Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.06: Terrifying Miracles

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Terrifying Miracles

In “Terrifying Miracles,” “Monarch” spreads its subplots all over the place before focusing back on the important stuff. In 1955, Keiko and Bill Manda head to Japan, where a scientist has invite a gamma ray simulator that can communicate – or attract – Titans. Lee Shaw follows them, only to discover that Godzilla is very much still alive. In 2015, Rogue Monarch agent Michelle – apparently the sister of Juliette Binoche's character from 2014's “Godzilla” – frees Lee Shaw. They track down Cate, Kentaro, and May in San Francisco before getting back on the trail of Hiroshi Manda. They find him in Algeria, where he's working with a gamma ray simulator. Monarch is close on the group's tails though, after May began informing to them last episode. They arrive in Africa just as the King of the Monsters reawakens. 

The previous “Godzilla” TV show, the anime “Godzilla Singular Point,” was one of the most dispiriting watches in my recent memory. That program frequently sidelined the giant monsters everyone watching wanted to see in favor of some of the most impenetrable technobabble I've ever had the displeasure of sitting through. “Monarch,” in spite of all its flaws, hasn't sunk quite that low... However, there's a moment in “Terrifying Miracles” that started to give me “Singular Point” flashbacks. The Monarch agents find Hiroshi's apartment and start to reason out the map Kentaro and Cate discovered last episode. This leads to a lengthy conversation about satellites and gamma rays. Thankfully, the episode stopped just before my eyes completely glazed over. Yet the fact that the writers felt any of this shit was relevant to explain really exposes the weaknesses of this show.

Even if “Monarch” doesn't get quite that ponderous about justifying its sci-fi bullshit, the show still has far too many subplots. The first half of “Terrifying Miracles” is about getting everyone in place so that, ya know, the story can actually begin progressing. After five episodes of chasing shadows, Hiroshi and his kids actually get a good look at each other. This occurs at the same time Godzilla pulls himself from the Earth, just in time to clip through the antagonistic Monarch agents chasing the good guys. The fact that Cate and Kentaro are immediately separated from their dad minutes after finding him again is incredibly annoying... Yet “Monarch” is still actually moving forward in a meaningful way, instead of yanking on all of our metaphorical dicks.

Unavoidably, the facts of the matter remain that the fifties set scenes about Monarch's origins are way more interesting than the 2015 plot. This episode shows that there's some romantic tension between Keiko and Lee. I'm not all that invested in that, though Wyatt Russell and Mari Yamamoto's chemistry did sort of suggest it already. Either way, the storyline actively devoted to pursuing monsters is what the entire show should've been about. Most importantly, the MonsterVerse series continue to show the right mixture of awe and terror whenever Godzilla is on-screen. Even if he, once again, doesn't actually do much in this episode, just his appearance is made into an event. There's also a cute shout-out to the Showa era “Godzilla” films during this flashback. 

Being the kind of show it is, the minute “Legacy of Monsters” starts to get good, it immediately goes right back to focusing on the shit nobody cares about. The final minutes of the episode is devoted to petty squabbling among the heroes. May's dishonesty is brought up, that character continuing to be a festering tumor on this show. Hopefully, now that Godzilla is awake and active again, and the Randa kids have located their dad, “Monarch” can finally turn into a worthwhile show. Instead of devoting itself to one tease after another. [6/10]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.05: The Way Out

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: The Way Out

After being rescued from the Alaskan tundra, Cate, Kentaro, May, and Lee are delivered right to Monarch. While Shaw is held captive by the agency, Cate, Kentaro and May are freed. The trio is given a flight back to San Francisco. There, Cate meets up again with her mother, Caroline. Still determined to locate their missing father, Cate and Kentaro sneak into the area of the city still left in ruins by Godzilla and the M.U.T.O.'s battle the year before. This brings back painful memories of what Cate lived through during Godzilla's march through the city, how she lost the woman she loved and the students entrusted to her care. 

“Legacy of Monsters” favoring a hit-the-ground-running style of pacing means we are five episodes into the series and just know learning anything about Cate's actual backstory. We discover that she was a school teacher and was about to move in with a woman named Dani before G-Day. And, apparently, she was not faithful to her during the relationship either. This suggest why Cate carries so much guilt around. She blames herself for the kids who died under her watch, the latest in a long line of personal failures she can't forgive herself for. As much as she blames her father for abandoning her and her mom, Cate feels like she is no better. Boy, I bet we would've been a little more invested in everything this character had done up to this point had we actually known some of this information beforehand!

