Monarch: a neat but frustrating Godzilla series (review)

A series of monsters with few monsters… Obviously, it’s frustrating, even if the origin story of the monsterverse is not lacking in interest.

There is always a child of wonder who awakens in us when Godzilla appears on screen, both majestic and terrifying. The spectacular design of the most famous Kaiju is indeed the main success of the saga monsterverse, developed for a decade by the studio Legendary Pictures. When she places Rodan or King Kong in her way, we devour our popcorn. But do we really want to devour the origins of Monarchthe international organization that tracks the monsters in question?

The answer is rather yes, in the footsteps of this ambitious and careful spin-off series, which takes place in two different eras: first in 2015, just after G-Day (understand the devastation of San Francisco by the Dantesque confrontation between Godzilla and MUTO, in the first film of the monsterversethe one signed Gareth Edwards) following a curiously broken family, who discover the power of Monarch. At the same time, the series takes us back in time to the 1950s, to present the origin story, where how the founders of Monarch encountered Kaijus for the first time, before creating this very secret agency.

The narration is intelligent and carefully thought out. The decorum of the post-World War II Pacific has character and the cast of characters is not lacking in interest, headlined by Kurt Russell (in the present) and his son Wyatt Russell (in the past) who play the same role with a 30-year gap, and it works perfectly!

The problem is that no matter how much they tell us stories about the origins of the thing, about the men behind the organization and about the discovery of the existence of the Titans, what we want is see monsters! Biblical fighting with Kaijus who destroy everything or kill each other. Gold, Monarch is a little stingy on the subject. Certainly, its bestiary introducing new creatures is quite cool, but, weighed down by its length, the series spends a lot of time beating around the bush and ultimately proves too poor in terms of Godzilla. We are willing to swallow some of the family troubles of ordinary drama, but we should be rewarded in return with a minimum of clashes of the Titans… And Monarch does not provide complete assurance in this area.