If you were a DCU conspiracy theorist, you might have something to say about the subtext of a new story in the expanding shared universe that presents its envious hero with a shiny new alternate reality where everything is a dream come true. And while that’s not for me to say, one of the most notable things about Peacemaker Season 2 is that it has so much depth given what it appears to be on the surface. Because, like Season 1, John Cena’s Peacemaker is very, very different to Superman. Now that I’ve sat on the first five episodes, I’m also convinced it’s better.

This is not a cheap shot at Superman, by any means, because I liked the first DCU movie a lot. It was almost everything I wanted, but the accusations of it being a little… busy, let’s say, did ring true. And watching Peacemaker Season 2, you get to see what might have been if Gunn had the same amount of time to flesh out his Superman story. And make no mistake, this is very much a James Gunn joint, even though he’s only marked director on three of the eight episodes. It’s just not exactly the same one who made Superman.

Peacemaker Is Definitely the Grown-Up Side of the DCU

Peacemaker Season 1 generated a lot of conversation thanks to the creative team — and Gunn at its head, of course — embracing far more outrageous subject matter than the Snyderverse had dared to; than any DC property had dared to, actually. Or Marvel for that matter. Pot shots were taken at DC superhero royalty (including scatalogical accusations), there was near-nudity, drugs, swearing, and the unthinkable claim that Wookiees have teeth in their buttholes, and yet it still managed to have heart and depth. Peacemaker Season 2 pushes all of the naughty stuff, right from the start of Episode 1, and uses the multiverse to tell a disarmingly deep story.

That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, though, because while Gunn handled the god-like majesty of Superman, he’s proved repeatedly that he has a way with broken, seemingly irredeemable characters. If you thought making you care about Rocket Raccoon was impressive, it’s nothing compared to how compelling Gunn makes Cena’s redemption tour as Peacemaker. Episode 1 features a sequence that belongs on The Boys as a backdrop to Chris’s existential crisis, and the juxtaposition of full-frontal nudity and heartfelt message storytelling works perversely well. It also features another exquisite C-bomb (and as a Brit, I can confirm Harcourt is right about the meaning).

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Some of the more NSFW elements will no doubt lead to accusations that Gunn is being provocative for the sake of it, but it’s mostly well-balanced, thanks to the substance. The story is more compelling than some of the jokes suggest. Alongside Cena, Jennifer Holland happily gets more story as Emilia Harcourt, Freddie Stroma is reassuringly great as dangerous dipsh-t sidekick Vigilante, and Steve Agee is again good as John Economos. The only slight casualty of the story this time is Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo, whose story is just a little less interesting than I wanted it to be.

Cena’s performance, meanwhile, is once again genuinely charming and just goofball enough without him becoming a victim of the jokes. When you look back at his WWE career — and indeed, the wider circus-like context of “sports entertainment” as a whole — you get all of the background to this layered performance. As Peacemaker, he manages to be both clown and charismatic hero; provocative and empathetic, and I genuinely can’t wait to see him return. It all makes a lot more sense when you go back and watch him rapping before crowds of thousands of adoring fans who made him the hottest ticket in WWE for a long time.

Peacemaker’s Return Makes It 3 out of 3 for James Gunn’s First DCU Releases

But of course, this isn’t just a continuation of a popular show: Peacemaker Season 2 was also tasked with integrating Gunn’s precious pre-DCU treasures into the new timeline (according to whichever rules he wanted to bend). That means quite a few Superman characters return, notably including a more prominent role for Frank Grillo as the vengeful Rick Flag Sr. He’s good, but you will struggle to see how he’s the same character as the one previously seen in Creature Commandos.

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The other new cast members include David Denman in a role I’m not allowed to reveal, Tim Meadows (who has lots of fun as an oddball ARGUS agent), and Michael Rooker as Eagly’s nemesis, Red St. Wild. They all integrate seamlessly, which is important, because Gunn has been very insistent that this whole canon-defying gambit was going to work. And when the explanation for how Peacemaker is still DCU canon despite everything, it’s incidental, while also feeling like Gunn is winking at you over the back of the TV. If it means I get more Peacemaker, I honestly couldn’t have cared if it was 70% less well-handled, but I didn’t have to worry about that.

Peacemaker Season 2 has the same flood of heart as Superman, is another excellent exercise in world-building, and by virtue of feeling more like a pure expression of Gunn as a creator, I’d confidently say it’s the better of the two. It almost goes without saying that the music is also typically brilliant. So, all in all, that makes it the third success in a row for the DCU for me, so I think we can all agree that the franchise is in the right hands.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Peacemaker Season 2 debuts on HBO Max on August 21st.

The post Peacemaker Season 2 Might Genuinely Be Better Than Superman (Review) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Stop-motion animation has always had a home with Adult Swim. Experimental animation has been a part of the brand since its very inception, and success with shows like Robot Chicken, Morel Orel, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole have proven that stop-motion animation could stand right next to all of the other animated favorites. But Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is starting a whole new kind of era with Adult Swim, as not only is it stop-motion animation, but it’s entirely in Spanish with English-language subtitles. It’s looking to break through the ceiling with Adult Swim, and it makes a strong case for doing so.

Adult Swim has been further experimenting with showcasing non-English language series with subtitles through anime releases on Toonami, but Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is one of the first non-anime shows to do so. Adult Swim fans couldn’t ask for a better first impression of this whole new world of animation possibilities. Gonzalo Córdova and the creative team at Cinema Fantasma’s newest animated series is everything great about classic telenovela hits, but injected with just the right amount of wackiness and imagination that’s perfect for Adult Swim.

Women Wearing Shoulder Pads introduces Marioneta Negocios (Pepa Pallarés), a wealthy woman coming from Spain to the town of Quito, Ecuador, with the intent of breeding guinea pigs as pets and starting a massive empire. But in this town, guinea pigs are the size of bulls and Matadors like the mysterious Espada (Kerygma Flores) kill them for sport. Soon, everything starts getting chaotic in Marioneta’s life as she has a rival, Doña Quispe (Laura Torres), a masked stalker, revolutionaries who want to free the guinea pigs, and more. It’s all a struggle as all these people hate (or love) Marioneta for one reason or another.

The first thing that you’ll immediately recognize about Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is that it’s incredibly gorgeous and well put together. Thanks to the team behind Cinema Fantasma (Frankelda’s Book of Spooks), Quito is full of life and has a color palette that’s just wonderful to look at. This extends to every single one of the characters, as each of them has a stark design that stands out from one another, and just looks incredible in motion. While we’ve seen stop-motion work with Adult Swim in the past, it honestly has never quite looked as good as it does here. This show really just goes next level with how it puts a scene together.

For example, there are a number of rain scenes across Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, which are just a marvel to see in motion. There’s one, in particular, as Marioneta is breaking up with someone before getting kidnapped shortly after, that’s lit in such a way that it captures a perfect vibe. All the while, these characters are moving with intricate emotions, with beads of rain cascading down without interruptions. It’s just so captivating that, on top of whatever is happening in any given scene, you can’t help but be absorbed in looking at it all go down.

What helps in this matter is the type of story Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is telling. This is going to be the first experience that many animation fans have with soap operas, and that’s especially true for the telenovelas produced in Latin America. These shows share a lot of similarities with daytime soap operas in the United States, but aren’t afraid of a harder edge, or to make its characters unlikeable. Marioneta is a driven woman, and as a result, has a huge target on her back. It’s like the world revolves around her, and thus, characters are wearing their emotions on their sleeves.

There’s a healthy dose of drama and intrigue throughout the series, and even a fair bit of eroticism to help give it even more energy in motion. Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is just packed to the brim with energy; not only are the characters fierce and have clear motivations, but through the episodes, it all coalesces into a finale that weaves all of their separate paths together. It’s just so intriguing of a watch, and each new episode leaves you waiting for the next one, much like the best of TV’s soap operas.

But it’s not all serious, and that’s where the true magic of Women Wearing Shoulder Pads lies. Because while it might be playing its story and universe straight, it very much uses the fact that it’s stop-motion animation to be a little wacky. It’s a show where guinea pigs are the size of cars, and it’s also where you can see a duck willingly throw itself into a paper shredder. Then Marioneta will hilariously pay it no mind because it’s all just part of her world. She’s someone who will just naturally accept she has multiple stalkers who love her because she believes she’s that great.

These characters and moments aren’t wacky just for the sake of being wacky — the humor stems from a character like Marioneta working her way through the world, and seeing how everyone else bends around her. She’s so well realized as a lead character that the rest of the drama around her becomes compelling. Couple that with other standout characters like Espada, who spends the season dealing with the fact that her love for Marioneta goes unrequited, and it’s just a splendid watch.

Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is unlike anything you’ll see on Adult Swim. It’s a compelling soap opera, with an all-female cast, that’s not afraid to go for hilarious visual gags or random jokes when there’s space for it. It’s also just a sublime work of art to see it in motion, and by the end of the season, you’ll be asking for more.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Women Wearing Shoulder Pads premieres with Adult Swim on Sunday, August 17th at midnight.

The post Women Wearing Shoulder Pads Review: A Telenovela Perfect for Adult Swim appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The 2022 debut of Wednesday became a cultural phenomenon, setting viewership records for Netflix and driving viral social media trends. This level of success makes a follow-up season an immense challenge, and, for better or worse, the series returns to live squarely in the shadow of that achievement. Season 2 of Wednesday wants to tell a bigger and bolder story, with a clear intent to lean more heavily on horror than the teen drama that shaped its first year. However, this goal is consistently dragged down by an attempt to play it safe, as a proliferation of subplots designed to preserve every element of Season 1 ultimately leaves the new season feeling bloated and unfocused.

After a delightfully macabre cold open establishes Wednesday’s (Jenna Ortega) summer activities, she is thrust back into Nevermore Academy, where her past heroism has transformed her into an unwilling celebrity. Her closest friends — Enid (Emma Myers), Eugene (Moosa Mostafa), and even Bianca (Joy Sunday) — bask in the newfound attention, but Wednesday, naturally, despises it.

Meanwhile, the school itself is under new management, with the suspiciously cheerful and corporate-minded Principal Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi) eager to boost donations and school spirit after the demise of Principal Weems (Gwendoline Christie) in Season 1. At the same time, the enigmatic pop star Capri (Billie Piper) has abandoned her celebrity career to become the new music teacher, raising immediate suspicions. These new authority figures present their own mysteries, all while a new murder investigation connected to former sheriff Galpin (Jamie McShane) pulls Wednesday into a conspiracy threatening the entire Outcast community.

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This narrative overload is only compounded by a dizzying array of personal and familial conflicts. A stalker begins sending threatening messages the moment Wednesday returns to school, her psychic visions start to fail her at critical moments, and the Addams family becomes a constant presence at Nevermore. Her parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán), are more involved than ever, while her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) enrolls for his first year, leading to a subplot about his calamitous attempts to make friends. On top of all this, the season juggles the mystery of a long-lost aunt, Ophelia, and the dangling plot threads from Season 1, including the fate of the Hyde (Hunter Doohan) and Bianca’s connection to the Morning Song cult. Even with four hour-long episodes, the sheer volume of storylines the series tries to service is simply too much to handle.

This refusal to edit itself is the season’s greatest weakness, as in its attempt to address every fan’s desire, Season 2 of Wednesday sabotages its own ambition. For instance, it amps up the horror, as promised, but refuses to sideline the high school drama, creating a constant tonal tug-of-war. Plus, the series commendably steers Wednesday away from the first season’s romantic entanglements, a move Ortega herself championed, only to saddle Enid with a love triangle that feels like a vestigial limb from the previous year. By clinging to every ingredient from its successful recipe, the show becomes thematically scattered. So, at the end of Part 1, it’s unclear what the season is truly about, as its central message is buried under an avalanche of subplots that are introduced and resolved at a breakneck pace.

A foundational issue from its predecessor also persists; the essential charm of the Addams Family has always been their blissful ignorance of their own strangeness within a “normal” world. Placing them in a school for “Outcasts” forces the series to render its supernatural student body remarkably conventional in order to preserve the Addams’s signature strangeness. This puts the Addams in the awkward position of being outcasts among outcasts, which undermines the very concept of what it means to be an Outcast inside the show’s proposed lore.

Despite these significant structural flaws, Wednesday remains a compulsively watchable piece of gateway horror. The core cast is so charismatic that they manage to disguise many of the script’s shortcomings, and the decision to promote the larger Addams family to series regulars proves to be the season’s greatest strength. Guzmán is a scene-stealing delight as Gomez, and Zeta-Jones brings a concerned maternal depth to Morticia’s relationship with her daughter, even if the script doesn’t give the theme the space it deserves. Above all, Fred Armisen is having the time of his life as Uncle Fester, whose dedicated episode features some of the most creative and gleefully fun sequences the series has ever produced.

On a technical level, the series continues to impress. The direction is sharp, and its commitment to stylized, gothic cinematography is a welcome departure from the murky visuals that plague many streaming productions. While the frantic pacing forces some choppy editing choices, it works as well as it can with the overstuffed material. As the unwavering anchor of the show, Ortega continues to deliver a solid performance, embodying the titular character’s confidence and intellect with a precision that elevates every scene she’s in. Finally, the show’s philosophy, that being different is something to be celebrated, remains fully intact, providing a satisfying throughline for fans.

Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 is a creature of compromise — it is an entertaining, if unwieldy, return that succeeds on the charm of its cast and its slick, horror-lite aesthetic. It is held back, however, by a palpable fear of alienating its massive audience, resulting in a fun but frustratingly directionless story. While it will likely satisfy fans, it may also leave them wondering if, in this case, less would have been much, much more.

Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 premiered on Netflix on August 6th, with Part 2 slated to debut on September 3rd.

The post Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 Review: Bigger, Bolder, Bloated appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Alien franchise is tricky: at first glance, Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic is a simple thing: a claustrophobic battle with a nightmarish monster, in the most perilous environment: a highly concentrated dose of sci-fi/horror tropes. However, as time has passed (and Alien expanded into a massive franchise universe), it has become increasingly clear that Scott injected a great deal more complexity into his film than it initially seems: Dark ruminations on biology and birth; deeper sci-fi quandaries about artificial intelligence vs humanity; socio-political concerns about corporate corruption and class warfare, and genetic theories about mutation and evolution that evolve with the times. Well, modern-day television auteur Noah Hawley (FX’s Fargo and Legion) is no stranger to tackling the headier concepts buried in pulpy genre fare. It’s not that surprising, then, that he takes bold and expansive creative strides forward with the concepts and themes of the Alien franchise, in its first TV series, Alien: Earth.

The series is set in 2120, two years before the USCSS Nostromo would discover and harvest the xenomorph lifeform on LV-426. For the first time in the Alien franchise, we get a look at Earth itself, a planet now ruled by three megacorporations and the trillionaires who run them. As fans know all too well, the Weyland-Yutani corporation is already one generation deep into the nefarious task of scouring the galaxy for the most dangerous lifeforms that can be engineered into bio-weapons. The company vessel USCSS Maginot is headed back to Earth with the most dangerous samples that have been collected over the decades-long voyage; due to mysterious circumstances, the ship gets sabotaged and the monsters get loose, causing the Maginot to crash-land. Unfortunately for Weyland-Yutani, the crash site is a skyscraper belonging to rival megacorporation Prodigy, which is owned by the youngest trillionaire in history, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). Boy has been taking leading strides in the race to achieve post-human evolution with the hybrid beings known as his “Lost Boys,” a group of terminally ill human children whose consciousnesses are transferred to adult android bodies. However, when Boy realizes what is on the Weyland-Yutani ship, alien bioweapons become his only immediate focus, and he sends his Lost Boys to retrieve them.

Alien: Earth manages to succeed where so many other television spinoffs of film franchises often fail: it finds a way to justify its long-form format. The series is smartly paced across its eight-episode run; slower stretches of character development and world-building segue smoothly into several key arcs of action-horror that feel on par with the feature films. FX doesn’t side-step the production demands: the set pieces, costumes, creatures, and overall visual effects feel cinematic when required, even if other scenes of dialogue or development use more budgeted means like blue screen backgrounds to save on budget. If nothing else, Alien: Earth is proof of concept that the franchise “works” in the TV format.

The cast and characters are more of a mixed bag. There are clear standouts in the lead ensemble: Sydney Chandler (daughter of actor Kyle Chandler) is something of a breakout surprise as Wendy, nailing the subtlety and nuance of a young girl relocated to an adult body, learning and evolving faster than anyone can predict. Timothy Olyphant (Justified, The Mandalorian) is also a scene-stealer as Kirsh, an elder synthetic who manages the Lost Boys squad. Olyphant is one of the better character actors working in TV, and the idiosyncratic manner in which he plays a machine man could be an entire show all its own. Samuel Blenkin is up there with Olyphant, tightrope walking a line between naive child and tech-bro mogul who’s a smiling, scraggly-haired sociopath. Rounding out the list of breakout actors is Babou Ceesay as Morrow, the cyborg security officer of the Maginot who takes up his own clandestine mission to recapture Weyland-Yutani’s lost assets. Other members of the cast (like the other members of the Lost Boys, or Boy’s team of scientists, or Yutani herself) don’t feel like crucial parts of the ensemble, and at times weigh down the otherwise tight pacing.