By the way, Cate's flashbacks to the events of 2014's “Godzilla” are the only giant monster action in this whole episode. Instead, the focus turns towards some decent world-building. While at the airport, May comments on an advertisement for luxury, kaiju-proof bunkers. The military has quarantined off the destroyed parts of the city, supposedly to discourage looting. (Though one assumes there's a deeper reason for this.) All of this shows the consequences of humans sharing the world with giant monsters now. While the Legendary films have focused mostly on the Titan-on-Titan combat, one of the benefits of a TV show is the chance to give us a more ground-level perspective on these events. Of course entire cities would be ruined in the wake of a kaiju grudge match. Obviously, capitalism would have purely mercenary response to these events. 

While “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” is clearly trying to build up its world and cast, I'm still having trouble caring all that much. Revealing that Cate cheated on her girlfriend does not make her the most likable person. Meanwhile, the show is especially struggling to make May an interesting character. We discover here that she has some sort of double identity and secrets of her own. This kind of writing – that teases viewers along with the promise of eventually revealing something relevant – is exactly what I hate about most modern genre television. It doesn't help that Kiersey Clemons is so clearly checked out by this point. She seems practically asleep in more than a few scenes. Which is really problem when the episode's emotional center revolves around her calming Cate during a PTSD flashback.

Ultimately, “The Way Out” is not one of those episodes that prove all that satisfying on their own. Instead, this is an hour devoted largely to setting up future plot points. Shaw hints at further secrets unknown even to the top officials at Monarch. There's more foreshadowing that some sort of catastrophic event, presumably another Titan emerging, is forthcoming. The heroes are still on the trail of their missing dad. Episodes like this, in-between points on the way to more exciting events, are a big problem when you plot your TV show like a ten hour long movie, instead of engineering each episode to stand on its own. Thus are the perils of modern, serialized television. [5/10]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.04: Parallels and Interiors

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Parallels and Interiors

"Monarch" reaches its lowest point yet with "Parallels and Interiors." Out on the Alaskan ice, Cate, Kentaro, May, and Shaw flee from the Frost Vark. They evade the monster but not before May injures herself. Kentaro exits the quartet in search of a structure he spotted earlier during the plane ride. The other three continue on towards a light on the horizon but only end up back at the crash site where they started. That's when the ice-spewing Titan attacks again. Kentaro, meanwhile, stumbles around in the cold. He's haunted by memories of his father and his first meeting with May, a year prior on the night his art show opened.

The episode takes its title from Kentaro's in-universe gallery debut. (Which features fractured images of people's faces projected onto three dimensional structures of some kind.) He refers to the name as "pretentious" but that doesn't stop "Monarch" from attempting to grab some headier ideas for itself. Director Julian Holmes literalizes the title, by shifting the episode largely between the vast Alaskan tundra and the interiors of various rooms in Kentaro's flashback. The story goes even more interior in its last third as Kentaro, lost on the ice, begins to hallucinate visions of his father, present events and his memories blending into each other. Considering the show has struggled thus far to make Kentaro a compelling lead, making such a big leap into his inner mind comes off as hopelessly ambitious. "Monarch" has not displayed the depth necessary to pull something like this off. 

If Kentaro strikes the viewer as bland, at least he's not actively unlikable the way May is. We learn these two met when she stepped in front of a poster for his art show, just as he was taking a photo of it. She then asked him to delete the picture, taking him for a possible creep or something. Not exactly a charming meet-cute! The episode struggles to make their first night out compelling after that, suggesting that the air of mystery (or, more accurately, vagueness) around May is obscuring not much at all. In the present day scene, she falls through some ice into freezing water, slowly beginning to catch hypothermia. Which sucks, sure, but "Monarch" does the character no favors by having her constantly complain to everyone before and after this moment. Kiercy Clemmons, given nothing else to work with, plays the character as bitchy and moody. 

