Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

This weekend the season finale of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was released onto Apple TV+. This show follows a broken family that goes on a hunt to find their missing father. The search soon gets them involved with Monarch, an organization that specializes in tracking and preventing monster attacks. This movie takes place in the same universe as Godzilla (2014), Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Godzilla Vs Kong. I was a bit skeptical about this show at first but Apple has a pretty good track record with their shows and movies so I was willing to give it a shot.

This show ended up winning me over for the most part. I liked how this show was more human-focused instead of just having the human characters be there as a POV for the monster battles. Having a focus on the human characters allowed for a more complex story about PTSD, family separation, and secrets. This show does a pretty good job of showing the impact the 2014 Godzilla attack had on society as a whole as well as individuals. We see one of the main characters struggling with the loss she experienced with the attack as well as some PTSD. I also really enjoyed how the movie explains the "science" behind how the Titans get around the world without being noticed. It provides a better background on the events of the movies. I also quite liked how globetrotting the show was. We get to see the characters travel from San Francisco to Tokyo to the Arctic to the Desert. It just makes for a more interesting story with some variety. The show also has a fun time jumping element to it. We get to see flashbacks throughout the episodes of the origin of Monarch as well as some background to older characters we see in the show. I liked seeing the start of the organization and how they originally encountered Godzilla. Along the same lines, I thought it was fun that the show decided to have father and son, Kurt and Wyatt Russel play different versions of the same character. Both were a lot of fun and probably the best parts of the show.

One important thing to note is that while the show is called Legacy of Monsters, there are minimal monster attacks. There are a few in some episodes and Godzilla does show up a few times but don't go in expecting big monster mayhem like in the movies. This is very much a show focused on the human character and Monarch, not the monsters.

However, there are a few elements that hold this show back for me. I did feel like the show meandered just a bit in the middle section. There were a few episodes that felt more like filler than they did actually add to the story. I also felt that the Kentaro character was rather insufferable. He was a whiny jerk who just wanted to pout about his dead dad at the beginning of the show and a whiny jerk pouting about his hard life at the end of the show. He only has a small moment of redemption when he stops pouting long enough to actually help his friends. Finally, I felt that the show was a bit rushed in the final two episodes of the show. I think the show could have spent more time exploring the ideas introduced in those final episodes. I also felt that some of the characters that were dominant towards the beginning kind of faded into the background in these final episodes.

In the end, this was a solid enough show that told an interesting story about the impact of monsters on the world. Story wise it is better than the movies, but the movies are more fun and action-packed so it really depends on what you are looking for.

Score: 8/10 Grade: B+

Recommendation: Check it out if you like the Godzilla Monsterverse movies.