While it is, overall, a dark and thrilling immersion into the Alien universe, Earth isn’t immune to criticism. As usual, Hawley’s idiosyncrasies are a big part of his cinematic style (love it or hate it); Alien: Earth certainly reflects a lot of them. Spiraling camera shots; slow, quiet sequences of characters reflecting and/or contemplating, and those long musical montages that periodically re-establish where things now stand. And, of course, there are the sudden swerves from the expected storytelling path into the kind of detours that feel like they could derail a series in the hands of a lesser showrunner.

As with any long-form TV series that’s built off a movie, there are inevitable points of lag in Alien: Earth, or subplots that just don’t carry the same gravitas as others. Luckily, Hawley keeps the majority of the screen time where it needs to be focused: on the peril that is either already happening or about to strike. He is especially adept at creating compelling sci-fi concepts to explore. That includes Wendy, the Lost Boys, and their evolution from children into advanced androids, or the choice to make the new alien creatures characters in and of themselves, with a surprising amount of scenes dedicated to their… “point of view.” Those sequences are wonderfully weird and creepy, even if they ironically reduce the xenomorphs to being the least interesting feature of the show. Clearly, Hawley was disappointed that a franchise called Alien hadn’t done more with creature concepts. Finally, amidst the thrills and horror, there’s a good amount of mystery spread out across the series, resulting in some fun ways to play with the timeline, and/or drop twist reveals in later episodes.

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The two-episode premiere is going to give fans plenty of reason to invest in Alien: Earth, initially, but it will be the doom-heavy intrigue (more so than the characters) that will keep them coming back for the rest. After Alien: Romulus successfully rekindled the franchise’s theatrical viability, Alien: Earth is a strong indication that TV will be the final piece needed for the franchise to be firing on all platforms (movies, television, gaming, comics). It’s also another indication that FX-Hulu is on a good run of making great prestige-level genre TV a regular staple of its programming (see also: Shogun).

Alien: Earth will stream its two-episode premiere on August 12th. You can stream it on FX-Hulu.

The post Alien: Earth Nails the Horror and Expands the Universe With New Sci-fi Intrigue (Review) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

3 years after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made more than $850m at the global box office, one of Marvel’s most lucrative sub-franchises is finally back. There’s a pretty significant twist on the established formula in Eyes of Wakanda, which is both animated and an anthology show, leaping through the Wakandan timeline hundreds of years. It’s bold, creative, and beautifully made, but is it actually good?

The animation certainly is: for the third major Marvel Animation show in a row, the style changes. X-Men ’97 was more like the original show, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man married a more traditional comic aesthetic with modern 3d animation, and now Eyes of Wakanda looks a lot like award-winning series Arcane. That level of creative freedom and space to experiment is why animation is such a welcome branch of the MCU, particularly when cynics point at the homogenous feel of Marvel’s tentpole live-action releases. It looks great, is very stylish, and takes obvious and well-considered visual clues from African art.

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The choice to make an anthology series and jump around in history (first in the 1200 BC period, then 1400 AD and finally to 1896) is a good opportunity to see how Wakanda’s advancements compare to the real world. It’s also a good chance to see more of Wakanda’s rich heritage, but I honestly wish there’d been a bit more of that. As it is, seeing some of the technology they had available to them 3000 years ago feels a little comical, even knowing what we know of Wakanda.

The voice acting is, somewhat typically, excellent, and the choice to introduce mostly brand new characters means avoiding distractions. And there’s enough in the appearance of an Iron Fist, and the double-header surprises of the final episode (no spoilers here) to tie things to wider MCU lore without paying too much service to it. Instead, it plays a little like a superhero Forrest Gump meets Quantum Leap, showing flashes of real history and how Wakanda was always involved on the fringes. The fact that one of those historical events is Homer’s Odyssey (soon to be adapted by Chris Nolan, of course), is an added bonus. It’s still a bit odd though.

Up until the final episode, Eyes of Wakanda feels like a bit of an animation exhibition. It’s entertaining enough to see more of Wakanda, and the building blocks of the modern version in the MCU, but there’s not really major stakes. And then the finale snaps things into relevance a bit more thanks to a genius twist that retroactively ties the episodes together a bit. It does, however, rely on some rule-breaking that only the beard-strokingest of MCU fans will care about. But rules are important, children, and it can’t go unnoticed.

Who do I recommend Eyes of Wakanda to, then? Well, not younger kids, that’s for sure, because it’s surprisingly violent, and the socio-political undercurrent is a bit dry. History fans who appreciate factual fidelity will also probably squirm. That said, it’s definitely one for Black Panther franchise fans who appreciated Ryan Coogler’s world-building, and a nice reminder for Marvel Studios themselves that this part of the MCU is far richer than the limited number of Wakanda projects so far might suggest.

Final Verdict On Eyes of Wakanda

In the end, I’m left feeling like most people will be: Eyes of Wakanda deserved to be longer, or just a bit more substantial, and instead of a series, comes off like a special event. That’s not inherently a terrible thing, but there was more potential here, and I would probably have liked the finale storyline to be at least another episode long. The visuals are top tier, which goes a long way, of course, and the storytelling is mostly entertaining (if a little side-swiped by some odd humor), it’s just not quite substantial enough to be truly memorable.

Score: 3 out of 5

All 4 episodes of Eyes of Wakanda are streaming on Disney+ now.

The post Black Panther’s New Spinoff is Beautiful but I Wanted More – Eyes of Wakanda Review appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Television revivals have become an increasingly popular idea in the last few years, as many classics have returned for new reboots and more. Some of these revivals have even gone as far as bringing back members of the original cast, but it never quite feels the same as the original. This is natural, thanks to the passage of time, of course, as there’s no way a show made years after the original can catch the same kind of spirit. But what if it were actually possible? What if a new revival could match the original in tone, vibe, and material? We’ve finally gotten our answer.

King of the Hill has returned with a brand-new season of episodes, 15 years after the original animated series came to an end with Fox, and Hulu has ushered in a whole new era of the franchise. Bringing back its characters after aging them nearly a decade since the events of the original series, King of the Hill Season 14 is the best TV revival ever shown before. It’s got what you love from the original show, but has added a new layer of complexity that can only come from having 15 years of new experiences to draw from.

King of the Hill series co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels are some of the most experienced creators working in television today, and that’s especially true for Judge, as he has already had experience bringing back a classic animated series for a new generation. Beavis and Butt-Head has been brought back twice, and the second revival with Paramount+ and Comedy Central has laid the groundwork for the kind of new episodes that you’ll see in place with King of the Hill. It was here that Beavis and Butt-Head both aged into adulthood, and fans got to see new kinds of stories with the characters as a result.

This reboot showcased the kind of ideas that could be at play for King of the Hill, and thankfully, the new episodes do indeed follow that same pattern. Aging up each of the characters immediately shows that King of the Hill was brought back because there was a good idea cooking up for it. The original series made its mark as an animated sitcom because, while it told episodic stories, it was all in the serialized lives of Hank and the rest of Arlen, Texas. So, for fans of the original, this new era for the franchise is paying off all of that work done as the characters are informed by everything that has gone down before.

King of the Hill Season 14 picks up shortly after Hank and Peggy end their time in Saudi Arabia. Hank has been working on “Arabian Propane and Propane Accessories” for the Aramco base for the last few years, and has saved enough for him and Peggy to retire. Upon returning to Arlen, he’s discovered how much America has changed with COVID-19, new diets and foods, the rise of new technologies, cultural changes, and more. But even more than all of that, his friends and family have gone through some big changes of their own. Bobby, for example, is now a 21-year-old chef working at a Japanese/German fusion restaurant in Dallas.

Hank’s stories are new, but they carry a great sense of familiarity without feeling like they’re relying too much on that nostalgia. The humor for the new episodes is still derived from Hank’s stubborn reactions to these changes happening around him, but thankfully, they vary in the kinds of struggles he deals with in this new season. It’s no longer that he outright refuses new things, but instead has been internally struggling with how to carry himself in his retirement age. It’s a Hank with time to fill, and he’s finding himself taking on new things to do so — even if he’ll be a little opposed to how things continue to change.

The biggest shift from the original King of the Hill, however, is with Bobby’s half of the story. This is going to be the real make-or-break element of the show for both new and older fans. It feels dramatically different from the original series, thanks to its Dallas setting, but also feels different thanks to the types of stories given to this older Bobby. He hasn’t really changed too much from how he was in the original, as Bobby was always fully realized in who he was as a person, but his side of the story is where we see the most new additions to the franchise. This is also where there are the most bumps on the road.

Not every single new element of Bobby’s half of the story is easy to gel with at first, because it’s all brand new, but the season finds its groove as it continues. Much like the original series, every episode is its own self-contained story, but builds on one another as the characters share more of their lives. So while Hank and Peggy’s main story is focused on how they need to adjust to their new lives filled with so much free time, Bobby’s is instead focused on navigating his young adult life as someone who didn’t go to college like his peers and his chasing his dreams of being a chef. While the two paths might seem distinct from one another at first, thematically, it all falls in line with the original King of the Hill.

There are plenty of moments that offer fans a little extra enjoyment, but King of the Hill Season 14 is built with new viewers in mind as well. It’s true that you’ll enjoy the revival much more if you have experience with the original, but the new episodes are written in such a way that new viewers will still be able to follow (and more importantly, laugh at) everything that’s happening. It’s just so refreshing in how it’s a season that feels nostalgic, but not weighed down by the past.

King of the Hill is not afraid of moving forward with the times and making certain adjustments to fit the modern era. There have been some adjustments to the voice cast, and some new additions to help flesh out Arlen’s world in good ways. But importantly, it never feels like anything has been changed for the sake of change itself. Each one falls in line with the character personalities that fans got to fall in love with all those years ago, but have been given updates that instead make for some awesome new stories. King of the Hill is back, and it really is better than ever.

Rating: 4 out of 5

King of the Hill Season 14 premieres with Hulu on August 4th.

The post King of the Hill Season 14 Review: TV’s Best Revival Yet appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Dexter Morgan is back from the dead and, based on the first four episodes of Dexter: Resurrection, it’s arguably the best he has been in over 15 years. Resurrection is a new sequel series to both the original Dexter series and Dexter: New Blood, a show that ended with Dexter being shot and seemingly killed by his son, Harrison. The show picks up ten weeks after that tragic encounter, with Dexter awakening from a coma with a new lease on life. 

As a free man, he is no longer living under the alias of Jim Lindsay, he is Dexter Morgan legally and spiritually. He heads to New York City to try and reconnect with his estranged son — who has gotten himself in his own legal troubles — while simultaneously being investigated by old friend Angel Batista on suspicions of being the Bay Harbor Butcher. Not only does Dexter have to contend with the skeletons in his closet, but there’s also a legion of other serial killers that trigger his blood lust once more.

Resetting the Kill Table

There’s a bit of a clunky start with some on-the-nose writing via dream sequences, but it quickly catches people up to speed on how Dexter got to this point in his life and establishes his mindset for what’s to come. Dexter: Resurrection also hand-waves some of the stuff at the end of New Blood, which should’ve resulted in Dexter being in handcuffs when he wakes up, but it doesn’t. The writers don’t ignore what happened, and they try to give a reason for why Dexter isn’t behind bars, but it definitely feels like a leap in logic in order to allow the show to exist. Still, the reintroduction of Batista ensures that there are some lingering consequences and that Dexter isn’t fully off the hook.

The stakes are high, but it’s clear that Dexter: Resurrection isn’t another attempt to end things. It’s a show that is resetting the board to be a launch pad for multiple seasons. It’s as much of a soft reboot as it is a continuation. Old series trademarks return, such as Dexter’s blood slides, the M99 tranquilizer, the ghost of his adoptive father Harry, and Dexter’s overall desire to be a vengeful serial killer. There’s no abstinence and no real desire to try to deny who he is. He is Dexter Morgan, a “moral” serial killer who once again wants to balance his vigilantism with being a father, but with no half measures this time.

The entirety of the Dexter franchise is a character study about what happens when a man who believes he’s void of emotion begins to feel, and the disaster that comes with trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Resurrection continues to explore these themes as he finds himself in new territory and questioning if he really can be a father to a child whom he ordered to shoot him. Everything Dexter has experienced has led him to this point, forcing him to reap what he has sown. Resurrection is about Dexter being literally and figuratively resurrected, seeing if he can take this second chance at life as an opportunity for good. 

Although he’s still killing and putting himself in situations that actively endanger his well-being, he is also doing good. He’s not just avenging people; he is also saving those who are in harm’s way and preventing death, something that may suggest Dexter is being more proactive with his approach to things. Not only that, but he seems to be embracing life around him as something to experience rather than something that serves as a cover. He is taken in by a jolly immigrant ride-share driver named Blessing, who welcomes Dexter into his family with open arms, showing him family values and what it’s like to have a happy, healthy tribe.

Two Decades of Dexter

What makes Dexter: Resurrection so compelling is that this is a story that is only possible with nearly 20 years of history. A lot of TV shows that try to come back after a decade or more of being off the air often feel like nothing has changed. It’s as if their lives are static, and when the cameras come back on, the characters haven’t meaningfully evolved. Dexter: Resurrection acknowledges the passage of time and uses it as a storytelling obstacle for Dexter to overcome. We are following a guy’s life as it radically changes and following the consequences as they ripple across the decades. Even if he’s still killing, the circumstances and life he lives are totally different from what they were when this show began. 

He faked his death a decade ago, he failed to abstain from serial killing, and his teenage son now has all kinds of issues from being abandoned by his father and witnessing the death of his mother. All of this history sub-textually deepens the drama and characters, but it is also a big part of the text itself as Dexter’s past continuously haunts him. There’s a great deal of tension in the fact that we saw Dexter have a close relationship with Batista in the original show, even to the point that Batista’s sister helped raise Harrison. Now, they’re somewhat at odds, and the audience is forced to reckon with the stress of what could happen if Batista finds out the truth about Dexter.

Of course, Dexter is also older, suggesting he’s not the apex predator he once was in Miami. He’s now in his 50s and recovering from a critical wound, making it harder for him to physically keep up with those he wants to take down. At multiple points, we see that Dexter is actively at a disadvantage because of his aging and wounded body, creating a bit more tension and vulnerability around his capabilities. Still, there are plenty of creative, new, intense jams for Dexter to cunningly get himself out of.

Like Father, Like Son

I’ve grown to really trust Michael C. Hall and the writers’ abilities to bring Dexter to life in an effective way, so I’m rarely concerned about how that character is handled. However, I had a lot of caution with regards to Harrison, Dexter’s son. On paper, he’s a very interesting character who, once again, is a great example of storytelling only possible over many years. We’ve followed this character since birth, and he has been deeply damaged by Dexter, eventually posing the question of whether he inherited his father’s murderous tendencies. 

However, New Blood made him a bit too angsty. A lot of conversations between Harrison and Dexter typically led to an argument that ended with Harrison storming off with no resolution. Although it served the purpose of creating a rift between them, it was very repetitive and made Harrison feel like more of a plot device than a character, to an extent. In Resurrection, Harrison feels much more layered. He is on his own in New York City, trying to survive by working (and living) at a luxurious hotel. He generally seems to be happier, but still has PTSD from everything that happened with his dad, from helping Dexter kill a man and then shooting his dad himself.

Of course, this is a Dexter show, so there’s a crisis revolving around Harrison, but this time, his dad isn’t there to help him much. It forces Harrison into a position where he has to think on his feet and gives the writers time to platform him as his own strong, worthwhile character. Resurrection goes to great lengths to make Harrison a much more compelling character and one that you want to see just as much as Dexter, which is a major accomplishment. Jack Alcott brings more maturity to his performance and earns his keep in this sequel series.

This show also packs a massive who’s who of TV legends in its cast, which includes guest stars Uma Thurman, Peter Dinklage, Krysten Ritter, and many more. It’s a treat to have so much talent chewing up the scenery and giving someone like Michael C. Hall a lot to work with in return. Resurrection provides Michael C. Hall the platform to give one of his best Dexter performances, thanks to not only all of the drama plaguing him, but also all of the fun he gets to have within kill rooms and action sequences. 

