Hit Monkey (2021) Is Marvel's Successful Gamble - Review
- Zebediah Oke
- Nov 30, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 21, 2021
Based on a comic by Daniel Way and artist Dalibor Talajić, Marvel’s Hit Monkey is… a mismatch of murderous mayhem unlike anything I’ve ever seen. This is going to be a rare situation where I don’t start this review with any sort of summary of what the show is about in case people reading this haven’t seen it and I’m being careful about how I word the spoilers in this review. In the context of this crazy, roller coaster-ride of a show, I am almost certain that all the spoilers I write will absolutely not make sense until you watch it. Just watch it. Please. Honestly.
Alright.... Now I’m gonna go into the ebbs and flows.
Flows
Writing
One of the things that surprised me about Hit Monkey was how naturally the story progresses. When the series establishes Monkey’s (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) end goal, it seems utterly impossible. But as Monkey tears his way through the Japanese underworld, he discovers dribs and drabs of information as he goes along. The story progresses fluidly in a way that keeps us on our toes.
Great “filler” episode
Later in the series, Bryce (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) and Monkey end up parting ways. In their separation, Bryce is faced with spiritual annihilation, he reflects on the events that lead him to being an assassin. Meanwhile, Monkey returns to his home to find a new clan has moved into the pools. After saving one of their young, he becomes the new clan’s protector. This episode is such a great change of pace, in a show that is mostly focused on relentless murder, a breather where both characters have the chance to come to personal realisations–about themselves and each other, adds to the emotional weight and stakes of the show.
Originality
I’ve never seen anything like this.
Let me be clearer… I’ve seen the individual elements of this show executed and executed well. (TV show about nonverbal protagonist? Primal. TV or films about a ghost, who, on a quest for eternal rest, needs to solve a mystery? Throw a stone from the 80s to mid noughties. Set in Japan? Well… I’m somewhat of a weeaboo myself).
But I’ve never seen them all mixed together in one place like this.
Ebbs
“Start stories where they begin”
The series starts with Monkey taking out a bunch of yakuza members, only for the story to cut to earlier. I think it’s a played out technique that the show didn’t need. It could’ve easily started with Bryce handling his business in Japan and had us wondering what a Monkey had to do with it all.
Jason Sudeikis
I’ve always found Jason Sudeikis bittersweet as an actor–someone who’s not quite unfunny but whose jokes rarely land. He managed to hit a professional sweet spot in his portrayal of Ted Lasso–but as Bryce, he backslides into a grating character. Bryce’s compulsion to never take anything seriously often interferes with the stakes of the show. He even takes the realisation of his own imminent demise with such levity that you feel bewildered by his death, almost foreseeing that he received the inevitability his own death so comically that he can’t possibly be dead (it also makes you wonder how he managed to get as far as he did as an assassin–an industry that is notoriously known for the meticulousness and focus it requires). Popping off a few good one liners here and there, sometimes the show gives us too much Bryce and not enough breathing room.
Rushed ending
After revealing a surprising twist, Hit Monkey launches gun-first into the finale and ends up climaxing too soon. The pacing of the last episode of the series feels rushed, with almost too much happening in the show’s closing moments to really allow us to process what has happened. It doesn’t quite stick the landing for me.
Conclusion
Hot off the heels M.O.D.O.K, Hit Monkey is an interesting and weird addition to the Marvel animated pantheon. And I have to admit, it’s quite a gamble of a show. The main character is a sentimental, vengeful primate in a suit being guided by a smartmouth assassin ghost, as they violently blast their way through the underbelly of Japan. It shouldn’t work and it’s not a sentence that I thought I’d be writing in 2021 but, let’s be honest, it’s not the most unbelievable thing to happen in the last 2 years. Despite dealing with primates and souls damned to wander, Hit Monkey achieves and explores something refreshingly human–and at its centre, has a deep meditation on what it means to kill, either in service or for revenge and the toll of violence on those who are peaceful by nature. As much as I have my gripes with the pacing towards the end of the series and Jason Sudeikis’ insufferability–I think Hit Monkey isn’t something that any review can do any justice… Again. Just watch it.
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