Somehow the show's least promising subplot involves a Monarch scientist, stationed at "Outpost 47," picking up some distressing radiation signals. This is a more obvious nod towards "The Thing," that was probably inevitable in a show that features Kurt Russell wandering around a frozen landscape. While Carpenter's classic really made you feel the freezing isolation of such an event, "Monarch" can't capture the same atmosphere. In fact, you never feel like the characters are that inconvenienced by the blowing wind, plummeting temperatures, and rough terrain they are stranded in. They hike freely over the rocky hills and ice-covered ground without a single bead of moisture on their faces. Even after May's injury or Kentaro collapsing in the snow, "Parallels and Interiors" completely fails to illustrate how challenging and life-threatening this setting is. This does a lot to deflate any tension the episode could've had. 

With little else going for it, "Parallels and Interiors" at least has the good sense to throw in some giant monster action. The Frost Vark continues to hassle the heroes, tunneling under the ice, absorbing heat sources, and spewing freezing breath. Russell's rock steady charisma makes Shaw's fight against the beastie the highlight of this episode. (Even if it's completely impossible to believe that this guy is in his 90s, as the previous episode implied.) Still, Russell attempting to blow up a sci-fi monstrosity only makes up a few minutes of an otherwise tedious hour. [5/10]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.03: Secrets and Lies

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Secrets and Lies

In case you missed that the third episode of “Monarch” is about “Secrets and Lies,” that exact thematic concern is named in dialogue several time. In 2015, Cate, Kentaro, and May give Lee Shaw the motivation he needs to escape the Monarch facility he's being held in. The quartet afterwards head to South Korea, where they meet Du-Ho, an old friend and contact of Shaw's. After searching through their dad's documents, it is determined that Cate and Kentaro's father is probably hiding in the Alaskan mountains. Upon arriving, they are attacked by an ice-spewing beast. In 1954, the nascent Monarch run by Lee, Keiko, and Billy convinces the military to give them the uranium they need to lure out a Titan... Which the government uses as a chance to build a massive bomb with the intention of killing the monster. They test the device at Bikini Atoll, coming face-to-face with a very familiar saurian creature.

Obviously, one of the main gimmicks attracting people to “Monarch” is a chance to see Kurt Russell be bad-ass again. “Secrets and Lies” does indeed deliver on this, if briefly. The opening sequence of Shaw spinning a rental car around the Monarch compound is a compelling car chase. Even after that action beat ends, Russell's affable charm and cocksure smirk remains undeniable. He manages to elevate exposition heavy scenes and more dull hand-wringing about the family melodrama at the series' center. He adds a lot of energy to the show. As does Bruce Baek as Du-Ho, a goofy character that operates as disposable comic relief that Baek manages to make somewhat convincing.

If “Monarch” was a show just about hanging out with cool, action hero grandpa Kurt Russell and his wacky Korean buddy, it would probably be a lot more entertaining. But, no, of course, these are only supporting roles. Instead, “Monarch” is all about Cate and Kentaro grappling with the legacy of their deadbeat dad. There's one amusing moment, where the two half-siblings bound over their dad's habit of leaving pencil shavings all over the house. Otherwise, it's fairly turgid stuff. As uninvolving as this plot point is, I still care about it more than whatever melodrama is going on between May and Kentaro. Kiersey Clemons is a decent actress but she is so totally wasted in this crabby, pointless role. Meanwhile, an attempt to get us involved in the deeper leadership struggles within Monarch is even duller.

Three episodes in and the flashback sequences still remain the main reason to watch “Legacy of Monsters.” This episode even provides us with a closer look at the Bikini Atoll bombing scene, glimpsed briefly in Legendary's first “Godzilla” movie. Yes, the Big G actually appears on-screen in this episode... But don't get too excited. There's a lot of dramatic build-up, as Keiko hates the government's decision to destroy what she sees as a rare, magnificent species. The camera careens along Godzilla's scutes and tail as he surfaces. It's all building to... Godzilla standing there and looking at the nuke before it goes off. I'm reminded of Patton Oswalt's bit about the “Star Wars” prequels, which examine a big problem programs like this have. Prequels take place before all the interesting stuff happens. And so, “Monarch” trots out one of cinema's greatest monsters just to have him stand around on-screen for a few minutes. 