Dexter: Resurrection is a show that clearly builds upon the things that New Blood was criticized for and actively feels like a return to form for Dexter himself. There’s a distinct blend of classic Dexter and the more cinematic and dramatic storytelling of the New Blood era. This is the Dexter we’ve wanted to see return since the original show ended in 2013, while also furthering the story. It’s filled with thrills, dark humor, a compelling and dramatic story, and another standout performance from Michael C. Hall. Dexter is back, but this time with added nuance, and I couldn’t be happier.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Dexter: Resurrection premieres on July 11th on Paramount+ with a special two-episode premiere.

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Nearing five years after it was first announced, Marvel’s Ironheart is finally here, dropping in two three-episode bundles on Disney+ in a release schedule that only really makes sense when you’ve seen all six. Dominique Thorne returns as ambitious tech prodigy Riri Williams after her debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and is joined in Ironheart‘s cast top-line by Anthony Ramos (villain The Hood), Lyric Ross (her dead best friend/AI Natalie), and Alden Ehrenreich (“Joe McGillicuddy” — it’s a fake name for reasons that will become clear). But was the show worth the almost five-year wait? Frustratingly, the answer is not as straightforward as I’d like.

Ironheart is an ambitious Marvel TV show that has some very good ideas, an excellent cast (and some very interesting characters), and high-gloss execution that includes very impressive VFX work. It’s also muddled, imbalanced, and deeply frustrating, suffering from stuttering pace issues in the first half, some incredibly insufferable characters, and head-scratchingly odd decisions. The show picks up some time after Wakanda Forever saw Riri given a taste of superheroism and — crucially — access to Wakanda’s untold resources, and sees the MIT student dealing with a sort of privilege hangover. She’s crashed back to normal Earth, where she can’t just do what she wants — which is not to be a hero, but rather to prove herself the most gifted inventor of her generation.

That’s probably the biggest divergence from the Iron Man story that sits sidecar to Riri’s own: while she and Tony Stark are both driven by ambition, hers is about being recognized, while his was about an all-encompassing fear that if he didn’t save the Earth, nobody else would be able to. That difference means Riri turns almost comically quickly to crime, which is never entirely justified because her urge to build the best armor possible using ill-gotten funds lacks depth. There’s not enough emotional conflict between the suggestion of breaking the law and her suddenly doing the kind of things you usually end up on FBI lists for.

The question of character motivation is easily the most interesting part of Ironheart, as three different characters deal with the crushing weight of legacy and expectation. Throw in some generational trauma and cultural trauma for Riri (whose respect for Tony Stark is increasingly tempered by a disdain for his privilege), and there’s a really intriguing concept that I wish more of the story was overtly written around. Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t always live up to the quality of the idea, and character development isn’t as well handled as it needs to be. The result is that lots of characters make breakneck decisions in moments, and a group of people we’re told are all geniuses-level intellects come off as idiots. Yes, emotion and temptation are things here, but there’s not enough space to play with that.

Identity plays a major part here, too: Riri is not incidentally Black, and her culture and upbringing as part of that community are an important part of her arc. Class is a big factor, too: Ironheart is sort of like a what-if mirror held up to Tony Stark’s life. What if he wasn’t born into wealth? What if generational trauma led him to misplace his ambitions? What if he had to work harder for his natural skills and genius to manifest in any way beyond frustrated potential? Iron Man’s arc explored how far he’d go to save Earth, Riri’s explores the same thing on a different scale, but it’s interesting how close the instincts and the self-destruction run in both of them despite their lack of a direct link.

Marvel Cinematic Universe newcomers Ramos and Ehrenreich are both very good, and so is Manny Montana as The Hood’s cousin John, and there’s a very good appearance in the final episodes by someone too important to spoil here. He’s worth the wait, though. At the other end of the spectrum, the Hood’s “Young Lords” supervillain group is all completely insufferable in a way that made me question whether I just didn’t understand Gen Z. But no, it’s the kids who are wrong. We’re also supposed to attach the story’s heart to Natalie, Riri’s best friend who is killed and accidentally reborn as Riri’s AI through an inexplicable tech-miracle, but for the first three episodes, she is the MCU’s answer to an unholy marriage between Microsoft’s Clippy and Scrappy Doo. She gets better, mercifully.

There’s an old cliché saying that sticking the ending can forgive a lot of sins on the way there, and if that’s true, Ironheart‘s reception will be more positive than this review. The final episode (and its set-up) bristles with confidence, is genuinely transformative for the MCU, and sets up a surprising (if a little jarring) future for the hero. I will absolutely be excited to sit and watch a Season 2, if it comes. If it doesn’t, Marvel has just written Riri into an almighty cul-de-sac that would take some creativity to solve.

There are a lot of things I liked about Ironheart: The Hood’s story of magical corruption is so intriguing that it probably deserved its own show or miniseries event; Riri’s parallel corruption by her own ambition is also interesting; and the idea of legacy being a curse is great. And it’s fair to say that the second half of the show is better than the first three episodes, culminating in a far superior finale that brings all of the good ideas together. My issue is that the execution at times feels like disparate stories being told simultaneously, with nothing given enough time. And the result is just too much of a muddle without the necessary depth to elevate its best ideas from the parts that drag it down.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Ironheart debuts on Disney+ on Tuesday, June 24th at 9 p.m. ET. The second three episodes release a week later on July 1st. For more spoiler analysis and discussion of Ironheart, click here.

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Rick and Morty is coming back to Adult Swim with new episodes later this month, and Season 8 is proof that the animated series is stronger than it ever has been. Rick and Morty Season 8 was released in a bit of a different manner than the previous few seasons. Thanks to all of the changes behind the scenes heading into the release of Season 7, and a delay to production following strikes, Rick and Morty Season 8 is the first season in a while to not release at a yearly pace. Instead, fans have had to wait a little longer for this new season to hit.

That extra bit of waiting might have been tough for Rick and Morty fans, but it was clearly the right move. What was really missing from Rick and Morty Season 7 was the sense of stability from what had come before. It was naturally a given considering how big the changes behind the scenes were leading into Season 7, and thankfully things have gotten back on track with Rick and Morty Season 8. It’s found its groove once more, and it’s the best it has been in years.

Rick and Morty Season 8 picks up from where the previous season left off, but much like previous seasons, has plenty of standalone adventures that see the titular duo taking on wacky new situations. This was one of the big requests fans have had over the previous seasons as while the serialized elements were definitely welcome, there was an even bigger ask for a return to this episodic format. The four episodes shared from Rick and Morty Season 8 for this review carry a little bit of both elements, and the balance seems better off than before. There are details in each episode for fans to poke through, but don’t throw off the self contained nature of each episode.

Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden return as the voices of Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith respectively after their debut in Rick and Morty Season 7, and it’s the first time the duo feel like they have been able to fully explore each of their characters. They joined the production late in Season 7’s development, and likely had to follow a lot of the path set out for them already. But it’s immediately noticeable that Season 8’s episodes let the two of them play around more with their delivery and character traits for a better result. Rick and Morty themselves feel like they’ve evolved since the end of Season 7.

More so than telling more of the serialized story, one of the greater elements that Rick and Morty needed to continue from that previous season was the fact that their relationship had change. It’s no longer Rick completely running over Morty in any given adventure, and Morty also is a lot more self sufficient when he’s thrown into chaos as a result of Rick’s (or even his own) actions. And thanks to Cardoni and Belden’s performances, their dynamic feels like it’s properly changed. The two of them seem like they have grown through everything, and it’s properly reflecting that we’re eight seasons into this animated franchise.

One of the biggest worries heading into Rick and Morty Season 8 was the fact that Adult Swim had actually announced that they were renewing it through Season 12 at least. Rick and Morty was already going to be a long running franchise thanks to its previous order to get it to 100 episodes, but this extra extension brought up a worry that the series itself would stagnate as a result. But the good news is that’s not the case at all even eight seasons into the series. Rick and Morty Season 8 still finds a way to be fresh, and tell brand new stories that have not been seen in the series before.

Rick and Morty has done so much by this point that it’s still a surprise that the premiere can find a new angle for Morty and Summer, and still say something new about both their sibling relationship but how they relate to those around them as well. For example, it’s an episode that sees the two of them get to a whole new level of maturity. Fans then get to see how that ultimately changes Morty and Summer for the worse or better, and what that means for their parents. It’s a good way to expand on the character traits someone like Summer already has shown, but finds a new twist to bring them out.

There’s a lot of that present in Rick and Morty Season 8. There are episodes that not only drop some new lore that we can dig into, but are also focused on telling a standalone story. There’s one that even goes the extra mile to be a bit familiar to one of Rick and Morty’s classic episodes from earlier seasons, and still finds a new way to bring it all to life. That’s sort of the big draw for Rick and Morty Season 8 as a whole. It’s familiar yet fresh. It’s going to be a good starting point for potentially lapsed fans to jump back into the series.

Rick and Morty has found a new rhythm that feels like it’s gotten a shot in the arm. Thanks to the new stars at the center of the action, and the rest of the voice cast not losing a step in the many seasons they’ve been with the series, Rick and Morty feels brand new again. There are rewards present for those looking deeper, but it’s not necessary to enjoy the episodes as they are. It’s such a fun season of Rick and Morty, and a great sign for what could be coming next. If it can keep this energy going into the future, Rick and Morty really is going to go on for 100 more years without any issues.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Rick and Morty Season 8 premieres with Adult Swim on Sunday, May 25th at 11:00PM ET/PT.

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If the first season of The Walking Dead: Dead City was Escape From New York, then the second season is The Warriors. Set on the gritty, ultra-violent streets of a dystopian New York City, the 1979 cult classic begins with a conclave of territorial gangs — an attempt at a truce to unite and secure their turfs against a common enemy. The pulpy gang movie is, in effect, a live-action comic book, its themed tribes rooted in fantasy rather than any sort of street-gang realism.

The sophomore season of Dead City is more comic book-y and even pulpier than the first, which sent longtime enemies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on a mission together into post-apocalyptic New York. They went there under the pretense of rescuing Maggie’s son Hershel (Logan Kim) from one of Negan’s former Savior underlings, the Croat (Željko Ivanek), but in a season-ending twist, it turned out that Maggie betrayed Negan. She handed him over to the Croat (who strong-armed Maggie into bringing Negan from the mainland to Manhattan in exchange for her son), and then Maggie returned home with Hershel, having traded Negan to the Dama (Lisa Emery), a power broker who wanted Negan to unite and lead the city’s gangs in order to protect the island’s natural resources from outsiders.

That natural resource is the Croat’s methane made from the abundant amount of zombie bodies on the island, and those outsiders are the soldiers of the New Babylon Federation: colonizers from the mainland out to take over the electricity-generating methane operation to replace their dwindling supply of ethanol and bring back the old world.

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 premiere (Sunday, May 4th, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+) picks up about a year after the Season 1 finale. The Bricks (a relocated Hilltop colony) is now a member of the New Babylon Federation of territories under the authority of Governor Byrd (Jasmin Walker), who sends Colonel Perlie Armstrong (Gaius Charles), a former marshal, and the stringent Major Narvaez (Dascha Polanco) to draft soldiers for an “exploratory mission” to take back New York. Once the capital of the world and since overrun by the dead and lawless barbarians, the New Babylonians are out to restore law and order — and power — to make Manhattan a bastion for civilization. To do so, they need to seize the methane.

Maggie is conscripted into New Babylon’s army, and agrees to return to the island without resistance if no one else from the Bricks is forced into enlisting, including her son. Ginny (Mahina Napoleon), a friend of Negan’s until she learned he killed her father, volunteers so she can get back to Manhattan and get her revenge, and Hershel ends up sneaking along to the island for his own reasons.

Meanwhile, in New York, Negan is a prisoner of the Dama. From his cell, he’s reduced to eating cockroaches and relieving himself in buckets, but he’s confident that the Dama and the Burazi pose no threat to Hershel because he’s safe with Maggie. (“She is a mama bear that would tear out your throat with her teeth right after she gutted you with her claws,” he warns the Croat.) Learning of New Babylon’s plans to invade the island, the Dama plays a different card: she forces Negan to comply by threatening his wife and son, Annie (Medina Senghore) and Joshua.

The influence of The Warriors is never felt more than when the Dama has Negan gather the New York gangs to form an alliance against the New Babylon Federation. Wearing a black leather jacket and wielding a replica of his barbed wire-covered baseball bat Lucille (newly upgraded to deliver electric jolts), Morgan comfortably slips into the old Negan, a persona he used to terrorize Rick Grimes and his group back on The Walking Dead. He’s putting on a show as instructed by the Dama, giving Morgan a chance to gleefully embrace the villain Negan who had that part of him snuffed out by nearly a decade in jail. But when he drops the facade, Morgan’s Negan is wearier, contrite, and, some might say, softer. Morgan goes from one to the other — sometimes in the same scene — without a hitch, his humanizing performance selling just how much Negan, now a father, is a changed man.

Negan and the Croat are tasked with convincing two of Uptown’s three territorial clans to join the Dama, bringing them into conflict with gang leaders Christos (Animal Kingdom‘s Jake Weary) and Bruegel (Sons of Anarchy‘s Kim Coates). The latter is a scene-chewing, Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday type, an extravagantly dressed gambler and wild card described as a “slippery, silver-tongued eel” and played with aplomb by Coates.

Regrettably, the third clan, the Foragers, are the kind of cartoonish characters who would be at home among the goofier gangs in The Warriors. As their name implies, the holistic people led by Roksana (Pooya Mohseni) reside in Central Park, a no man’s land overrun by tall grass and wild zoo animals (who are heard, but not seen). Taking the term “urban jungle” too literally, their style of dress can only be described as Tarzanesque, making the Foragers resemble tribal humans from Planet of the Apes and too much of a departure from the otherwise punkish, Mad Max aesthetic. (Not to mention that too much of the plot takes place in the “jungle” that the urban park has become, which means eschewing the darkened concrete jungle that is New York for the same plain forest setting that has been seen on every other Walking Dead series.)

Still, the second season does make use of more iconic New York locations after the first season showed a decaying Statue of Liberty and a walker-filled Madison Square Garden. Set pieces take place on the Hudson and within the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we see landmarks like Radio City Music Hall and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. New York doesn’t feel like a character as much as it should, and the full city blocks of walkers lurking below the rooftop ziplines or zombie bodies dropping from those same rooftops are missed this time around.

Another thing that’s missed: the main event of Maggie and Negan headlining their own show together. They spend far too little time together the second time around, and are kept apart for most of the first six episodes of the eight-episode season (AMC withheld the final two episodes from critics).

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol also had their respective co-leads — Andrew Lincoln’s Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne, and Norman Reedus’ Daryl and Melissa McBride’s Carol — embark on their own individual journeys before being brought together, but by keeping Maggie and Negan in their corners except for the briefest of exchanges, Dead City loses its hook of pairing off Maggie with the since-reformed man who murdered her husband Glenn (Steven Yeun).

Glenn goes unmentioned by name (except for being referred to as Hershel’s dad), which fans are sure to be disappointed to learn after last season had Maggie relive the horror of his death in The Walking Dead‘s brains-bashing Season 7 premiere. (To be fair, Dead City takes place some 17 years later.) This time around, Maggie shares most of her screen time with Hershel, who still harbors anger and resentment towards his mother for what he calls an “obsession” with Negan. I don’t quite buy that Maggie’s hatred for Negan overshadows her love for Hershel, although that’s how he feels — something that is repeatedly stated in the few times Maggie tries to get her resentful and distant son to open up and close what seems to be a chasm between them. Complicating matters is Hershel’s complex attitude toward the Dama, and Maggie’s complex relationship with Negan: namely her feelings of guilt for handing him over to the Dama, and how, understandably, her holding onto this vendetta has affected and poisoned her relationship with her son. Cohan gets to play a different side of Maggie, at times the ferocious “mama bear” and at other times a mom wracked with guilt and wrestling with this schism that brings out shocking sides of her son.

Dead City is at its best when Cohan and Morgan are unpacking the grief and guilt that has intertwined Maggie and Negan’s stories together to the point that the series perks up any time they’re sharing the same space — whether that’s as frenemies or foes. Like methane, that kind of electricity can power an entire city.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2 premieres Sunday, May 4th, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

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Ahead of the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, fans of the galaxy far, far away were cautiously optimistic about how the first big-screen outing in the series that didn’t focus on the Skywalker Saga would pan out. A billion dollars later, that optimism paid off, but with all of the main characters of the film dying in its finale, fans were left scratching their heads when the prequel TV series Star Wars: Andor was announced for Disney+. Again, the creative minds at Lucasfilm fully surpassed expectations, with Season 1 of the series being an emotional and harrowing exploration of Cassian Andor’s past. Expectations for Season 2 of the series, which is confirmed to be the final batch of episodes, are entirely met over the course of 12 installments, and while this season is as compelling as ever, it doesn’t land with quite the same impact as the initial narrative.

