{"id":313059,"date":"2026-02-27T13:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/313059\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:22:10","slug":"kurt-russell-versus-godzilla-is-perfect-b-movie-escapism-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/313059\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Russell versus Godzilla is perfect B-movie escapism \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether starring in John Carpenter\u2019s<\/a> pulp masterpieces The Thing and Escape from New York or Roland Emmerich\u2019s spiffing sci-fi fandango Stargate, Kurt Russell<\/a> has a claim to the title of greatest B-movie actor of his generation. <\/p>\n

With that sort of CV, it isn\u2019t surprising that the now 74-year-old is resplendently at home in the second season of Apple\u2019s romping, stomping Godzilla spin-off, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Apple TV+<\/a>, Friday).<\/p>\n

The series is distantly connected to the Godzilla v Kong films that have been wreaking havoc at the box office since the pandemic. Due to budgetary constraints, the big beasties have less screen time in the Apple series \u2013 but how could they hold a candle to the magnificently craggy Russell in any event?<\/p>\n

Russell is a US Army veteran, Lee Shaw, a monosyllabic former hunter of giant monsters who has fetched up in the present day after falling through a time portal. <\/p>\n

Back in the 1950s, the young Shaw (played by Russell\u2019s son Wyatt) was part of an elite unit on the trail of Godzilla and other oversized \u201cTitans\u201d \u2013 during which he struck up a forbidden romance with Keiko (Mari Yamamoto), girlfriend of his best pal, cryptozoologist Bill (Anders Holm \u2013 playing a character portrayed in grumpy middle age by John Goodman in 2017\u2019s Kong: Skull Island).<\/p>\n

That organisation would go on to become Monarch \u2013 an X-Files-type shadowy outfit sworn to protect humanity from Godzilla and his kindred bonkers beasties. Awkwardly for Shaw, the present-day Monarch also includes Cate (Shogun\u2019s Anna Sawai) \u2013 the granddaughter of his old flame from the 1950s.<\/p>\n

This complicated family tree stands alongside a fun monster-of-the-season story in which Monarch chases a new \u201ckaiju\u201d that has followed Shaw through a time portal. It\u2019s a semi-aquatic horror, angry and confused by its sudden relocation to the 21st century, and, for reasons that gradually become clear, is followed everywhere by a flotilla of dog-sized killer bugs.<\/p>\n

The action bounces between the 1950s and the present day \u2013 an excuse for the story to flip from the young Shaw\u2019s Indiana Jones-style pulp adventures in a fictional South American country to a modern techno-thriller unfolding largely in Tokyo. <\/p>\n

In both cases, the going is enjoyably pacy, and Russell is obviously having the time of his life as he squares up to Godzilla, Kong and pals. It\u2019s not clear that the giant lizard is aware that he is sharing the screen with a big beast of the modern B-pic, but he should be honoured to have Russell in hot pursuit.<\/p>\n

Godzilla has been on an upward trajectory since 2023\u2019s Godzilla Minus One won a special effects Oscar. That movie was a cerebral meditation on Japan\u2019s<\/a> war guilt, its meditative tone worlds removed from the jet-fuelled gonzo capering of Legacy of Monsters. <\/p>\n

But not every Godzilla movie has to be a metaphor for trauma \u2013 and in giving us Kurt Russell versus Godzilla, Apple ticks all the right B-movie boxes. What comes roaring across the screen is the perfect pulp escapism \u2013 and a welcome refuge from the real monsters stomping all over our news headlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether starring in John Carpenter\u2019s pulp masterpieces The Thing and Escape from New York or Roland Emmerich\u2019s spiffing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8932,146,85,46,1437,40916,48350,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-313059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-japan","13":"tag-john-carpenter","14":"tag-kurt-russell","15":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}