Twinning a TV series with a big screen franchise is a notoriously tough thing to do – just look at the thankless work that Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. had to put it – but while the MCU now works overtime to fill up Disney+ with content and James Gunn gave us the marvellous Peacemaker to go with the DCEU, no one else has tried to attempt something so ambitiously complicated.
It’s probably why I was so surprised that Legendary’s Monsterverse has decided to throw its XXXXXXXXXXXL hat into the ring with Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters, a show that seems determined to thoroughly explore the Godzilla/Kong franchise that’s been diligently ticking over since 2014. If we’re being blunt, it’s a timeline that’s not exactly been obsessively pored over the way Star Wars, the MCU or even the convoluted Fast & Furious movies has – but by bouncing around the decades while filling in the gaps, Monarch might actually be in with a shot of changing that…
We start on the complicated timeline in 1972 as we rejoin William “Bill” Randa as he experiences the horrors of Skull Island first hand and after surving Kong’s initial, helicopter punching assault and a battle between an oversized crab and spider, he hurls a bag full of Titan related secrets into the sea before ultimately meeting his fate in the digestive system of a hungry Skullcrawler. Skip forward to 2013 and the bag – clearly marked Monarch – is hoisted out of the sea by a group of fishermen who have no idea what they’ve just unearthed.
Fast forward to 2015 and it’s been one year since Godzilla gave San Francisco a violent makeover and Cate Randa is travelling to Japan in order to sort out some mysterious affairs after the death of her father, Hiroshi. Beyond her father’s death, Cate is still in rather a delicate state as she is suffering flashbacks and PTSD from actually being on the Golden Gate bridge when the King of the Monsters got into an impromptu brawl with the military. However, things are about to get even more distressing when she finds out that dear old dad actually had a whole separate, secret family in Japan and she has a half brother in the form of the similarly suspicious Kentaro.
Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan back in 1959, we find a younger Bill Randa and his wife Keiko working for the fledgling Monarch as it searches for more Titans after the organisation’s discovery of Godzilla years before. With doubtful military liaison Lee Shaw in tow, they find that the area – which should be toxic – has been leeched of all background radiation and that in a pit lurks a bunch of ominously glowing egg that, in true Monsterverse fashion, will eventually hatch with tragic consequences.
As Cate, Kentaro and Kentaro’s techie ex, May, discover that their father is in possession of Randa’s data pouch, they begin an odyssey to try and untangle the conspiracy of Monarch and any secrets they’ve been hoarding.
It’s a fair statement to say that, as its progressed, the Monsterverse has gotten progressively less serious as the films have gone by. Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla was a gritty, gloomy, deathly serious affair that saw giant monster battles underlit with smoking flares while the latest installment, Adam Wingard’s Godzilla Vs. Kong, was an altogether brighter affair with the two beasts bludgeoning each other in a neon soaked China. However, as Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters follows directly on from Edwards’ installment, it’s a far sterner, serious affair than the franchise has been striving for of late due to the conspiracy plot that fuels it. And yet, despite all the furrowed brows, this is devoutly the Monsterverse with a prologue giving us not only a glimpse of Kong, but a cameo from John Goodman as the ill-fated Bill Randa who kicks everything into gear as he hurls all of his Monarch findings into the seas of Skull Island. Later, we get a replay of the San Francisco attack from a different, traumatic, point of view as Godzilla’s pre-fight rampage causes Anna Sawai’s Cate Randa to go face-to-face with the roaring Kaiju as it causes a bus full of kids to fall to their deaths. Not only are both respectful recreations of moments from other films, but it’s the first, real, connective tissue the franchise has used that truly fuses the franchise together into a tangible universe despite the odd Skullcrawler cameo and the repeated hiring of Milly Bobby Brown.
From here, Monarch starts to lay out its grand master plan: to create a time-hopping story that unravels its secrets in the present (well, 2015 at least) while examining its history from the first discovery of Godzilla after being rudely awoken by the bombing of Hiroshima.
Thus we get two, very different worlds as, in the first, we explore a post “G-Day” world where Godzilla shelters are dotted around everywhere and missile launchers are a common sight on the streets of Japan. However, in the second story that runs parallel, we get a more adventure orientated tale that follows a young Bill Randa and his wife as they search the globe for more proof that different Titans exist and it’s this, multilayered storytelling that singles out Monarch as possibly the most smartest Monsterverse entry to date with only one episode in the can. Dropping the crush/kill/destroy tone of the movies for something far more subtle, the franchise may have finally cracked the issue that the previous stories detailing the small, squishy humans weren’t that interesting. Stirring up intrigue in its 2015 segments due to Cate finding that her father had secrets far beyond “just” having a secret family, we’re essentially unlocking Monarch from both ends and a genuinely can’t wait to see the show tackle other significant monster moments in its history.
And as for the monsters? Well, anyone who was worried that a TV budget couldn’t handle the King if the Monsters and his towering peers, needn’t have worried as we not only get a Godzilla flashback, a Kong cameo abd fight between two of Skull Island’s more spikey residents, but we also get a 50s-set bug invasion that claims the life of one of the characters – however, even though Godzilla is barely on-screen for thirty seconds for the whole episode, director Matt Shakman makes sure his presence is keenly felt with warning posters everywhere and an evacuation drill drawing chilling memories from Cate.
So with the revelation that Cate and Kentaro’s grandmother was Bill’s wife, Kei, Monarch’s first episode is off to something of a roaring start, although maybe as the timeline gets more convoluted more could be done to keep things clear; for example, at first I didn’t actually realise that Goodman and Anders Holm are both playing the same character. However, for the Monsterverse’s most complex entry yet, Monarch has the potential to rule over them all.
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