Showrunner Tony Gilroy replicated his storytelling approach with the first season — breaking 12 episodes into four, three-episode arcs — for this second season, but this time around, each batch of episodes takes place a year apart. With the first arc picking up a year after the Season 1 finale in 4 BBY, the final three episodes unfold in 1 BBY.

Without divulging too much information about what transpires this season, the crux of the overall narrative centers around the planet Ghorman, a location the Galactic Empire is particularly interested in for a number of reasons. Since we last saw Cassian (Diego Luna), he and Bix (Adria Arjona) have left Ferrix and struggle with their place in the Rebel Alliance. Cassian still feels loyal to Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård), even though the rest of the Rebellion doesn’t know if they can trust him. In the Empire, Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) have continued their romantic relationship, even if their roles within the Empire are tasking them with different and disparate responsibilities. All of these figures come and go from Ghorman, understandably putting them all on a collision course for the planet.

Andor was originally conceived as sprawling across five seasons, with each season jumping a year, only for that concept to be condensed into two seasons. Gilroy has described this second season as being less like one overarching narrative and more like four entire movies, and he’s not entirely wrong. This storytelling approach brings with it both pluses and minuses, though ultimately feels detrimental, as it feels like Star Wars is borrowing a page from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: there’s less of a distinction between a movie, a limited series, and an ongoing series, instead all feeling like various forms of content that merely vary in length. By the time we get to Episode 12, the overall experience feels like the conclusion of a three-episode arc as opposed to the payoff to two entire seasons of television. Given that we know Cassian’s fate in Rogue One, these narrative limitations stacked the cards against Andor from the beginning, but with Season 2 having to deliver more connective tissue to that movie, it faces a hindrance that Season 1 didn’t have to compensate for.

With the announcement of any sequel, spinoff, prequel, or reboot of any beloved property, fans inherently ponder, “Why did we need this?” The simple answer for every project is, “We didn’t need this,” and a majority of the time, unexpected extensions of familiar stories end up falling far short of the accomplishments of their predecessors. No one needed Rogue One, but it was a hit both financially and critically. It was an ancillary tale that recontextualized certain elements of Star Wars: A New Hope, while also not having to lean on that film’s familiarity to tell a bold tale full of all-new heroes.

By design, Rogue One wasn’t meant to deliver all-powerful, deeply complex characters, as audiences were meant to see the variety of figures whose power came from their commitment to fight fascism, making them even more relatable than any Force-wielder. Of Rogue One‘s ensemble, Cassian himself wasn’t necessarily a standout figure, so the announcement that he would get his own TV series took audiences by surprise, as it felt like another franchise expansion that no one needed. That said, Andor absolutely succeeds in what it set out to do and no viewer will ever look at Rogue One, or Cassian himself, the same way again.

The Cassian we first met in Season 1 was focused mostly on the well-being of those closest to him, but he evolved over those 12 episodes into someone dedicated to the Rebellion. Throughout Season 2, we see him further embed himself in the Rebel Alliance, while still carrying out Luthen’s wishes, in addition to trying to ensure the safety of Bix. Each batch of episodes sees Cassian pulled in a variety of different directions, struggling to figure out where his allegiance lies and where people expect him to focus his passion. When he focuses on Bix, he’s pulled to the Rebellion, and when he commits to the Rebellion, he resents these missions and how they separate him from his family.

Cassian isn’t the only one who we see undergo a personal transformation, as Dedra and Syril’s trajectories echo the journey of Cassian and Bix, as the pair also struggles to determine if they’re more invested in each other or in the objectives of the Empire. As more Rebels are recruited to assist Luthen and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), we see people transform from reactionaries to extremists. One of the more effective narrative arcs is the one that focuses on Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, even though audiences know where her ultimate trajectory will place her by the time of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. She’s devoted to the Rebellion, yet has to participate in high society to avoid drawing suspicion from Emperor Palpatine. One sequence, in particular, depicts Mothma resorting to a substance-fueled and frenzied dance at a wedding, reflecting the inner turmoil she faces for the privileged life she leads while Rebels elsewhere are hunted down and killed.

Along the lines of the Disney-fication of even the most beloved brands becoming delivery systems for recognizable content, fans have grown accustomed to wanting to check out the next Star Wars or Marvel movie or TV show not just to enjoy the experience, but to discover Easter eggs, cameos, and post-credits scenes connecting to other corners of lore. The first season of Andor had some freedom from these expectations, in that audiences knew Cassian’s trajectory would lead him towards his death in Rogue One, though that film’s Ben Mendelsohn and Alan Tudyk have been announced as appearing in the new season as Director Orson Krennic and K-2SO, respectively. Luckily, both characters are integrated into this new season organically, and for better or worse, are used sparingly. Krennic and K-2SO aren’t merely glorified cameos, yet also don’t factor into the plot as heavily as various other supporting characters first introduced in Season 1.

Regardless of what Star Wars fans who lack media literacy might claim, Star Wars has been political since its inception (unless you don’t consider a group of rebels fighting against an all-powerful, fascist regime attempting to control the galaxy to be a political act, for some reason). Of course, there have been ebbs and flows in how overt the political messaging has been, as things like Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure or various LEGO video games avoid more direct allegories to political struggles. Season 1 of Andor leaned much more heavily on depicting the day-to-day struggles when living under horrifying organizations seeking to rule everything in sight, and Season 2 dives even deeper into these themes and to an even more effective degree.

Gilroy and his collaborators aren’t overtly trying to conflate a fictional storyline featuring space wizards and laser swords with real-world atrocities, but it’s hard not to draw these parallels. Watching stormtroopers doing home-to-home inspections to see if residents are harboring Rebels, organizations using violence to exploit citizens to the brink of chaos, or media companies sharing only certain perspectives on altercations to spread propaganda, Andor depicts real-world methods of control that viewers have seen used throughout history to a horrifyingly effective degree. The scripts and the direction make the Empire overtaking of communities and wiping out of citizens feel more explicitly like genocide, as compared to how A New Hope blew up an entire planet just to set an example and then moved on from that fact a few minutes later. In this sense, Andor isn’t nearly as fun of a watch as something like Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, but it showcases that a variety of stories can be told in this franchise that appeal to a variety of audiences.

Much like Season 1, Season 2 of Star Wars: Andor leans heavily into the “wars” part of the franchise’s title, elucidating on one of the saga’s most unassuming and complex heroes. Cassian reminds us we don’t have to be born into royalty or possess supernatural gifts to fight back against injustices, while also reminding us that the world is far more complex than black-and-white distinctions between good and evil. The performances, scripts, and direction are all as gripping and nuanced as the debut season, even if the overall structure of these 12 episodes make the end of Cassian’s journey on the small screen feel a bit disjointed. Still, Andor has rightfully earned its place as one of the smartest and riveting adventures we’ve ever seen in the galaxy far, far away.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Star Wars: Andor Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on Tuesday, April 22nd.

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The Last of Us has finally returned for its long-awaited second season and the HBO series delivers, once again. Similar to how the first season adapted the first video game of the series, The Last of Us Season 2 adapts The Last of Us Part 2. This is a far denser and more complex story than the first game; it’s non-linear, it deals with heavy themes, and it takes risks that arguably probably would’ve never been allowed if the first game wasn’t such a smash hit. Personally speaking, this is the season I have been most excited to see, just to witness how showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann bring this layered and divisive story to a new audience and medium.

The Last of Us Season 2 picks up five years after the events of the first season. Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) are living peacefully in the quaint town of Jackson, though there’s more tension between the two since we last saw them. Of course, Ellie is older now and, as a result, has some teenage angst, prompting her to demand more freedom and agency from Joel. Joel’s late daughter never made it to Ellie’s age, so it’s a new and turbulent time for the two, all underscored by Joel’s dark secret from the finale of Season 1. 

In Season 2, Joel has softened. He’s kinder, jokes more, and is trying to be more emotionally cognizant. This is a revised version of the Joel we saw before the apocalypse — someone who is now mostly unshackled from the trauma that oppressed him. However, at the same time, it seems like he’s trying to project what his idea of a daughter should be onto Ellie, as he assumes the role of a surrogate father. While a lot of parents probably project ideas on to their children, Joel is doing this with someone who isn’t technically his kid, which adds an extra layer of drama to their relationship.

As a result of all of this, Pascal gives an incredibly vulnerable, career-defining performance. Joel in Season 1 had shut off his feelings and kept everyone at arm’s length and it felt like, at any moment, his emotions were going to boil over and he could break, having been unable to unpack everything he’d gone through. In Season 2, he’s someone who feels deeply and is trying to connect with Ellie to the best of his ability through things like music.

Last time we saw Joel, he mowed down a bunch of soldiers, got stabbed, and broke off a guy’s kneecap with a knife. He was borderline unshakable, even when he was on death’s door. This time, his biggest threat isn’t a bullet — it’s pushing Ellie away. When the two butt heads, Ellie’s words cut deeper than any blade ever could. The rift that is created between them is palpable, and the pain it deals to Joel is consistently present on his face and in his voice. There’s a certain heartache when you break through a tough guy’s armor and hurt his feelings, and Pascal portrays that brilliantly.

Despite Jackson being a peaceful place, things quickly go awry — as is expected from this universe — and everyone in town has their world turned upside down. Ellie and some allies, including her new love interest, Dina (Isabela Merced), channel their anger by hatching a plan to track down a group of people who wronged them and take revenge.

Although Joel is a big part of Season 2, Ellie is largely the center of this story. Some fans, including myself, admittedly, had some concerns that Ramsey would not be able to fulfill Ellie’s role this season, since it is more physical and Ramsey is smaller in stature. It seems Mazin and Druckmann were fully aware of this concern and it’s addressed immediately with Ellie holding her own in an incredibly brutal fight. While there are some moments where Ramsey’s Ellie isn’t the most intimidating person in the room, it’s clear they made an effort to show Ellie as a formidable force, and it largely works.

Ramsey’s physical strength and appearance aren’t what makes their version of Ellie stand out, though, it’s the emotional depth that they provide. Despite the games having a great deal of violence and action, the show is focused more on the moments between the gunfights and brawls. Ramsey is able to channel something that emphasizes the loneliness and confusion that Ellie feels. 

Ellie is a girl who is not only growing up in the apocalypse where she has witnessed some of the most horrific things humanity has to offer, but she also harbors the secret of immunity. The little girl who was in awe of things like giraffes and shopping malls is now crushed by the horrors of the world around her. There are still glimmers of that bright-eyed Ellie, such as when she enters a music shop and plays a guitar for Dina, though there’s a hint of melancholy to it, like there’s a cloud ready to rain on any mildly positive moment. Still, companions like Dina give her hope that she will get through to the other side of the mess that is burdening her and give her the peace she longs for.

In addition to Joel and Ellie, actress Kaitlyn Dever also steps up to the plate as Abby in The Last of Us Season 2. There’s not much I can say about this character’s role in the story that doesn’t spoil the show, but she’s a major threat to Joel, Ellie, and their respective allies. Dever makes Abby an emotional force to be reckoned with, but her screen time is quite limited. Nevertheless, she makes the most of her brief screen time by showing herself as a broken woman who is searching for catharsis through violence. 

I found Dever’s take on Abby easier to empathize with compared to her game counterpart. She exposes the character’s sensitivity far more, highlighting the character’s unmitigated anger as something that comes as a result of profound sadness and tragedy. She’s not just some stone-cold killer or wrecking machine, she is someone who is almost releasing her emotions through violence and rage. Ironically, the same goes for Ellie, allowing them to be like mirrors of each other, which makes the story feel almost poetic.

The Last of Us Season 2 is a story of perspective and about how maybe things aren’t as black and white as they may seem. The show allows us to see different sides of multiple stories for Joel, Ellie, and Abby. There’s even an ongoing war between a militia and a fanatical religious group happening in the background of this season, adding even more depth to this theme. A lack of empathy or understanding for others, even those you believe have wronged you, can create vicious cycles that lead nowhere.

The Last of Us Season 2 is also a story about love, similar to the first season. While Season 1 was partially about how love can save us, Season 2 is about how love can be punishing. What happens when your love is stolen from you? What happens when your love causes you to do things that are selfish and destructive? It’s an emotion that’s so powerful that it can take you high and low, something that virtually every character, heroes and villains, experience in this story in some capacity. It’s something they all feel they have to protect and avenge if necessary. The thing that makes someone feel so high with joy and ecstasy in their emotions can also be what turns someone hateful.

For fans of the game, I do think there will be some people that are rubbed the wrong way by some changes. While the core storyline remains intact, there are some changes that make characters behave in ways that don’t fit this story. Ellie responds to something in the show in the complete opposite way than she does in the game, immediately sucking out any interesting drama that was previously born from that moment. For all the changes that are made, the show avoids making some changes that may make sense for TV. As already noted, the game lets you play through its story in about 20 consecutive hours, while the show is dividing that story over the course of many years with plans for up to two more seasons. For newcomers, that may make some big moments feel unsatisfying or unfulfilling, as they might not get a resolution until 2027.

That’s not to say there are zero good changes; there definitely are. Season 2 takes the opportunity to expand on characters barely featured in the game to offer them more meaningful roles, making relatively small adjustments to key scenes that actually strengthen them, and doubles down on the infected. Season 1 was a bit lacking when it came to the infected, but Season 2 has moments with infected hordes that left my jaw on the floor. The scale of some of these action scenes is unbelievable and will definitely please those who want to see more from the fungal monsters. 

After watching all seven episodes twice, I can say that The Last of Us Season 2 is bigger, better, and bolder than Season 1. While it still has some flaws, it’s uncompromising in its vision and takes swings that few other high-profile stories would ever dare to. There are things about Season 2 that will undoubtedly cause fury for both fans of the game and the show, but the show’s willingness to challenge audiences by tackling big themes is incredibly commendable in this fairly safe era of franchise television. It’s brutally raw, vulnerable, and it will likely drive viewers to tears every other episode, thanks to the powerhouse performances from Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Last of Us Season 2 begins on Max and HBO on Sunday, April 13th at 9PM ET and will air every Sunday night after that.

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Adi Shankar has found a lot of success with Netflix in the past with releases like the Castlevania franchise and Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. These anime releases are notable as not only are they adapting fan favorite video game franchises, but also “remix” what was seen in the original games for a new take on the story. With Shankar’s vision steering the ship for both of these projects, there was quite a lot of intrigue when it was announced that the creator would then be taking on the fan favorite Capcom series, Devil May Cry, with a new anime.

Devil May Cry has had a number of video games released through Capcom, and has even had plenty of new takes of its own. Some were successful such as a previous anime adaptation attempt, and some were less so such as the DMC title completely reinventing the original games. So there was naturally a curious aura surrounding this new anime adaptation for Devil May Cry as it was promoted with rocking Nu-Metal tracks, and seemed much different from Shankar’s other offerings. Thankfully, the differences here make for a very fun show to watch with a vibe perfect for Devil May Cry.

While Devil May Cry has told its story through video games, this new series has a different story of its own. It remains faithful in the demons and creatures that it uses throughout, but it picks and chooses some highlights from across the franchise to craft and entirely new narrative. For example, things begin when a mysterious White Rabbit attacks a group of soldiers in an attempt to claim a mysterious sword. It turns out that this is the Sword of Sparda, a mystical sword that when fully unlocked would tear down the walls separating Earth from Hell. The only ones who can stop it are Dante (Johnny Yong Bosch), who is wearing half of a mystical amulet needed to do the deed around his neck, and Mary (Scout Taylor-Compton), a soldier who is out to kill all demons by any means necessary.

The narrative might be drawing some influence from various points in the original games’ timeline, but there are new elements introduced to mix it up. The White Rabbit, for example, comes from a manga adaptation of Devil May Cry 3 and had a completely different kind of story. It’s this attention to detail that makes for a fun new kind of experience, but at the same time might push more dedicated fans of the games away. There are characters or enemies they might recognize spread throughout the series, but they are involved in a much different capacity than seen before. Through all of this, however, Devil May Cry is also full of a very playful spirit.

Dante as a lead can be hard to pin down through most media as it’s hard to gauge just how much he cares about a particular situation. We’re introduced to a Dante who has left demon hunting missions midway through due to boredom in past, and casually takes out some dangerous enemies with a cool flare. But thankfully, when things get serious, so does Dante. It’s still his version of “serious” which maintains a playful tone on the outside, but it’s clear that things are impacting him on a deeper level. It’s here where the anime really starts to shine.

There’s a lot that can be praised about how Devil May Cry looks and sounds. It moves with a very cool level of fluidity. Each of Dante’s actions are clear that he’s having fun during fights even with the most intense stakes on the line, and Dante’s quips never get old. Bosch’s performance for Dante is really an intriguing balancing act too as through anyone else, Dante would have more annoying qualities. But through Bosch, there’s a humanity through even the most joking of lines. It’s legitimately making Dante cool rather than having characters outright say he’s being cool (although that does happen on more than one occasion).

