Commentary: ‘Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters’ Channels ‘Men In Black’
by Frank Martin
When it comes to stories about secret government agencies, it’s hard to think of a franchise that embodies this concept more than Men in Black. That story takes the premise to a ridiculous degree with transforming cars, advanced weaponry, and some of the most elaborate secret bases the imagination can come up with. It works the concept so successfully that it practically invented an entirely new genre involving government secrets with aliens and more. Even though it’s primarily a Kaiju thriller show, the AppleTV+ series, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, enters this genre as well.
The show is about many different things, but the primary driving narrative — at least in the modern timeline — follows a young woman, Cate (Anna Sawai), whose father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), is believed to have perished when Godzilla attacked San Francisco in 2014. She travels to Japan to use a key to a home he owned, only to discover that he had an entirely different family over there. Together, she and her half brother, Kentaro (Ren Watabe), try to uncover their father’s secrets, which means investigating not just Kaiju but also a secret government organization that tracks and tries to stop the monsters called Monarch, which their father was a part of.
Eventually, the siblings are brought into the Monarch offices and get a first-hand look at how they operate. In typical secret government fashion, Monarch has a state-of-the-art monitoring system and command center. But the show takes a realistic approach to this genre, something Men in Black has no need for. So Monarch is still riddled with everyday office problems. This includes boxes being stacked in the hallway and unnecessary bureaucracy. Seeing Monarch like this is a very interesting contrast to the secret government motif that Men in Black pioneered and takes a much different approach towards the genre.
Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters is now streaming on Apple+.
