro and May that was so egregiously uninteresting and could have easily been cut out.
Those in hope that this series will be chock full of monster battles will be devastatingly disappointed, as there is only one really awesome albeit short lived fight between Godzilla and another flying monster in the final episode. The last episode was admittedly pretty good, as it ties up emotional beats with Shaw and Keiko, but I still was not invested in the younger characters at all. In regards to setting up this year’s Godzilla X Kong: A New Empire, there are some loose tie in points that hopefully are better explored in said movie. By the end of the show, I felt rather meh, especially after a strong start and strong finish. It really comes down to the bad creative decisions and focusing too much on the least interesting characters in the least interesting time period. Whenever the show shifted back to the 1950’s with Lee Shaw, Bill Randa, and Keiko, the show came alive and I was locked in. Cut away from that, start focusing on the young adult gang, my enjoyment levels started to plummet. When people tell me, “well the point of this show is the human characters,” I’ll just say “sure, but when a majority of them fail to be interesting or likable, then I’m inclined to want more big CGI monster battles in their place.” Overall, despite a great dual performance by Wyatt and Kurt Russell as Lee Shaw, some intriguing world building, and a few noteworthy Godzilla sequences, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters ultimately focuses too much of its time on a group of painfully unlikable young adult characters instead of zeroing in on the 1950’s era or the very monsters that fans watch this sort of media for.
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