But through all of the bravado, there’s an emotional core to Dante and the entire Devil May Cry anime that beats at the center of it all. Though there might be some massive set pieces featuring Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” that see Dante using a motorcycle as an axe, the real draw is what comes in between each of these action sequences. It’s clear that Dante is doing all of this to compensate for the huge gap in his heart. The loss of his family has left him isolated, and the only way he can make up for this is to fight back against the world itself. But that’s a grueling task of its own, so he masks it through humor.

Counter that to Mary’s story (otherwise known by Dante as “Lady”), and Devil May Cry gets to showcase different sides of this conflict with the demons. It’s a very real and bloody world that humanity is walking into with all of these fights, and even someone with enough skill and technology like Mary doesn’t have a full grasp of the entire situation. She’s then manipulated further by the mysterious Vice President Baines (the late Kevin Conroy), and it’s soon made clear that there’s a lot more going on. Dante isn’t the only one not fully aware of his place in both worlds, and that’s fleshed out over the course of the season.

Devil May Cry delivers on the kind of bombastic action and fun that you would hope to see from such an anime series, but it really surprises in how much depth there actually is. There’s an episode deep into the season that’s nearly dialogue free, and it is one of the most emotional episodes in the entire run. It’s the kind of episode that pays off some of the teases throughout the first few episodes, and even has a distinct change in art style to help hammer it home. It’s just one of the many creative ways this series flexes its muscles.

Devil May Cry might not be completely adherent to the story told in the games, but it’s not like it’s thrown it all out either. Instead, the anime chooses to use some of the best aspects of the story to provide its own kind of experience. This helps to truly highlight what makes Devil May Cry so special in the first place. There’s a juxtaposition between Dante’s flippant actions and the violent world he’s a part of, and that spirit carries through the entire anime successfully. It’s just a fun watch that you’ll want more and more of. Netflix and Adi Shankar have another smash hit universe on their hands with this one.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Devil May Cry is now streaming on Netflix

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Shinichiro Watanabe is one of the most well known directors among anime fans for his work on major classics such as Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy, Carole & Tuesday and more. These anime are held in high regard among many as some of the best in the anime medium, and it’s even more impressive when noting just how different each one of these projects has been from one another. In terms of tone, characters, setting and more, no two of Watanabe’s directed works seems to parallel any of the others. Which is why Lazarus was so intriguing right off the bat when it was first announced.

Lazarus seemed to parallel Cowboy Bebop more than any of Watanabe’s works before. This was evident with not only is expanded cast of characters who had been brought together for a single purpose (but each had their own pasts and reasons to be there), but through promotional materials that seemed to intentionally callback to the anime classic as well. This even extended to its opening theme, which seemed to also welcome these comparisons to Cowboy Bebop. Even with all of this, however, Lazarus soon proves itself to be an entirely unique experience all on its own with a clear goal that makes it hit even better in the modern anime landscape.

Lazarus is an anime that is hitting at just the right time, and just the right climate for it to hit as well as it does. Taking place many decades into the future, a scientist named Dr. Skinner developed a drug called Hapna, a miracle drug that instantly cured all ailments. This changed the world as it meant that humans could finally move on from the illnesses holding them back, but this all comes at a deadly cost. Three years after much of the world takes the drug, Dr. Skinner reveals that it’s actually been developed with a secret element that kills anyone three years after they’ve used it. But there’s a way out of this predicament before it causes the end of the world.

Dr. Skinner reveals that there are 30 days before the first Hapna takers start dying off, and if anyone can find him then they can get the secret to reversing the drug and saving the world. To do so, a secret group known as Lazarus has been formed to be the first ones to find Dr. Skinner before it’s too late. This includes rouges and all sorts of people with shady pasts such as the lead protagonist, Axel Gilberto (Jack Stansbury / Mamoru Miyano), who makes a name for himself by breaking out of prisons for fun. With each member of Lazarus all in danger of losing their lives, they band together to save the world.

What will be immediately noticeable to fans of Watanabe’s other previous works is that there’s a much more focuses central story for Lazarus. Not only is there a literal ticking clock winding down with each of the episodes, but each episode moves that central story forward. This isn’t new to Watanabe’s works necessarily as many of his projects have had a central story, but Lazarus‘ laser focus in this case actually makes it a much more distinct narrative on its own as each episode carves out a distinct path towards that eventual end while fleshing out its characters bit by bit.

It’s not a case where fans will watch a particular episode that won’t necessarily be connected to the grander story as seen with past works like Cowboy Bebop, nor is the story about Lazarus themselves forming a bond through this mission. It’s trying to accomplish both of those things as the show showcases more of the group’s individual personalities while making sure to take steps in getting closer to Dr. Skinner. Some of these leads they chase don’t get closer to that location, however, and that’s the happy medium.

This tighter focus towards its end won’t be everyone’s cup of tea as some of Watanabe’s biggest classic episodes are ones that are allowed the freedom to explore a detour or non-sequitur to the main narrative. But in exchange for that exploration, Lazarus instead offers a much tighter experience in other areas as well. While there are lengthy scenes exploring the characters, what seems to be the biggest draw for the first five episodes of the series (which Adult Swim had shared ahead of release) is the action bringing it all to life. With that ticking clock and more intense narrative pulling each of the episodes along, each of the action sequences have been ramped up to compensate.

Thanks to help from John Wick director Chad Stahelski, there’s an immediately noticeable difference in how the characters move compared to previous Watanabe works. It’s not as if character action wasn’t strong before, but now there’s an added level of realism helping to ground the futuristic nature of the narrative. Axel’s debut, for instance, sees him escaping from a prison with all sorts of parkour techniques, and his leg heavy fighting style makes him stand out as a lead character. Each member of Lazarus moves differently, and it’s even in the most subtle of scenes. It’s not just in the action.

There’s a bit of an uncanny nature to that fluidity, however, so it does take a bit of getting used to. Axel moves at an incredible pace, and this makes for great fight scenes. But at the same time, you might want to watch them frame to frame to truly absorb every little movement within it. The production teams at Sola Entertainment and MAPPA have done well to bring the series to life in this way, but it’s somewhat odd to note that it might be too fluid at times. It’s not an issue that ruins the experience, it’s just one that you’ll have to adjust to the almost wild nature of. It’s both a great strength and a weakness, but then you get a great elevator fight and it all falls to the wayside.

Lazarus oozes style through each frame as many fans would hope to see, and it’s clear that there’s a very distinct story being told here that’s perfectly fitting within the political turmoil of our time. In this exploration of a pharmaceutical apocalypse, fans get to see a future that’s still brimming with hope in many distinct ways. But at the same time, Lazarus is also not afraid to show how the future isn’t too kind to everyone such as those who don’t fit perfectly into society. It’s got a voice all on its own, and quickly separates itself from any Cowboy Bebop connections.

While it seemed like it was intentionally calling back to Watanabe’s past, Lazarus instead uses that idea as a jumping off point to tell a more focused story that fans will want to dive into. It’s hitting a very notable vein that’s likely going to drive even more conversation after the anime ends its run, and will likely fit perfectly within Watanabe’s past string of classics. That hot streak continues with yet another banger of a show.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Lazarus premieres with Adult Swim on Saturday, April 5th at midnight as part of Toonami, with new episodes then streaming with Max the next day.

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Rarely does a new TV series premiere with as much built-in and background lore as Daredevil: Born Again. It’s impossible to fit the story into even a couple of paragraphs, but the short version is that this is the resurrection of the beloved Daredevil series on Netflix that fans spent literal years petitioning for. Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, and several others from that project made the jump to the MCU edition of Daredevil, which went through a serious creative overhaul in the middle of production, and the end result of those years of waiting and tinkering is Daredevil: Born Again.

The journey to the screen for this series has been long and full of headlines. Honestly, Daredevil: Born Again would have to be one of the best shows of all time to live up to the lofty expectations that have been set over the years. It’s not one of the best shows of all time, unfortunately, nor is it even as good as the original Netflix Daredevil series. But there is still a lot to like in Born Again‘s first season, more than enough to keep you locked in and coming back for more.

Daredevil: Born Again picks up some time after the third season of the previous series, with Matt (Cox), Foggy (Elden Hensen), and Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) running their law firm together in New York City. A tragedy in the opening of the series causes Matt to hang up his Daredevil persona for good, believing that he “crossed a line” and could be a better hero to the city with his work as a lawyer. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk (D’Onofrio) returns home after recovering from the injuries and mental break he suffered in Echo and decides to run for Mayor of New York City. By taking control of the most important office in New York, Fisk knows he can wield even more power, and potentially make his business affairs even more profitable than they were before.

This series really goes all the way with the idea that Murdock and Fisk are two sides of the same coin, often cutting their two stories together in such a way that it’s impossible to ignore the fact that these men are going through some very similar things internally (even if they manifest in completely different ways). And it’s in the writing and performance of these two characters that Daredevil: Born Again shines the brightest.

The casting of Cox and D’Onofrio as Daredevil and Kingpin remains one of the smartest decisions in the history of Marvel screen adaptations. They both have this beautiful mix of sentimentality and rage that is necessary for each of the two characters. Cox wears that balance like a shield, while D’Onofrio is able to wield it like a sledgehammer. They are perfect for their parts, and they are perfect for one another. The duo may only share the screen a couple of times throughout the nine-episode first season, but their presence carries into one another’s scenes and consistently makes them feel inextricably linked.

It’s also great to see these two guys pick up where they left off, not losing a step, after knowing how much Daredevil has always meant to them both. Cox and D’Onofrio have been champions for this story and these characters for years, even when it seemed like they’d never get to play them again, and their commitment bleeds into their performances. Watching them work is a thing of beauty.

There’s also the business of the returning Daredevil characters, who were worked into the series after the creative overhaul. Karen and Foggy don’t get a lot to do, but their impact can’t be overstated. Both Woll and Hensen make the most of the time they’re given on screen, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. They’re always excellent. The same goes for Jon Bernthal, who reprises his role as Frank Castle in a couple of episodes. Bernthal has always been the exact right guy to play the Punisher, and he does plenty to remind everyone of that when he appears.

Given how much of the Born Again story deals with how men with power completely misinterpret the actions of the Punisher (mirroring a real-life issue we know all too well), he probably needed to be a bigger part of the season. But this is a Daredevil show, after all, and the creative team shows a lot of restraint in never taking the focus away from its titular hero.

If Daredevil: Born Again needed to get one thing right, it would be the rivalry and relationship between Murdock and Fisk, and the series is a home run in that regard. If Daredevil: Born Again needed to get two things right, the other would be the hard-hitting action that made the Netflix series so memorable (and has largely escaped the Marvel Cinematic Universe).

To stick with the baseball analogy, the dynamic between Daredevil and Fisk is a home run but the actual action of this series is a single, at best. Maybe a walk? Well, maybe baseball has nothing to do with Daredevil, but the point is that the action’s not that great. Born Again purposefully crafts a story where the big fights only happen once in a while, which is a great choice given how Matt spends so much time trying to conquer his own violent tendencies. If you’re going to place an emphasis on these fights, though, you’ve got to make them count, especially when the incredibly popular series you’re trying to replicate contained some of the most well-choreographed, hardest hitting fight scenes we’ve ever seen on television.

The fights in Born Again are very inconsistent. There are a few action pieces that hold up to the Daredevil name and one particular fight between Daredevil and Muse midway through the season comes to mind. Then there are the big fight scenes that bookend Season 1 — these look downright awful. Daredevil: Born Again basically kicks off with a long and violent showdown between Daredevil and Bullseye — and it is honestly hard to watch at times. A lot of CGI is worked into Daredevil’s motions and he’s given all sorts of Spider-Man-like swinging to do throughout the fight. It’s disjointed, chaotic, and a complete eyesore. Nothing about it feels natural, gritty, or grounded; calling cards of the Netflix Daredevil series.

Instead of focusing on the stunning and often emotionally charged fight choreography that so many loved, Born Again tries to plant its “This Violence Is for Grown-Ups” flag by simply making things bloody at every opportunity. It’s cartoonish how much blood is digitally inserted into some of these showdowns. This lack of action style — which has been a major criticism of the MCU over the years — is going to be a huge letdown to anyone who considers themselves a Daredevil fan. Yes, there are some great fights mixed in there that help elevate the entire situation, but they make the misfires even more frustrating by showing us that the show is more than capable of delivering solid action.

You can pull back on the season as a whole and see that inconsistency applied to the overall story itself. It’s easy to see that a creative overhaul took place with Daredevil: Born Again; there are two distinct versions of the show present here, often competing for the right to move forward. Some episodes begin with a “case-of-the-week” premise before being dissolved into the Mayor Fisk saga.

What allows Daredevil: Born Again to work — seemingly by some miracle — is that both versions of the show are pretty good in their own right. Once each episode settles in, it’ll hook you, even if it feels disjointed from the previous episode. For example, there’s an episode in the middle of the season that revolves around a bank robbery. It’s almost completely disconnected from everything else happening in the show, but not in the way a bottle episode would feel because you can tell it was originally supposed to set up something bigger. So why keep it in there when it’s not at all needed for the new Born Again story? Well, because it’s a fantastic episode of television. Season-long saga be damned, Daredevil: Born Again would’ve been a lesser show without it.

I’m a firm believer in the phrase “all’s well that ends well,” and that’s one of the better ways I can think to describe this new Daredevil series. The final few episodes are far and away the strongest of the season. By the time you get through the finale, it’s easier to forgive some of the season’s earlier transgressions, because the ending is certifiably great and leaves everything in such a fascinating place heading into Season 2.

Daredevil: Born Again is a lot like Matt Murdock, when you think about it. The show has the potential for true greatness, and it has no problem showing that greatness off from time to time. But it’s a show that is largely at war with itself, never quite sure of exactly what it wants to be. And, like Matt Murdock, Daredevil: Born Again is best enjoyed when you accept it for what it is. This is the Daredevil we’ve got, warts and all, and a world with it is far better than one without.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again are now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes premiering Tuesdays.

The post Daredevil: Born Again Review: Not Quite the Revival We Were Hoping For appeared first on ComicBook.com.

One of the biggest things about the Invincible comic book series that kept me enthralled from beginning to end was its pacing. Even after some monumental storylines that would forever shift the direction of Invincible, the next arc would hit the ground running and would still prove to be just as gripping as the last one. Coming off of a chaotic ending to Season 2, I hoped that the Invincible TV show would find a way to keep up this same momentum that the comic had. Luckily, any concerns that I may have had about Invincible Season 3 have now been quelled, as the show’s latest episodes are just as compelling as the source material. 

Season 3 of Invincible sees its titular hero still struggling to piece together his personal life after previous events. In typical fashion, though, Invincible (Steven Yeun) isn’t given much time to rest as he has to deal with new threats from former allies and those who have once again come back from the past. All of this combined with Invincible now needing to look after his younger brother, Oliver (Christian Convery), and taking new steps forward in his relationship with Eve (Gillian Jacobs) has Mark Grayson stretched further than he has been.

At this point, I have seen six of the eight episodes in Invincible Season 3 and it’s largely great across the board. The animation work, performances, and writing of Season 3 are all still of a very high quality. More than anything, it’s clear that those working on the series have really found their footing with Invincible and the show’s general format. Season 3 makes it clear that Invincible now has a winning formula of its own that isn’t reminiscent of any other adult animated series that are currently running.

The biggest departure with Season 3 is that it chooses to shelve some of the more dooming, universe-threatening conflicts in favor of ones that are a bit more personal. This leads to a number of villains from past seasons coming back once again to haunt Invincible, while the new foes that emerge are ones rooted in past events. Despite continuing to recycle a lot of the same baddies, I still haven’t found myself getting tired of characters like the Mauler Twins or Doc Seismic even though they routinely appear.

Rather than focusing so heavily on the “villain of the week” in each episode, though, Invincible Season 3 spends a lot more time sitting with Mark, Eve, Rex, and Oliver to flesh out their feelings on everything that has happened to this point. Invincible has never been waning when it comes to crafting deep and complex characters, but Season 3 does more legwork than ever before on this front with its main cast. Although this can lead to some episodes feeling a bit slower than others, it’s these smaller moments that I have enjoyed the most in this season. 

Mark/Invincible is the biggest beneficiary of this larger focus on character development as he truly starts to come into his own in Season 3. Whereas, in past seasons, Mark felt like he was merely a kid trying to wrap his mind around everything happening around him, Season 3 sees him being more assertive and commanding on all fronts. This, combined with some newfound Viltrumite strength that Mark taps into in Season 3, makes Invincible that much more enjoyable to watch as its main character is no longer routinely getting beaten to a pulp.

