I really wanted to like Monarch Legacy of Monsters currently showing on Apple TV.
Growing up, Godzilla movies were always fun because they didn’t take themselves too seriously and weren’t actually scary like Frankenstein. There seemed to be some relationship between the kaiju and possibly some continuity between movies, but because we watched whatever showed up on channel 43, it was never clear. A TV show with modern production values and the time to layout a good story should be entertaining.
Monarch Legacy of Monsters doesn’t push The Message, but does go wrong in two big ways.
It isn’t clear what the casting director was going for. On the plus side, Kurt Russel is quite energetic at 72 years old and does a quality job. He elevates the entire show. His actual son, Wyatt Russel, plays the same character as a young man. That works very well as the show cuts between modern day and events that happened fifty years ago.
Modern events involve Kurt Russel, and three young adults. The young actors aren’t clever, attractive or likeable. May is an American living in Japan who does “computer shit”. It’s never clear, but probably a dark web hacker. May is abrasive and pretentious, but is a friend and one-time lover of Kentaro Randa. Kentaro is a Japanese artist who acts like a shy freshman who got paired up with the prom queen. He is the half-brother to Cate Randa who is a Japanese-American who acts like a conceited high school senior from a posh private school.
They act like people who think they are popular because they have friends on social media. That would be 4Chan for May, Instagram for Cate and Reddit for Kentaro.
Along with the poor casting choices, Monarch suffers from bad writing. The dialogue might be okay if the actors were better, but it’s the plot that doesn’t work. The modern characters are trying to track down the early work of the Rando kids’ grandfather who helped found the Monarch organization. The Rando kids’ father was also investigating Monarch. He has disappeared and is always one step ahead of his kids.
After watching five episodes, it feels like a poor imitation of Lemony Snickets. The Baudelaire orphans were trying to track down the secret work of their parents, but at least they had charisma and were clever.
Monarch Legacy of Monsters isn’t unwatchable, but it’s hard to care if the young investigators get eaten by a monster. There are plot holes and their actions don’t always make sense, but the viewer hopes a monster will show up or the show will improve. Call it a 6/10.