Kaiju fans, something awesome is coming your way. Apple TV‘s Monsterverse series, which boasts a more than impressive 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is headed back to the small screen with its second season in just five more days. So you have less than a week to wait for tense drama and even more intense monster battles—not a terrible wait when you think about it, especially with father-son duo Kurt and Wyatt Russell returning.
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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stars Anna Sawai, Kurt Russell, and Ren Watanabe, and is set in 2015, one year after Godzilla’s reappearance in San Francisco and the deadly battle that took place there. Half-siblings Cate and Kentaro Randa set out to investigate their missing father’s connection to the covert organization that tracks and monitors the giant monsters known as Titans, or MUTOs (“Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms”). The story also spans two generations earlier, focusing on Bill Randa and Keiko Miura, two scientists who become involved in the early development of Monarch, the group Cate and Kentaro are investigating in the future.
Monarch is a Series With a Ton of Heart
Monarch honors the tropes that make kaiju projects so fun to watch while also adding an interpersonal spin that keeps it deeply grounded and human. Couple that with the gamble the show took in focusing on the human element, along with the cast’s incredible performances, and you have a show that, despite dragging in certain places, is immensely entertaining and gripping. While monster battles have their place, the heart of the series lies in its characters. Critic Rohan Nahaar says, “A multigenerational family saga masquerading as a globe-trotting adventure, the sprawling show has more in common with Apple’s own epic drama Pachinko than with the action-packing MonsterVerse series of films.”
But there is still absolutely a place for giant beasts to battle it out, and Monarch does not skimp in the special effects department, giving audiences a series that is as action-packed and gritty as it is heartfelt, even if it does so on a smaller scale than the Monsterverse movies that came before it. All in all, it brings horror, humor, and a bit of romance as it tackles issues you wouldn’t expect in a series that centers on the reemergence of giant monsters in the modern world. Belen Edwards of Mashable sums it up best, saying, “The richness of Monarch’s world — and its glorious, glorious monsters — keeps the show intriguing even when it gets bogged down in the MonsterVerse’s oft-maligned human affairs.”
Are you looking forward to the second season of Monarch? Let us know your favorite moments from the first season in the comments. And don’t forget to head over to the ComicBook forum to keep the conversation going.
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Image Courtesy of Big Finish -
Image Courtesy of TOHO