If there is one complaint that I do have with Invincible Season 3, it’s that this group of episodes doesn’t always seem to be building toward a larger climax. In Season 1 and Season 2, it was pretty clear from the jump where the show was heading and what the larger conflict would be at the conclusion of each season. In Season 3, this isn’t really the case. Outside of a couple of very brief teases that lay the groundwork for what’s to come, I’m still not really sure how Season 3 is going to wrap up. Part of this is exciting because it means that Invincible has found a way to keep me guessing, but it also makes the series feel slightly more disjointed than before. 

This is further amplified by some of the larger plot threads, especially those that were left hanging after Season 2, not being expanded upon as much in Season 3. While there’s a chance that the final two episodes of the season do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to these story arcs, I have been surprised by how much the focus has shifted away from some of the biggest characters within Invincible. Still, it’s clear that these characters aren’t gone for good and are instead just being kept waiting to return at a later time. 

Even with these slight criticisms, Invincible remains one of the best animated shows on TV with Season 3. While this season might not feature as many bombastic set pieces as in previous seasons, it trades those moments out for deeper character development that has made me more invested in the show than ever before. Given that Invincible co-creator Robert Kirkman has already talked about the series running for up to 10 seasons, I think this choice to focus on quieter moments throughout Season 3 is something that will pay major dividends in the long run. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Invincible returns on Prime Video on February 6th.

The post Invincible Season 3 Review: Calm Before the War appeared first on ComicBook.com.

When you think about the comic book characters who have been most successfully adapted for the screen, Spider-Man has to be at or near the top of the list. Three live-action iterations of the character remain widely beloved by fans, there has been a slew of acclaimed video games, and the heroes of the Spider-Verse have been completely changing animated storytelling. Peter Parker has a killer track record and Marvel Animation’s newest series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, only adds to that pristine legacy.

I would have certainly counted myself among the doubters when Marvel and Disney+ released the trailer for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man: the story seemed like a half-baked retread of every other Peter Parker adventure we’ve seen in recent years, just with some different looks for its core characters and the animation looked unfinished and off-putting. It’s totally understandable if you haven’t felt much excitement for the new Spider-Man based on its advertising; I felt the same way. This is one of those rare situations, though, where the final product is so far beyond what its advertising indicates. It’s night and day from what you are expecting.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, like most Peter Parker stories, starts with a genius teenager getting bitten by a mysterious spider. This time, things are a little different on the spider bite friend, setting up a mystery that keeps you guessing throughout the first season. At his new school, Peter is surrounded by friends (and great Marvel characters) like Nico Minoru and Lonnie Lincoln, and he has to balance those relationships as he takes on an exclusive internship at Oscorp — from a personal invitation by Norman Osborn himself.

Of course, all this is going on just as Peter is beginning his journey as Spider-Man, so the balancing act of his life only gets more challenging. But Peter’s story isn’t the only one at the heart of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and that’s what helps make this such a great series as the first season unfolds. Lonnie Lincoln, known to many Marvel fans as the villainous Tombstone, plays an enormous role in the show and is quite possibly its strongest and most endearing character. Nico has a major part to play as Peter’s best friend and fellow youth-with-powers (though nobody knows about those just yet). And then there’s the Osborns, who are as big a part of this tale as they were in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie.

As good as actor Hudson Thames’s Peter Parker is, those supporting characters really are what elevates Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man from good to great. Lonnie Lincoln, in particular, is the breakout character to watch for. Voiced by Eugene Byrd, Lonnie gets a story almost entirely brand new to Tombstone, rewriting the character’s history and turning him into an A-list Spidey character overnight. You won’t see Tombstone the same after this, and that’s a great thing, as this Lonnie could go down as the definitive edition of the eventual villain.

[RELATED: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Almost Included Another Major Marvel Hero]

Then there’s Norman Osborn. We know Norman very well by now, but Colman Domingo brings the exact right bravado and menace to the character to make him feel as powerful as ever. His relationship with Peter is handled perfectly, playing on the classic tales of teacher/student that defined the character in the past, while also doing enough to actively push back against the main issue plaguing the MCU’s live-action version of Spider-Man (a.k.a. his relationship with Tony Stark).

There is a lot at play in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, with a lot of side characters getting ample time to set up for future stories, but it’s a balancing act that’s handled with grace and precision. No one story ever wears out its welcome or feels shoe-horned into the narrative. This journey feels very natural, and it ends in a place that leaves a ton of opportunity for Season 2.

Perhaps the biggest hang-up for fans heading into Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is the show’s animation style, which continues the Marvel Animation trend of looking totally different than every previous Marvel Animation project. Honestly, it does take a little getting used to; the movements are more rigid than you might be accustomed to, though it doesn’t have that nostalgic rigidity of something like X-Men ’97 that people seem to love. It plays like a moving comic book in its editing, but doesn’t explore the same artistic freedom as the Spider-Verse movies.

There’s a middle ground where this show exists, and that doesn’t feel like such a bad thing as the series goes on. Sure, it’s a little jarring at first. Like the story itself, the animation takes a couple of episodes to really settle in. Once it finds a groove, though, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man utilizes its unique style to full effect.

The best examples of this come in some of the big fight sequences in the back half of the season. I don’t want to share any details in order to preserve some surprises, but know that there is one particular fight on a helicopter pad that will blow your mind. Remember that kind of thing is coming when you a football scene in the first episode or two and wonder why Lonnie seems to be a completely different shape when he’s throwing a ball. It’s just the sort of thing that takes time to settle in.

It’s hard to feel fresh with a character like Spider-Man in today’s world, since he’s been adapted so many times (and usually very well). Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man understands that challenge and doesn’t try to completely reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of familiar Spider-Man beats here, but where there’s a unique opportunity for some overhaul, however, this series takes it and finds a way to soar.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The first two episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man are now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes coming out each week.

The post Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Review: A Fresh Addition to Peter Parker’s Legacy appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Common Side Effects has been such an oddity ever since it was first announced to be in the works. The initial reveal of the series noted some of the great television minds behind it bringing it to life, and a look that seemed much different from the other shows already airing on Adult Swim. This, funny enough, made it the perfect show for Adult Swim as the adult animation block has been the home for odd animated projects with a clear voice and story to tell. Common Side Effects is one of the most ambitious in this vein to date, and is aiming to succeed in what it sets out to do.

Common Side Effects is going to be a much different experience than many Adult Swim fans might be used to. It’s quieter, and driven by more subtle moments to bring about its humor. Exploring a full pharmaceutical conspiracy with multiple parties involved and many layers being unraveled with each episode, Common Side Effects is teasing a much larger mystery at play that’s going to draw you in each and every week. It’s the kind of show that’s really going to sneak up on you.

Originally created by Joe Bennett (Scavengers Reign) and Steve Hely (Veep, American Dad!), with Mike Judge (King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-head) and Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation) as executive producers, it’s immediately clear that Common Side Effects has a wide pool of creative talent behind it. This is evident from the very opening of the series that introduces fans to Marshall Cuso (Dave King), an unassuming genius who is against everything that big pharmaceutical companies are doing to people and the environment. He’s got the one thing that could potentially change the world, however, a mysterious mushroom that can heal the most deadly diseases and patch up the most fatal wounds.

But Marshall’s not the only one who knows about this mushroom as shadowy figures from not only these pharmaceutical companies, but potential rivals, the government, and the Drug Enforcement Administration are now after him. This sparks a major conspiracy as Marshall tries to save the world with his new miracle mushroom. All the while reuniting with one of his friends from high school, Frances Applewhite (Emily Pendergast), who is working for one of the biggest medical companies in the world who wants to find the miracle drug herself. It’s a lot to unpack, and that’s the fun of the series.

Common Side Effects might seem like it’s hitting you with a lot of information to parse through with its premiere, but each episode helps to unfold this little by little. The central mystery has so many moving parts that Marshall is always on edge, and thus it makes it all the more thrilling to watch. Doubly so because Marshall himself is such a fun character at the center of it all. He’s got a very distinct design and personality, and King’s performance just makes you want to root for him as the small fly caught within a much larger web of intrigue.

This is the case for every character in Common Side Effects. Whether they are at the center of the action or only seen for a brief scene, every character seems like they are fully formed and have worlds and lives of their own. So many jokes seem to be smaller throw away lines that pay off in a fun way later. Like the fact that a barista is shouting out for “Geggory’s” coffee order, only for Geggory themselves to appear shortly after. The series is taking care to make sure that outside of the larger mystery that fans will care about the moment to moment scenes for each of the characters.

The two DEA agents at the center of it all, Agents Copano (Joseph Lee Anderson) and Harrington (Martha Kelly), are an example of a great secondary plot. They have been tasked with finding and arresting Marshall, but are not given many details about the reason they are doing so. It’s an order passed on down from above, so they are going to see it through but also start investigating the “why” of their current situation. Frances is the same way as she’s initially introduced as someone who might be using Marshall, but soon has some big changes to her life that lead to her fully supporting him.

On top of all of the intrigue and dialogue driven humor, Common Side Effects is also just a great looking show. Character designs are fun and quirky (and perfectly line up with the personalities that really make an impression), and the world itself is dreary and bleak when it should be. It’s all then perfectly thrown into chaos with the mushrooms themselves as the resulting hallucinogenic sequences clash in just the right way with the grounded world. They don’t feel like traditional drug trips, and even help to move the story forward. It’s where the series is allowed to fully explore the animated realm, and it’s a great result each time.

The first four episodes of Common Side Effects promise a series full of intrigue, personality, and splendidly animated sequences. Adult Swim has really been confident that this series is going to make waves, and it’s easy to see why once you get to see it all in action. Everything just fits together perfectly to provide a much different kind of animated series than fans have seen in a long time.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Common Side Effects premieres on Adult Swim on Sunday, February 2nd at 11:30PM EST.

The post Common Side Effects Review: Adult Swim’s Next Big Hit appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Star Wars TV landscape has started to feel crowded in the half-decade since the galaxy far, far away made its jump to the small screen. We haven’t had a new Star Wars movie in five years, but there have been numerous TV projects hitting Disney+ every single year, widely ranging in quality from season to season. The relentless release schedule for these shows has made a once-timeless franchise feel tiresome, creating less and less excitement for each new show. Needless to say, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew faces an uphill battle out of the gate, needing to rise above the noise and quickly capture the attention of an exhausted fan base.

It’s a tough situation to be in, especially when Skeleton Crew doesn’t boast any major connections to other Star Wars stories, but that is perhaps this show’s greatest strength: It has the freedom to create something that feels new and fresh, while still holding on to the whimsical spirit that made Star Wars so great in the first place.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is a more family-friendly adventure than we’ve seen from the franchise’s TV fare to this point — but don’t mistake “family friendly” for “this is a show for kids.” There have been a lot of comparisons made to The Goonies and, while I don’t totally see them as one-to-one counterparts, the overall tone is easily the biggest similarity. Skeleton Crew features kids in most of its lead roles, but it’s just as much for the adults tuning in as it is for young fans the same ages as its stars.

From co-creators Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, Skeleton Crew occupies its own little corner of the Star Wars galaxy, and thrives with the opportunity to exist mostly by itself. The series follows four kids, who live on a seemingly mundane planet, as they discover a secret ship buried out in the woods. They accidentally power the vessel up and are sent on an adventure to far away, dangerous corners of the galaxy.

Near the beginning of their journey, the young group encounters a mysterious, potentially very powerful man named Jod Na (Jude Law). There’s clearly a lot more to him under the surface (his backstory emerges as one of the most interesting elements of the plot), and some of the kids are rightly skeptical, but circumstances deem their partnership necessary.

This is “Star Wars: Four Kids and a Scoundrel,” which is exactly the type of fun and breezy series that Star Wars has desperately needed. Skeleton Crew isn’t unpacking the history of Force users or taking audiences into the dark and deadly underbelly of bounty hunters. It’s an adventure of a lifetime for a group of kids who happen to get saddled with maybe the most charming jerk we’ve seen in Star Wars since Han Solo. It’s a recipe for a wonderful time, and everyone involved makes the most of the opportunity.

The show’s four young stars — Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, and Robert Timothy Smith — are all beyond delightful. It’s so impressive to see these kids not just perform well on their own, but to watch how effortless their chemistry with one another feels. The group fires on all cylinders when they’re on screen together, the way you’d expect to see the cast of a long-running sitcom go back and forth.

[RELATED: Skeleton Crew Was Originally Pitched as a Star Wars Movie]

It’s fun to watch their characters figure one another out on the fly, trying to deal with very kid-level issues while also making sense of this completely new world they’ve been thrust into. That youthful energy from the characters helps give the audience the energy and sense of wonder that we’ve been missing the last several years. By letting these fascinating, complicated, and very curious kids be our gateway into the story, Skeleton Crew tosses aside the cynicism of adulthood and fan culture, replicating that feeling of watching something like Star Wars for the very first time. Now, Skeleton Crew isn’t the same kind of revolutionary experience as George Lucas’s 1977 sci-fi classic, but it invokes some of the same feelings, which is still a huge win for the franchise.

Speaking of the original Star Wars, Skeleton Crew also does a great job of bringing back the old-school feel of the aliens inhabiting the more devious pockets of the galaxy. There’s so much puppetry and practical costuming happening in each of the three episodes that were made available for review. Watts and the creative team went out of their way to make Skeleton Crew feel like a place that could surprise you around every corner. Every bit character that pops up has a design that’s just different enough from anything you’ve seen before that it’s easy to take up a little more interest in them.

While Skeleton Crew does take a little longer than one might like for it to really get going, there’s no slowing the ride down once it starts. By the end of the two-episode premiere, you’ll have no problem getting hooked on the journey, even if you weren’t quite sold in the opening minutes.

With a fantastic cast and an absolute all-star lineup of directors behind the camera (The Daniels, David Lowery, Lee Isaac Chung, among others), Skeleton Crew sets itself apart as the most purely enjoyable small-screen adventure that Star Wars has embarked on. It doesn’t quite hit the highs of Star Wars: Andor, nor does it fill in the franchise gaps like Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Skeleton Crew is wise enough to distance itself from previous TV ventures. This is the kind of Star Wars series we should’ve been getting all along.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The first two episodes of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew are now streaming on Disney+.

The post Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Review: The Young, Fresh Energy the Galaxy Desperately Needed appeared first on ComicBook.com.

While many are looking to James Gunn’s Superman next summer as the big kick-off for his and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe, the franchise is actually getting started with Creature Commandos. The animated series on Max is another brainchild of Gunn’s, with its very announcement reminding fans of both Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad. Somehow, Creature Commandos lives up to both of those comparisons, channeling the quintessential heart and dark humor that have become calling cards of Gunn’s found-family stories, and delivering the best possible start to the budding DCU.

Creature Commandos is based on the team of monsters from DC Comics that was created in the 1980s by J. M. DeMatteis and Pat Broderick. Originally a World War II team, they were brought into the modern times by Tim Truman and Scot Eaton back in 2000. In this new animated series, the team is essentially acting as a replacement for the Suicide Squad, following the government’s shut down of Task Force X.

That’s right, the events of The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker Season 1 are canon for Gunn’s DCU, and directly influence the start of Creature Commandos (though you definitely don’t have to watch those in order to enjoy this series). The show begins with Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) calling on the father of the late Rick Flag, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), to lead a new team of prisoners on a dangerous assignment. Since the rule put in place by the government states that Belle Reeve can’t use “human” prisoners for missions anymore, Waller decides to throw together a team of monsters to make things happen.

The team includes the Bride of Frankenstein (Indira Varma), Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao), Dr. Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn), and the returning Weasel (also Sean Gunn). Flag leads the ragtag crew to try and protect a foreign princess (Maria Bakalova), as she has become the target of the dangerous villain Circe (Anya Chalotra). In addition to that very complicated situation, which also involves an army of American incels and a potential apocalypse scenario, the Bride is being chased down by the obsessive Frankenstein (David Harbour).

Creature Commandos manages to not only tell this tale over the course of its seven half-hour episodes (the show is seriously a breeze), but it also takes a deep dive into the origins of every single one of its lead characters. In true James Gunn fashion, each of them is layered, pretty funny, and completely devastating. Prepare for G.I. Robot to become your favorite DC character. Get ready to want to be best friends with Nina Mizursky. Expect to be totally shocked by how incredible a character Weasel actually is.

In all seriousness, the Weasel backstory you didn’t think you needed will rip your heart into pieces and leave you asking for more. It’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 levels of wonderful, gut-wrenching pain.

[RELATED: DC Unveils First Creature Commandos Shirts and Toys]

That’s the thing about James Gunn’s work that stands out from so much else in the comic book space right now. He has always had a knack for making you laugh and cry in equal measure, while never sacrificing the story to do so. He makes it clear in this show that, with his vision for the DCU, story will always come first.