Perhaps the show runners were aware of what massive teases they were being with this scene. Maybe that's why they throw in more monster action during the episode's final moments. After landing in Alaska, our 2015 gang of heroes are attached by a monster that resemble a star-nosed mole. (And reminds me a bit of the hot-headed naked ice borers.) This is an exciting scene, that gets right into the monster's bizarre jaws, as it attacks an airplane. The creature – which Wikizilla informs me is called a “Frost Vark” – has freezing superpowers, showing the MonsterVerse's full commitment to comic book logic at this point. It's a solid ending to an otherwise mediocre episode, making sure I'll be coming back to watch the next installment. [6/10]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.02: Departure

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Departure

In its second episode, half of "Monarch's" two-pronged story line moves forward while the other goes backwards. In 2015, Cate is pursued through Tokyo by Monarch agents determined to reclaim her late father's secret documents. Teaming again with her half-brother Kentaro and his hacker friend May, they hunt down a retired government agent named Lee Shaw. Shaw assures them that there is more to their father's story than they are being told. Meanwhile, in 1952, we see how the young Shaw first met Monarch scientist Dr. Keiko and cryptozoologist Bill Randa. While escorting Keiko through the Philippines, on the trail of a mysterious radioactive signature, the trio will come face-to-face with an enormous monster out of local legend.

With “Departure,” it becomes apparent what the motivating plot point of the 2015 storyline will be. Cate and Kentaro believe their father to be dead, all the secrets he took with him never being resolved. Instead, upon meeting Lee, the possibility that dad is still alive and just in hiding rears its head. It seems the sins of their father – in the form of aggressive Monarch agents pursuing them – will be revisited upon the children. Hunting Hiroshi down and confronting him allows his kids a chance that people rarely get in real life: An opportunity to make an absentee father reap what he sowed. And anybody with a shitty dad, and years of unresolved issues along with one, can relate to that.

Yet the simple fact of the matter is I don't really care about Cate, Kentaro, and their daddy drama that much. Hiroshi (seemingly) exited the story before the show even began, making it difficult for the viewer to be invested in him. The show leaped right into Cate going on this journey, uncovering all her father's secrets, without establishing anything about her first. This also makes it hard to care about how all this stuff effects her. Meanwhile, Kentaro is characterized as a belligerent jerk. What ever the lingering tension between him and May is interests me not at all. You can see the show desperately trying to make this storyline compelling. There's a chase through a train station and a car crash afterwards. Kurt Russell appears in the final scene as the modern day Shaw, as an obvious plea to viewers to keep watching. But, as of this moment, I'm really having trouble caring.

This is a snag seemingly all “Godzilla” adjacent media must grapple with: The viewer is always going to be more interested in the monsters than the people. There's a simple solution to this and it's one “Monarch” is already doing. In the 1952 scenes, our human heroes are actively pursuing the kaiju. See, that piques our interest. That's a dynamic scenario, casting the protagonists as cryptozoologists one step behind these mysterious beasts. It also doesn't hurt that Wyatt Russell's take on Lee Shaw is by far the closest thing this show has to a likable protagonist at this moment. I also like the chemistry he has with Mari Yamamoto as Keiko and Anders Holm as Bill Randa. (Even if it seems improbable to me that the latter ages into John Goodman only twenty years after the events portrayed here.)

There is another problem facing even this half of “Monarch” however. Ya know, I don't know what it is about modern kaiju shows but they simply cannot feature more than a little bit of monster action every episode. The most recent “Godzilla” anime really had this problem, constantly teasing the viewer with a proper appearance from the titular monster without ever really delivering on it. At least “Monarch's” premise of a government organization tracking Titans – not all that dissimilar to the concept of the 1998 “Godzilla” Saturday morning cartoon, somehow still the best “Godzilla” TV show – is more compelling than the unending avalanche of pseudo-scientific technobabble bullshit that occupied most of “Singular Point.” At least “Monarch” has the excuse of being a live action show, which presumably has to balance its budget and be more discerning with its monster action than an animated series should have to be. This is probably why Godzilla himself only has a cameo in a flashback here, while another monster – a dragon-like entity – doesn't appear until the final sequence of the episode.

