David Farnor | On 19, Nov 2023

What do you want from a monster movie? Monsters, right? That’s where the Monsterverse – as Legendary’s quietly expanding franchise has dubbed itself – has consistently impressed on the big screen. Since 2014’s Godzilla, it’s tapped into the awe, fear and sheer spectacle require for a satisfying creature feature. That this has often come at the expense of the human collateral running between the kaijus’ legs/tails/wings/horns/insert-nightmarish-appendage-here is par for the course, with a string of characters (and starry cast members) just fleshed out enough to meet the minimum emotional quota.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters arrives after four films and the animated Skull Island series, and with its 10-episode season length, it needs more than just a monster mash to keep viewers hooked. The good news is that it nails the balance between big and small, filling its runtime with intimate human drama to match its stomping set pieces.

We begin a year after the events of the 2014 film, with school teacher Cate Randa (Anna Sawai) attempting to move on from the trauma of “G-Day” – when a whole school bus of people met their tragic end. Travelling to Tokyo, she’s hoping to settle her father’s affairs, but finds an affair of a different sort, including a hidden second family and a half-brother, Kentaro (Ren Watabe), who is as surprised and confused as she is. When then unearth some secret documents relating to the monster-hunting organisation Monarch, they end up working together – along with Kentaro’s tech-savvy ex, May (Kiersey Clemons) – to find out more.

Rewind to the 1950s, when we’re introduced to Bill Randa (Anders Holm) – who will go on to appear in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, played by John Goodman. He’s an eager cryptozoologist who stumbles into a partnership with scientist Keiko (Mari Yamamoto), who’s investigating the same phenomenon (and giant footprints). They’re accompanied by military escort Lieutenant Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell), who will go on to appear in the same TV series in the modern-segments. Playing the older Lee Shaw? Kurt Russell.

It’s an inspired casting decision for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that Kurt Russell remains as impossibly charismatic as you remember. He sinks his teeth into the growling exposition, gruff one-liners and grim determination to face down whatever Titans are waiting to gobble the nearest human up.

But Kurt’s casting also adds a welcome extra note to Wyatt Russell’s casting as the young Shaw. Wyatt is equally charismatic as he juggles a youthful earnestness with a cynical edge, while also knowing when he needs to follow orders from his military superiors – paving the way for Kurt’s more reckless roguishness.

The writing team, led by Chris Black and Matt Fraction, lean into that cross-generational contrast, while also jumping between Cate and Kentaro’s grandparents and the young descendants trying to piece together their legacy. While the show’s title might glibly sum that up as a legacy of monsters, the series knows that the monsters have also represented more than just creatures – from a reflection on nuclear destruction to a response to the climate crisis, they channel trauma with every radioactive breath. By fusing that with family heritage, the result is a layered ensemble piece that explores how humans respond to catastrophe – whether that’s dread, guilt or conspiracy theories.

That’s foregrounded from the off as we follow Cate’s arrival in Tokyo, where passengers are sprayed with pointless decontaminant and Godzilla lanes mark evacuation routes. Anna Sawai, fresh from the superb Apple TV+ drama Pachinko, is excellent as Cate, who is haunted by the PTSD of G-Day – and her flashbacks are a smart way for Sawai to blend her emotional journey with the suspense of Godzilla sequences. At the same time, she and Ren Watabe ensure that their segment of the narrative is driven not by something abstract but by a personal desire to connect with the enigma of their absent father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira).

Between that and the love traingle playing out in the older time period, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters marks perhaps the first time in the live-action series that humans have felt constantly as important as the creatures. But director Matt Shakman makes sure the show doesn’t skimp on the big stuff either, packing in wonderfully inventive monsters on wild islands, in packed cities and across snowy landscapes. With the added threat of Monarch agents – Joe Tippett’s near-fanatic Tim and Elisa Lasowki’s threatening Duvall – pursuing our young heroes, the result is a romp that takes its time without losing momentum. What do you want from a monster TV series? This’ll do very nicely.

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