And that story that Gunn & Company spin here is very much an adult one, if that wasn’t already clear from the trailers. The violence is extra bloody and the language doesn’t hold back. Creature Commandos never shies away from its darkness, knowing full well that an adult approach is just the correct way to utilize the characters and this journey that they’re on. Nothing is off-limits, which is great news. Whether it’s a secret love affair between the Princess and a member of the team, or the complete massacre of a room full of Nazis, this series isn’t going to pull any punches.

Like both Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, Creature Commandos uses its group of outcasts to find the tiny pockets of hope littered throughout a dark and scary world. Yes, these monsters can also be terrifying, but they’re often the most human characters in the story. They each come with their own baggage (which feels totally understandable when you experience their backstories), yet each of them finds reasons to persist in the face of something more sinister than themselves. There’s that classic found-family element that really gets you rooting for this team of weirdos, even if you may not have liked them all quite as much if they were on their own. Once you start to learn about them as individuals, though, even that will change a bit.

It’s hard to think of a group of characters better suited for laying the groundwork of a new franchise. Without the likes of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or any of the truly iconic characters from DC lore, the sandbox feels vast and empty. There are limitless possibilities, which is something that Gunn and the team and DC take full advantage of.

This is especially true when it comes to the villains of the show. I don’t want to get into the Circe of it all, because there are a ton of twists and turns to that narrative that are best left unspoiled. Frankenstein, however, sets an almost unreasonably high bar for antagonists in this budding universe. This guy is a true monster in every sense of the word. He’s obsessed with a woman in a way that “toxic” doesn’t even begin to describe. He has incredible strength and ingenuity. He’s beyond narcissistic. Yet, somehow, he’s one of the most enjoyable characters in a show filled with enjoyable characters.

A big reason for that is David Harbour’s electric performance. Really, that’s true of this entire cast. The vocal work throughout Creature Commandos is impeccable, and it makes me giddy thinking about the whole “same actors in animation and live-action” rule that this new DCU has already said it’s going to live by. Indira Varma embodies the Bride in such a commanding way, leaving you dying to know just what she’ll be able to do with the live-action version of the character.

By the end of its seven-episode run, you’ll fall in love with every single member of this team, and perhaps almost every character on the show. Creature Commandos gives you just enough time to get to know each of them, and hooks you into their story, without ever overstaying its welcome. In other words, it’s exactly what you need to launch a massive franchise like the DCU.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Creature Commandos premiers on Max Thursday, December 5th.

The post Creature Commandos Review: The Best Possible Start to James Gunn’s DC Universe appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Since the horror master Junji Ito first picked up his pen to draw manga that would send shivers down readers’ spines, it has appeared impossible to adapt the mangaka’s works. Thanks to the level of detail and skin-crawling imagery that Ito has employed throughout the decades, anime adaptations have tried, but for the most part failed, to bring the artist’s works to life in relation to fan expectations. All that has changed with Toonami, Studio Drive, and Production I.G.’s Uzumaki, as the limited series has done what many believed was impossible, capturing the essence of Junji Ito’s art and created the perfect anime for the Halloween season.

Uzumaki follows the two high-school teenagers Kirie and Shuichi. The pair live in a mountain town where things are beginning to go awry in some unexpected ways. In the first episode of the anime adaptation, viewers are given glimpses into how an obsession with spirals can become horrifying abominations that twist and distort the villagers unfortunate enough to fall under their sway. As things continue to get worse, Shuichi and Kirie need to survive and see if it is even possible to dodge a curse that has unexpected ramifications for the town and its residents.

Uzumaki’s plot is a strong one, in terms of Junji Ito’s overall horror library. Often, the series is considered one of the horror artist’s greatest works, and for good reason. While it does have its two main characters in Shuichi and Kirie, it will often branch out from them and tell the stories of handfuls of characters unfortunate enough to be cursed in rather unique ways. This works in a way to create an anthology-style tale that is also cohesive in its overall plot. Shuichi, for example, is dragged into a specific curse thanks to his father’s obsession with spirals, as the young boy even explains to his girlfriend how ridiculous it sounds on the surface, while documenting how terrifying it is to see it with his own eyes. That’s Ito’s work in a nutshell; concepts that, on paper, sound hilarious but put into practice, make for the stuff of nightmares.   

What works so well about the horror aspect here is how unsettling so many of the moments are in relation to the “spiral curse.” For example, Shuichi’s mother, in an effort to “escape” her husband’s obsession post-mortem, begins cutting off her own fingertips to eliminate spirals from her body. A young boy is transforming into a slug in an embarrassing yet skin-crawling way that hits close to home for those who might have been bullied. Perhaps the creepiest of all in the first episode is a young girl who has a mark on her forehead that has long since benefited her romantic life but begins to grow and distort in such a way that it has become one of Ito’s most recognizable images to this day. 

Of course, we would be remiss to not touch upon the animation style used here to perfectly capture Junji Ito’s art style. Studio Drive incorporates both 2-D and CG animation to bring the story to life and, obviously, it’s no easy feat to recreate the work of the horror master, yet the production house does so. The characters themselves appear to have something of a “marionette” style that adds to the creepiness factor of the series, while the animation perfectly captures the uneasiness of the curse lying in wait. The world itself feels like it’s “breathing,” ready to pounce and to heighten the horror to levels that will drag viewers in. Past attempts at fulfilling the promise of adapting Ito’s works have fallen flat in countless respects but that assuredly is not the case here.  

Musical artist Colin Stetson was an inspired choice to create the soundtrack for Uzumaki, as the saxophonist’s tracks work well in once again lending to a feeling of uneasiness in the portrayal of the cursed town. Stetson’s work helps to set the mood and exquisitely accompanies the madness that is a part of the series. On top of the soundtrack, both the Japanese and English Dub work is stellar here, so its up to anime fans which method they’ll want to experience Uzumaki in when it begins on Adult Swim on September 28th. 

Horror anime is something that viewers don’t nearly get enough of and so it is beyond satisfying to finally see what might be the perfect example of the genre arrive right in time for the spooky season. Adult Swim’s Uzumaki might have taken years to finally arrive but it was beyond worth the wait. Junji Ito’s latest anime endeavor is sure to be one that anime fans will revisit on an annual basis when Halloween rolls around and we can’t wait to dig our teeth into the rest of the four-episode miniseries following its premiere. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Uzumaki premieres on Adult Swim on August 28th.

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The French word “dépaysant” means “a nice change of scenery,” the Parisian nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) tells the American Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) on The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol. “It makes you look at things a different way.” Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) were the last two remaining characters from the first season still with The Walking Dead by the end of its 11-season run on AMC, and now the fan favorites are the last to get their own Walking Dead spinoff in a new setting following Maggie and Negan (in The Walking Dead: Dead City) and Rick and Michonne (in The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live).

When the Walking Dead Daryl and Carol series returns with its sophomore season premiere (September 29th on AMC and AMC+), two weeks have passed since Daryl delivered Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi) to the Union de l’Espoir at the Nest: the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey in Normandy, France. “I don’t know if this is the place I’m supposed to be,” Daryl tells Isabelle, but he’s stranded there until Union leader Losang (Joel de la Fuente) can arrange another boat ride back home to the Commonwealth in Ohio. 

As Daryl questions whether the people he left behind are still thinking about him, Isabelle begins to question Losang’s motives and his religious dogma that Laurent — who was born to a zombie-bitten mother at the onset of the zombie apocalypse 13 years earlier — is immune to bites as the religious movement’s prophesiedmessiah. This “false hope” makes the Union a target for Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Pouvoir Du Vivant, an autocratic movement that aims to create a new France by unleashing an army of Ampers: a stronger and faster breed of amped-up Les affamés (walkers) engineered in a lab.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Carol has tracked down her missingfriend to Freeport, Maine, where she meets a kind stranger: a pilot named Ash (The Resident‘s Manish Dayal). Carol convinces him to fly her to France under false pretenses, and by the end of the Greg Nicotero-directed first episode, Daryl and Carol are set on separate paths that will inevitably intersect as they are connecté et dépaysé (both connected and disoriented) in foreign surroundings. It’s a spoiler to reveal when Daryl and Carol reunite over the course of the six-episode season, but rest assured that fans will be satisfied (and teary-eyed) when the long-awaited Caryl reunion finally happens in the most emotional scene of the season. (All six episodes were made available to critics.)

Showrunner David Zabel (who co-wrote a 2006 episode of ER that earned him a Humanitas Prize, awarded to writers “whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way”) and the Daryl Dixon writers’ room have a natural ability to tap into the intrinsic humanity at the core of the zombie drama, which was always about the living and not the living dead. If Daryl and Carol are the beating heart of The Walking Dead, Reedus and McBride are the soul. 

While the two characters go all the way back to the first season in 2010, the “Caryl” relationship as we know it didn’t start to form until Season 2. Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol includes some well-placed flashbacks to the Season 2 episodes “Cherokee Rose” and “Pretty Much Dead Already,” two essential episodes that forged the unbreakable bond between Daryl and Carol — both survivors of abuse — after the disappearance and death of Carol’s young daughter, Sophia (Madison Lintz). It’s a loss that has haunted Carol ever since, and as she grapples with these ghosts from the past, Carol’s emotional turmoil proves to be a riveting showcase for the incomparable McBride. And Reedus — who has always brought sensitivity and vulnerability to a character who was conceived as “a mini-Merle,” fleshing out his layers over 11 seasons — delivers another understated and compelling performance that makes Reedus and McBride the perfect pairing.

In an interview with ComicBook, TWD Universe chief content officer Scott M. Gimple likened the new season to “an indie French horror movie.” It’s an apt comparison, because The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon is like nothing else on television. A Walking Dead show with French-language subtitled dialogue? Beautifully shot cinematic landscapes, natural lighting, and on-location shoots across the French countryside? And between amped-up walker kills and a one-shot action sequence in Episode 3 — a knife-hurling, neck-snapping, guts-stabbing, bone-breaking, breathless melee that is more like a fight scene out of 2003’s Oldboy than any fight scene ever staged on The Walking Dead — the season is as action-packed as it is artsy. Mon Dieu!

This is an adrenalized, action-heavy season that foregoes much of the religious undercurrent of the more measured and faith-based first season, but its balanced mix of heartfelt drama and heart-pounding zombie action means Daryl Dixon is more epic than ever. Even if the season is a layover on the way to the upcoming Spain-set and shot Season 3, the new chapter in the book of Daryl and Carol is dépaysant.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol premieres Sunday, September 29th on AMC and AMC+.

The post The Walking Dead Review: Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride Reunite in Amped-up Daryl Dixon Season 2 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

For generations, the word “verisimilitude” has hung over the world of comic book adaptations. Richard Donner famously used the concept as a guiding principle for 1978’s Superman movie, arguing that the high-flying and brightly colored protagonist needed to be rooted in a version of reality to effectively translate onscreen. It’s hard to deny that Donner succeeded in that venture, as his film essentially defined the genre, but the concept has become a sort of buzzword in the decades since. Verisimilitude is thrown around in countless arguments about superhero projects that are too dark and gritty, not dark and gritty enough, or stuck in a limbo between the two. This debate crossed my mind frequently while watching HBO’s The Penguin, the newest television extension of the DC mythos. Across its eight-episode season, The Penguin reframes that age-old argument in a beautiful new evolution, delivering one of the most unflinchingly human and entertaining interpolations of a comic in recent memory.

Set shortly after the events of the 2022 film The Batman, The Penguin follows the continued adventures of Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) as he scrambles for power amid the criminal underworld of the now-shattered Gotham City. As Oz navigates his new reputation, his new criminal schemes, and his home life, he also begins to form an unlikely bond with teenager Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz). Intersecting with Oz’s quest is Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), a notorious serial killer who grew up as the once-pampered daughter of Oz’s former boss, and who is trying to forge her own path forward after being released from a mental institution. 

That description not only scratches the surface of what The Penguin has to offer, but it doesn’t even dwell on the DC lore that surrounds the series. Yes, there are countless comic stories delving into the Falcone family’s chokehold over Gotham City, as well as Oz’s own rise to power within that structure. Yes, Sofia’s institutionalization occurred in the infamous Arkham Asylum. Yes, Oz’s romantic partner, sex worker Eve Karlo (Carmen Ejogo), shares a surname with the Batman villain Clayface. But those comic connections are far from the most compelling or surprising things that The Penguin has to offer, even as fans sniff around for clues about The Batman‘s cinematic sequel, 2026’s The Batman Part II. Any reference to DC canon, from the inclusion of a comic character to a random offhanded reference, flavors the experience of The Penguin instead of being a whole meal. Even the specific flavors that fans have already turned their noses at — namely, shortening Oz’s name from his comic-accurate moniker of Oswald Cobblepot — prove to be inconsequential in context. 

That shouldn’t necessarily be a miracle when we’re decades into the world of modern comic book television shows, but it feels like one, especially as The Penguin offers a fundamentally entertaining experience at every single turn. The show subscribes to virtually every single trope fans could expect from a crime drama, delivering brutal violence, countless backroom deals, and a larger sense of grounded stakes. But under the guidance of showrunner Lauren LeFranc, it never gives itself an opportunity to be defined by those tropes, allowing space for a true sense of sincerity. This is abundantly apparent with Oz, whose unique earnestness is on display in his closest relationship, and whose dark aspirations are juxtaposed with awkward quirks and legitimately funny one-liners. It is also astronomically clear with Sofia, whose biting wit and impossibly tragic backstory create a perfect foil to Oz. (Without getting into spoilers, the chapter of The Penguin that dives into that backstory might just be one of the best television episodes of the year, if not in recent memory.) The heartfelt nature of The Penguin not only keeps the series’ story moving, but it proves to be a perfect complement to the larger-than-life vigilantism viewers saw in The Batman. Granted, some fans might grow disappointed by how scattered the moments of high-octane action are, but The Penguin‘s weekly release model should allow space for countless sequences (both big and small) to get the weight that they deserve.

Farrell’s unrecognizable performance as Oz remains as transformative and quirky as it was in The Batman, while evolving into so much more than the countless internet memes and confused social media posts might have suggested the first time around. The series is a character study for Oz in every single sense of the word, building him into a multifaceted, sympathetic protagonist that audiences want to root for, even at his absolute worst. On its own, Farrell’s performance would be enough to singlehandedly carry a show of this venture, which makes it all the more outstanding that The Penguin boasts an equally revelatory performance from Milioti. The actress steals every single scene she is in, as we watch Sofia fall in and out of Oz’s circle and spiral towards her own path of being a criminal mastermind. It’s not only a portrayal fully worthy of Sofia’s bizarre and dark DC history, but easily a career-defining performance from Milioti, whose decades of work on the screen and the stage has been criminally overlooked. Outside of the two leads, The Penguin is still filled with compelling performances, with Feliz’s sweet and overwhelmed take on Victor and Clancy Brown’s excellent take on mob boss Salvatore Maroni being definite highlights.

On an aesthetic level, The Penguin carries the torch of The Batman without ever overdoing certain elements. The team behind Farrell’s prosthetic makeup deserves every award imaginable, delivering a practical alchemy that helps cement Oz as his own unique, scarred entity. The series’ New York sets seamlessly emulate the franchise’s Gotham amalgam of London and Chicago, with subtle expansions in new neighborhoods and set pieces. Cinematographer Darran Tiernan also carries over the gritty dimension of The Batman, while weaving in the occasional vibrant colors that would have seemed out of place in the series’ predecessor. Composer Mick Giacchino, the son of The Batman composer Michael Giacchino, creates a sonic identity that stands on its own without ever feeling too out of place, when juxtaposed with the previous score or with the series’ slew of needle drops (including the best use of Dolly Parton in recent pop culture memory).

Across its eight episodes, The Penguin redefines what verisimilitude can mean in the world of comic book adaptations. The grittiness, violence, and double-crossing that fans would expect from the title are abundantly present, but balanced with a truly heartfelt take on loss, rebirth, and personal agency. The series is not only one of the better crime dramas in recent memory, it is one of the best examples of how to branch out decades of beloved lore.The Penguin is simply a show about people trying to thrive in a world much bigger and weirder than they can even comprehend — a subject that would be universal nonetheless, but transforms into something special with its engrossing performances. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Penguin will premiere on Max on Thursday, September 19th, followed by an HBO premiere on Sunday, September 22nd, with new episodes debuting on both HBO and Max beginning on September 29th.

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Futurama made its grand return from its originally intended series finale for a third time last summer with new episodes on Hulu, and Season 12 continues that hot streak, as everyone behind it all seems to finally be comfortable again and running along smoothly. Futurama is a notable animated series in that it originally ran with Fox for four seasons before being cancelled, only to then return with a slate of direct-to-video feature films years later, and then returning with a few new seasons with Comedy Central before being cancelled again. Last summer, Futurama was then revived yet another time and got back into the swing of things. 