As disappointing – if understandable – that “Monarch” is so stingy with its giant monsters, it must be said that “Monarch” is doing the kaiju action extremely well so far. The final set piece of “Departure” sees the show embracing a horror atmosphere. Bill and Keiko crawl through a battleship abandoned in the middle of the Filipino jungle. It's caked with slime, making us wonder what the hell kind of monster is responsible for this mess. When the ship starts shaking and massive claws start breaking through the wall, our curiosity is even more piqued. There's a certain claustrophobia to people trying to escape a very tight setting as a monster rips it apart. Cool shit! If “Monarch” can summon that kind of intensity every episode, this might turn into a decent show after all. [6/10]

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Episode 1.01: Aftermath

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Aftermath

When Max Borenstein wrote 2014's “Godzilla,” he insists that Legendary Pictures had no plans for an interconnected series of films built around Toho's menagerie of giant monsters and Warner Brothers' film rights to King Kong. Even though the movie came out during the hay-day of post-”Avengers” lust for cinematic universes among movie studios. However, it must've been on someone's mind, since Toho did something kind of similar back in the sixties. By the time “Kong: Skull Island” was in production, Legendary's producers were full-steam ahead with the idea. Not only where Godzilla and Kong going to fight in a future film, it would be part of a whole network of movies and shows. 

Most attempts to copy Marvel's massive success have died on the vine. While the so-called Monster-verse has not become the cultural juggernaut Disney's cape movies did, the franchise has done pretty well for itself. Nearly a decade after Legendry's first “Godzilla” the series only numbers four films. However, as a fifth installment looms, the MonsterVerse has finally begun to move into TV. Or, at the very least, prestige, big budget streaming service programs. Following the release of a mostly ignored “Kong” animated series on Netflx in June, a live action program launched on Apple TV+ last November. “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” sought to expand the background of Legendary's Godzilla/Kong adjacent world, with the same level of star power and special effects fans have come to expect from the movies.

The first episode, “Aftermath,” establishes the structure of the series, leaping between the early days of Monarch and the wake of Godzilla's first battle with the M.U.T.O. threat. In 2015, Cate Randa – a survivor of the chaos in San Francisco – travels to Japan. She's there to close out an apartment owned by her recently deceased father. She's startled to discover an older woman and younger man living there. Turns out her dad had a whole other family on the other side of the world. Soon, Cate is working with Kentaro, the half-brother she didn't know existed, to uncover the mysterious documents their dad left behind. Meanwhile, in 1959, Bill Randa and Keiko Miura – Cate and Kentaro's grandmother – track down Titan eggs in a partially radioactive city in Kazakhstan. They are accompanied by Monarch officer Leland Shaw, soon inadvertently waking a whole nest of monsters. 

Judging from the first episode alone, “Monarch” already feels like two different shows. The scenes set in 2015 attempt to ground this universe of giant monsters in more human concerns. Cate's discovery that her father wasn't just unfaithful to her mother, but actually have a second life in a different city, is the kind of fallout dad's all too often leave behind. It's a reveal that's decently handled. Anna Sawai seems to be a decent enough lead and I like the somewhat antagonistic energy she shares with Ren Watabe, as Kentaro. Yet the sequences devoted to bringing in May, some sort of hacker played by Kiersey Clemons, to decode the Monarch documents come off as perfunctory. It's all set-up for more important events down the road and that's exactly what it feels like. 

In other words, “Monarch” is already struggling with something nearly every “Godzilla” movie has to deal with: The unavoidable fact that the audience is here to see the monsters and that the human storylines, all too often, feel like an obstacle to that. With that in mind, it's unsurprising that the 1959 sequences are more compelling. Wyatt Russell as Lee Shaw has a little bit of his dad's charisma, making Lee already an action hero we can follow. The scene devoted to the monster eggs hatching, unleashing a horde of beasties that recall both Toho's Shockirus and Meganulon, generates some tension. If nothing else, the image of a nest of glowing, orange eggs with little, insectoid monsters inside, nestled within a dilapidated silo, is a worthwhile one.

This is not the only monster action in the episode. The opening scene takes place during the events of “Kong: Skull Island,” showing John Goodman running from an enormous spider just to encounter some kind of rock-like crab beasts. Godzilla also makes a brief appearance as Cate recalls the events in San Francisco. And these scenes are pretty well done, carrying the trademark MonsterVerse balance of showing awe and respect to the kaiju while piling on pulpy action. Yet my favorite detail from “Aftermath” are the little bits of world-building. That Tokyo has instated regular drills for kaiju attacks, people filing into underground, monster-proof bunker. Or that there are even conspiracy theories surrounding the monsters, some people believing the events of “Godzilla” to be an elaborate hoax. If giant monsters were real, there would definitely be Godzilla truthers.

