BY ELLIOT LINES DECEMBER 15, 2023
Godzilla is a household name in blockbuster movies, something that has been taken advantage over the past few years. The Monster-verse is in full flow, Godzilla (2014), Kong Skull Island (2017), Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs Kong (2021), but this universe has certainly had it's issues. Unlike it's counterparts, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters takes care in the human side of the story, naturally incorporating them into the "Monster-verse".
SYNOPSIS
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.
REVIEW
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows two different, yet connected, storylines. Our main focus is that of half-siblings Cate Randa (Ana Sawai) and Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe) investigating the disappearence of their father and his connections to the titan monitoring company Monarch. The other follows Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), Bill Randa (Anders Holm) and Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell) generations earlier in what is the creation of Monarch as a company. These jumps between the two time periods allow the series to breathe, in a way that the movies are unable to. We have time to spend with all these characters, to get to know them, their manarisms and whats driving them. A big problem with the movies is that the humans don't feel, well human and spreading this story over a 10 episode series is the perfect way to combat and aid these characters humanity.
Legacy of Monsters introduces us to a collection of new characters. Each one of these characters is easy to get along with due to the ability for the series to flesh out each and everyone of them just the right amount to make them feel real. The acting across the board is above-average with only a few occasions where you may question the line delivery in the moment. Most of these actors are fairly unknown, however that can't be said for the father son combo of Wyatt and Kurt Russell. The addition of these two allows for one of the most seamless fades from past to present I've seen on screen, with Wyatt looking so much like his father.
At first jumping between the two timelines can be jarring, but the structure is fairly easy to adjust to after a few episodes. Structuring Legacy of Monsters this way allows the series to have just the right amount of balance between character storyline and titan action. There is an air of ease to watching this, giving you the right amount of information each time before a titan appears and all hell breaks loose.
For any fan of this universe it has an interesting look at the beginnings of Monarch, and the initial discovery of the titans, aswell as the effect that they are now having around the world. The series dives deeper into the lore set up within the movies, and however you may feel about the direction they took in the most recent Godzilla vs Kong, the series doesn't try to correct the science here. That movie introduced us to the theory of Hollow Earth, and this series emphasises upon that, exploring the connections between the titans world and our own.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will have a select audience, and those that want to dive further into this world should certainly give it a watch. The movies focus on the big titan fight scenes, which I love, but faulter when it comes to the human characters, this series corrects that. Godzilla will always have a pull on the big and small screen, and this is a welcome addition to the Monster-verse they are trying to create.
STAR RATING
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