“Aftermath” isn't a bad hour of television. Matt Shakman – previously of “WandaVision” – knows how to direct spectacle like this. The enormous bugs of the final scene are properly skin-crawling and the episode ends on the kind of hook that keeps you coming back. Whether “Monarch” will build to a satisfying whole remains to be seen. “Aftermath” has its moments while also feeling a little tedious at times. Hopefully a stronger balance will take root soon. [6/10]

NO ENCORES: The Mighty Kong (1998)

1. The Mighty Kong

Director: Art Scott

“King Kong” was considered so shocking in 1933 that it supposedly sent audience members fleeing from the theater in terror. Even from a modern perspective, there's a certain unnerving ferocity to the scenes of Kong chomping on people or crushing Skull Island natives under his feet. Despite that, people – and children especially – loved the enormous, murderous gorilla. Only thirty years after Marian C. Cooper's killer creation terrorized viewers, the big ape had been reconfigured into a fangless figure for youngsters. “The King Kong Show” was the simian star's debut in animation, a 1966 Saturday day morning cartoon that recast the killer ape as a hero that fought mad scientists, robots, and aliens at the command of a precocious kid. This was far from Kong's last appearance in animation either. In fact, a new “Kong” cartoon tends to appear just about any time the big monkey rampages across theater screens. 

This is not the case with “The Mighty Kong,” which appeared directly on video store shelves with little prompting in 1998. In fact, there's not much behind-the-scenes information on this obscure, usually forgotten motion picture. Which is frustrating because its mere existence raises a lot of question. Doing a cartoon based on “King Kong” is one thing but transforming the classic horror film into a low-budget, Disney-style animated musical is a bizarre idea. “The Mighty Kong” was the sole directorial feature of Art Scott, who got his start as a writer with Disney in the forties before working extensively with Hanna-Barbera Television from the sixties onward. I have no idea if “The Mighty Kong's” unlikely logline was Scott's idea. Maybe the project had its origin with producers Lyn Henderson and Denis deVallance, both of whom worked extensively in the music industry. Either way, it remains probably the oddest part of Kong's cinematic legacy. Known almost exclusively by animation nerds and kaiju obsessives nowadays, “The Mighty Kong” is usually regarded as the worst “Kong” movie in a world where “King Kong Lives” exists. 

Like most slightly off-brand versions of this story, “The Mighty Kong” is not based on the classic 1933 film. Instead, it's an adaptation on the novelization of Cooper's script by Delos W. Lovelace, which was published a year before the film and notoriously fell into the public domain some time later. This means “The Mighty Kong” still more-or-less follows the outline we're all familiar with. Even relatively minor scenes – like Denham directing Ann in a screen test on the boat's deck or the Skull Island locals climbing aboard via a chain – are maintained. However, there are some minor differences. Such as Carl Denham being named C.B. Denham, the boat being called something different, and Jack Driscoll encountering a triceratops on Skull Island, instead of a stegosaurus. 

However, the story we all know is here: In the thirties, stage producer and director C.B. Denhem plots a trip to the mysterious Skull Island for his next motion picture, which he promises will be an epic. He recruits struggling actress Ann Darrow off the street to star before the crew – which includes Jack Driscoll – pile onto the boat. They make the journey to Skull Island, which is a dangerous place inhabited by killer dinosaurs and savage natives. And, of course, an enormous gorilla god named Kong. Ann is abducted to be Kong's latest sacrifice, the ape falling in love with her. Denham and his team knock Kong out with sleeping gas and take him back to New York City, intending him to be the biggest star on Broadway. Instead, the gorilla breaks loose and goes on a rampage. 

Of course, “The Mighty Kong” also changes many details in order to make it suitable for young children. (And condensed the runtime down to 71 minutes.) Kong doesn't eat or kill anybody. Neither do the dinosaurs on Skull Island. The giant gorilla doesn't split the T-Rex's jaw open. Instead, he just bops it on the head and knocks it unconscious. A kid sidekick named Ricky is added to the boat's crew, who has his own sidekick in the form of a monkey named Chip. Most prominently, the ending is altered. Kong still grabs Ann Darrow and climbs the Empire State Building. However, he's not gunned down by biplanes and falls to his death. Instead, the huge ape is grabbed in a massive net hulled by a blimp, which breaks his fall enough for him to survive the climatic swan dive. 

Yes, “The Mighty Kong” has the audacity to rewrite the most famous tragic ending in monster movie history. However, by the time you get to that point, the cartoon has already sucked all the grandeur and terror out of the story. Quite a lot of extremely pedestrian slapstick is added to the premise. A large-nosed camera man stumbles and falls all across Skull Island. The natives of Skull Island are reduced to farcical figures, rotund bodies hidden behind clownish masks or face paint. When Kong escapes his shackles on Broadway, his rampage across Manhattan results in nothing but comedic set pieces. And, folks, let me tell ya, most of these gags are pretty fucking dire. The physical comedy is designed to be as toothless as possible. 

No decision robs the “Kong” story of its foreboding atmosphere or hair-raising adventure more so than turning it into a musical. It's not that people bursting into song and dance seems all that improbable in a story that already includes a giant gorilla and living dinosaurs. Instead, the quality of the music is more the issue. “The Mighty Kong” managed to lure in the Sherman Brothers, legendary Disney songwriters, to provide the songs. Needless to say, this does not represent their best work. The opening number, “Wild Animal Follies,” and the song Denham uses to lure Ann into his plan, “Lotusland (Hollywood),” are incessantly catchy in a very annoying manner because the sound and lyrics are so inane. The inanity reaches its peak with a number called “Dolly of Pa-Pali,” where Ann imagines herself as a Polynesian queen during questionable fantasies. As lame as these songs are – they are all repeated several times – the film's worst number is its love ballad. “I've Known You All My Life” is a warbling, discordant song full of romantic clichés. Worst, it forces Ann and Jack together into a romance that's never hinted at in any scenes before this one. 

The songs and presence of a cute animal sidekick makes “The Mighty Kong's” other main inspiration all the more apparent. Yes, this film is one of the many attempts to copy the Disney formula that flooded the market in the nineties. Unlike other coattail riders of the Disney Renaissance, “The Mighty Kong” couldn't afford much in the way of decent animation. The character designs are bland. Ann looks like a generic blonde Barbie heroine, Driscoll looks like a more hirsute version of Prince Eric. Some of the more minor characters, such as the Skull Islanders or that cameraman, are outright ugly. While the film is ostensibly set in the thirties, Ricky looks like a reject from “Wish Kid.”

There's one or two moments when the animation has something like a fluid quality to it, such as Kong's first appearance or when he escapes his shackles. Or when a duo of lobsters are dancing. (Don't ask for context.) However, the animation is mostly janky, the movements often stiff and weightless. The colors are bright but indistinct, the backgrounds lacking detail. The subpar quality of the animation is especially notable during the musical numbers, which sometimes resort to roughly drawn still images. The love ballad is devoted to weird, star-like images flashing on-screen. Animation of this quality would be about standard for a middling Saturday morning cartoon of the time, well below what you'd expect from a feature length film. 

I recall seeing advertisements for “The Mighty Kong” in Disney Adventures Magazine as a kid. Those paper ads highly promoted the presence of Dudley Moore and Jodi Benson in the voice cast. Benson's presence, as Ann, makes the movie's desperate attempt to emulate Disney's blockbusters all the more obvious. Benson is clearly not invested in the material. Moore, in what would be his final credit before his 2002 death, at least provides a little bit of pep and energy to the part of C.B. Denham. Not that the script gives any of the voice cast – most of which is not noteworthy – much of anything to work with. The dialogue ranges from prefunctory to asinine. 

I've long heard about how lackluster “The Mighty Kong” is. The film's many detractors are not wrong. This is cheaply assembled slop meant for the most undiscerning of kiddie audiences, a bastardization of a classic character and story. Still, the movie is not as totally wretched as it could've been. It doesn't reach the depths of even more pathetic direct-to-video animated schlock, like “Titanic: The Legend Goes On” or that Christopher Columbus cartoon. This is admittedly a very low bar indeed to clear. Morbid curiosity got the best of me with this one but I cannot recommend “The Mighty Kong” to anyone but the strictest of “Kong” completists. In the varied landscape of bizarre and dispiriting “King Kong” spin-offs – which includes at least one other attempt to turn the story into a musical – this definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. [3/10]