Futurama Season 11 felt like a season of getting the band back together on Hulu, so to speak. While there were a few standout episodes, much of the season felt like both new and returning members of the cast and staff were trying to “find” what Futurama‘s voice was going to be for this new era. It was a season of both revival and experimentation, but now Season 12 is finally making use of all of that effort as Futurama is now firing on all cylinders again. 

The first six episodes of Futurama Season 12 run the gamut of both wacky one-off adventures as seen with the previous Hulu season, and a few big looks expanding the overall lore of the series itself. Many animated shows these days have been a big hit with fans the more they explore the characters’ histories or personalities to shake up the overall status quo, but Futurama‘s been doing that for a long time. In fact, some of the biggest episodes in the series’ history have done just that, as seen in “The Luck of the Fryrish,” “The Day the Earth Stood Stood Stupid,” and more. Thankfully, that’s the case here, too. 

Futurama Season 12 has a much better blend of its modern-day technology parody with furthering a character’s story. For example, one of the episodes sees Bender starring in an NFT collection. While one of the side plots sees the Professor and the Planet Express crew misunderstanding how NFTs work (and thus much humor is mined from the idea of that technology in the first place), the real core of the episode instead shifts more of its focus to Bender as he learns more about his Mexican heritage; it’s not an episode focused on a single idea. 

You’ll see this demonstrated throughout the season overall. Rather than spending the majority of an episode aping a technology or idea that would have outdated humor by the time Futurama‘s talking about it (as seen with some of the older seasons’ weaker episodes), it’s instead used as a springboard to find a new way to highlight one of the main characters. For another example, there’s one episode that seems like it’s just going to be a parody of Netflix’s Squid Game, but turns into one of the best looks into Fry’s past yet. 

While there aren’t as many huge shifts in the status quo in the first six episodes of Futurama Season 12 as seen with Futurama Season 11 (nothing on the level as Amy having kids and adding more regular characters to the rotation), instead we get some new looks at the classic characters and some shake-ups to their dynamics. There are episodes featuring different mix-ups (like Leela finding a new group of friends or the Professor seeking out a surprising new career) that instead keep it feeling fresh even after all these years. Rather than going for these big swings, the series instead finds more to mine from what’s still on the table.

Futurama Season 12 feels like the revival series finding its groove. There are some major laughs to be found with each episode, and it’s clear that everyone behind the scenes has gotten back into the rhythm of things and found the right way to navigate Futurama in this current era of streaming animation. It’s the kind of revival fans have been hoping for when the series first made its comeback last summer, and is a great sign of what is come with the series’ future with Hulu. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Futurama Season 12 premieres with Hulu on July 29th.

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In a world where franchises are spread increasingly thin, filling in arbitrary gaps of canon to the point of no return, your favorite television show earning a sequel can be an interesting conundrum. When an Orphan Black spinoff was first announced to be in the works in 2019, less than two years after the Emmy-winning cult classic had reached its poignant conclusion, there was absolutely no telling what shape it would take. The original series, and its passionate “Clone Club” fandom, have remained a cornerstone of my life and of my media tastes, one that could be perfectly preserved in my mind while the larger media landscape changed dramatically. Five years later, the ten-episode first season of Orphan Black: Echoes has not only calmed my worries, but it has helped justify the existence of a sequel series of its nature. While not without its flaws, Orphan Black: Echoes is a welcomed return to one of the best feminist fables of the 21st century, with plenty of meaningful surprises.

Set in the near future of 2052, Orphan Black: Echoes opens on the journey of Lucy (Krysten Ritter), a seemingly ordinary woman who has rebuilt a quiet life after a bizarre amnesiac episode. When that life gets threatened by her past, and the very nature of her existence, Lucy is sent on a drastic journey of self-discovery. This throws her into the orbit of teenage girl, Jules (Amanda Fix), and a mysterious doctor (Keeley Hawes), both of whom might hold the answers — if those answers aren’t exploited by world-altering forces.

That description doesn’t even begin to encapsulate the mystery at the center of Orphan Black: Echoes — in part because that mystery takes a good chunk of the season to properly reveal itself. Any heart-stopping twist on par with Orphan Black‘s inciting moments, in which Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) watches an exact doppelganger of herself commit suicide by jumping in front of a train, does not occur in earnest until the season’s midpoint. There is an admirable quality to this slow burn, as it does allow the viewer to acclimate themselves to the show’s far-flung future before throwing it into disarray, but it might create a frustrating experience for new and old fans alike. Luckily, Echoes does bide its time in those early episodes by folding in Easter eggs and connections to its predecessor, but none are outright alienating for those jumping into the franchise first with this series. If you do count yourself to be a member of Clone Club, these ties create space to (thematically and occasionally literally) check in on an old friend, while also posing thorny questions about the series’ central mystery.

Once the puzzle pieces of Echoes do begin to fall into place, the bigger picture is effective and genuinely surprising. The overarching plot of Season 1 carries over the franchise’s approach to feminism and body autonomy in a way that never feels like an unused storyline from the original series (or its subsequent comic and audio drama adaptations). This is, in part, because some of its inspiration feels extremely prescient, as the fight for personal agency and the rise of misguided technocrats have unfortunately become more common in our real world than in our science fiction. There is a lot of cathartic fun in watching Echoes recontextualize those themes, all while remaining grounded in its various protagonists. Again, it is exasperating that Echoes takes half of its season to fully entrench itself in that conflict, but the end result is still entertaining and meaningful, in ways that creep up on you long after watching the episodes.

In a way, it’s impossible to exactly recapture the dramaturgical and technical wizardry of Maslany’s performances on the original Orphan Black — something that Echoes, for the most part, seems to recognize as well. Instead, especially in the latter half of Echoes‘ first season, the series crafts a different kind of magic between its ensemble cast of characters. Compared to many of Orphan Black‘s Leda clones, or even Ritter’s most well-known roles of Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Breaking Bad‘s Jane Margolis, it isn’t as easy to assign Lucy a specific archetype. Performance-wise, Ritter utilizes that fact to find a lot of quiet empathy and mystery, turning her into a relatable everywoman even in the most impossible of circumstances. Without getting into spoilers, the scenes between Lucy and Fix’s Jules quickly and consistently become one of the hearts of the series, and are downright exhilarating in the second half of the season. This will, hopefully, become the breakout role of Fix’s career, because she delivers a liveliness and gravitas that is lacking in many actors twice her age.

The other heart of Echoes proves to be Hawes’ key role, which I will not spoil here, even though it has already been heavily hinted at in some of the show’s marketing. From the very first frame, her performance provides a unique two-way street between Echoes and the original text of Orphan Black — her triumphs and traumas are boosted by all that preceded her, while her mere existence as a fascinating and flawed woman strengthens an overlooked part of the original series. Hawes shoulders the weight of those connections with a captivating sense of grace, all while keeping her character incredibly accessible to newer audiences.

Another gimmick from the original series that Echoes chooses not to employ is setting up several wildly different social circles and mundane predicaments for its characters, and as a result, some of the larger ensemble cast feel a bit undercooked. But there are some standouts, particularly in the form of Lucy’s endearing ally Craig (Jonathan Whittaker), and in the beauty and tragedy of the spoiler-heavy characters played by Rya Kihlstedt and Vinson Tran.

One of the biggest surprises of Echoes — which, at times, contributes to the dissonance of its initial viewing experience — is the series’ aesthetics. While there are occasional moments of brilliance, Echoes does not consistently match a lot of the moody color grading and inventive cinematography of its predecessor. The distinctly sci-fi elements vary in execution as well, with some (unique city skylines and tubs of mysterious pink ooze) provoking a sense of fear and wonder, and others (inconsistently CGIed machines and boringly casual “futuristic” costuming) feeling like an afterthought. This doesn’t prove to be a make-or-break element for Echoes, especially once the story kicks into high gear, but it does leave something to be desired when on the heels of the tactile techno-futuristic weirdness of the original show’s Neolution movement. In other ways, the technical aspects of Echoes do provide a worthy follow-up to their predecessor, from returning composer Trevor Yule’s mesmerizing work on the series’ score to the melancholic and catchy theme song sung by Grammy-winning boygenius member Julian Baker.

Orphan Black: Echoes is, in a roundabout way, the perfect sequel series for its eponymous franchise. It is, often, a wholly unique individual, crafting a modern tale of personhood and science in a world that needs those stories more than ever. It is also, in necessary ways, aware of the sisterhood it is a part of, utilizing its decades-long jump into the future to dramatize how much growth and change we, as viewers, have endured in the six long years since the original Orphan Black wrapped. Bolstered by the great performances of its leading ladies and the heart of its core story, Orphan Black: Echoes is rewarding, even if it might take you a few episodes to fall down the rabbit hole.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Orphan Black: Echoes will premiere on Sunday, June 23rd on AMC, AMC+, and BBC America.

The post Orphan Black: Echoes Review: A Scrappy, Surprising Addition to the Sestrahood appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Everything is awful and the world is falling apart, both in the real world and in the world of The Boys. The breakout Prime Video hit has never been one to shy away from tackling real-world issues, a notion that combusts beyond belief throughout the eight episodes of The Boys Season 4. Though the show has been a bit on the nose with its previous jabs at the political landscape, Season 4 is hardly satire; instead, it simply replicates the rhetoric seen on social media and fringe outlets consumed by the far right.

The show picks up just a few months after the ending of The Boys Season 3, with the titular group now led by MM (Laz Alonso) as Butcher (Karl Urban) lives out his remaining days due to his brain cancer destroying his body. By this point in time, Homelander (Antony Starr) finds himself on trial for murdering the “Starlighter” at the end of Season 3, causing tensions to be at an all-time high between the Hometeamers and Starlighters.

From the leap, the eponymous group of vigilantes faces an uphill battle, and it’s one isn’t easily resolved by the time the season airs its final episode. The show is, after all, already renewed for a fifth season as Prime Video turns it into a bonafide franchise. It’s here that this season falls into its biggest faults of the year: the show’s characters, from Butcher to Homelander (Antony Starr) and anyone in between, takes one step forward only to get blasted five steps back. It’s been a recurring theme throughout the previous three seasons and it’s one that’s found ad nauseam through this summer’s eight episodes.

Luckily, that’s the biggest mark against Season 4. In showrunner Eric Kripke’s typical fashion, The Boys refuses to pull any punches and the end result is something that punches you in the gut repeatedly. Though it will leave you battered, beaten, and broken, it will make you feel terror. It will make experience furor, and if you scour the utter darkness of the show, you may even fight a little corner of light that will inject you with just the tiniest sliver of hope. No matter what the case, The Boys Season 4 makes you feel intense emotions within most of its scenes, a true testament to the storytelling strength of this cast and crew.

While he’s made his presence felt plenty of times before, Alonso is Season 4’s breakout star, with his MM taking over the reins of The Boys because of Butcher’s ailing health. Alonso excels as a leader, and the development seen on screen will have fans arguing the case he’s the most important character of the season. On the opposite side, Starr’s Homelander is a double-edged sword — as has been the case for the better part of 30 episodes now. The show finally dives deeper into the character’s backstory, taking fans on a dangerously sympathetic journey into why he is doing what he does. It’s a difficult story only Starr could handle, and the actor’s performance cements Homelander’s rightful place in the Pantheon of Film Villains.

Also taking center stage is Susan Heyward’s Sister Sage, a character that might be the most dangerous of them all, even though she has a vastly different skillset than what we’ve already seen on the show. Sage goes to great lengths to provide an interesting dynamic between the others in The Seven, and it goes a long way to keep the villains fresh and three-dimensional.

The Boys Season 4 is nothing short of frustrating, but not because of the writers or actors associated with the show; it’s frustrating because the show does an impeccable job of examining the world we live in, putting a light on just how dangerous and alarming the rhetoric used by some of those in positions of power really is. It’s far from a feel-good television show, but that’s the point of it all: if it leaves you fuming, maybe you’ll be inspired to do something about it.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The first three episodes of The Boys Season 4 start streaming on Prime Video Thursday, June 13th while the remaining five episodes of the season will be released weekly through July 18th.

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Star Wars: The Acolyte, the latest entry into the Star Wars canon by way of Disney+, brings viewers back to that familiar galaxy far, far away, but a bit longer of a time ago than they’re used to. The Acolyte, created by Leslye Headland, occurs during the waning days of the High Republic era, about 100 years before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, when both the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic were at the height of their power and influence. It also may reveal the first cracks in these institutions’ foundations that would leave them vulnerable to exploitation and lead to their eventual falls. With this coming darkness looming, The Acolyte offers a different set of genre influences than Star Wars has typically hewn to, though perhaps not blended to maximum potency.

WARNING: This review discusses plot points from the first four episodes of The Acolyte that could be considered mild spoilers

Star Amandla Stenberg centers the series in the dual roles of Osha and Mae, twin sisters separated after a traumatic event that left their family dead. Osha went on to become a Jedi Padawan but left the Jedi Order when she proved unable to let go of her feelings about what happened that day.

Mae is presumed dead until she emerges in The Acolyte‘s opening scene, striding into a cantina to goad Jedi Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Most) into a fight. It’s a stunning scene, with ambiance set nicely by the streams of light coming into the saloon from the setting sun outside, and combat that blends beautiful moves inspired by martial arts cinema with Indira’s Force abilities to offer something fresh in a Star Wars fight sequence. It ends with a standoff befitting the clear Western influences and is a stellar opening salvo for the new show.

Mae’s reemergence triggers an investigation that reunites Osha with Jedi from her past, including her old friend Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and her former master, Sol (Lee Jung-jae). Since Mae was believed dead, Osha is at first a suspect, but it doesn’t take long for them to figure out the truth and begin investigating what appears to be a revenge-fueled killing spree.

But revenge for what? The Acolyte is less adept at building tension around its central mysteries than it is at framing exciting action scenes, less keeping its secrets tightly under wraps and more keeping them behind a thin strip of sheer fabric, obscured enough to be frustrating. Mae is seemingly motivated by vengeance for something that happened during or around the event that separated her from her sister. Sol was there when it happened, as was Osha, and several of the supporting characters seem to have some idea of what transpired, leaving only the audience out of the loop. Eventually, the show does offer a first-hand account of what happened, but while it leaves crucial moments unseen, it isn’t hard for anyone paying attention to figure out what they’re not being told. (Presumably. I don’t want to spoil too much by spelling out my theory, but if it turns out to be anything other than, broadly, “The Jedi did something bad,” I will stand corrected.)

Despite its prestige thriller ambitions, The Acolyte leans into several tropes and some of Star Wars’ most melodramatic impulses. Characters are transfixed by flames that remind them of their traumatic pasts. There are mistaken identities, evil twins, and mysterious masterminds. These devices can be fun in the right context, but the storytelling isn’t leaning into it. For the cinematic splendor of that opening scene, the spaceship-bound scenes that follow are uninspired, oddly quiet, and awkwardly staged, feeling somehow like they’re being shot at an immersive Star Wars theme park.

The plot suffocates the characters, who are often left with little to do but deliver whatever bit of dialogue is needed to push the plot to the next scene, leaving their characterizations one-note. Yord is a young, by-the-book goofball. Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), Sol’s current padawan, is smugly brilliant, Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) is a severe Jedi elder turned jaded by Coruscant politics. They’re fine starting points, but the series seems uninterested in giving any character an arc outside of the twins and maybe Sol, leaving the rest of the ensemble feeling more like plot devices than people.

Despite its flaws, The Acolyte offers some memorable moments. Anytime the series focuses on the unique practices of the Jedi of the High Republic era, it shines. The time spent with Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and her coven of Force witches is fascinating and has some mesmerizing visual moments. While the series plays with certain familiar Star Wars themes (duality, chiefly), it also surprisingly elevates the type of Star Wars story previously confined to tie-in novels to live-action. As someone who has read a few Star Wars novels, I say that with affection, though it’ll be interesting to see if it will lose more casual fans.

Star Wars: The Acolyte stands apart from other Star Wars projects for its unique setting and for bringing new influences into the universe. It isn’t executed to perfection, and there are moments when it can feel lifeless. However, there are others when it succeeds at showing that there are still unexplored corners of this Star Wars universe worth investigating. As a series built on mysteries – likely another polarizing point – much of its value will come from whether it has satisfying answers. We won’t know that until the final episode. For now, it’s an uneven experience likely to appeal most to those already swimming in the deep end of the Star Wars pool.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The first two episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte premiere on Disney+ on June 4th.

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The new era of Doctor Who continues its strong start, with Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson bringing a sense of joy and whimsy to the long-running sci-fi series. On Christmas Day, BBC and Disney+ kicked off the new era of Doctor Who, the seminal TV series starring the last of the Time Lords, with the Doctor picking up a new companion and a new mystery to unravel. Doctor Who returns with new episodes this week and while not as strong as the season premiere, the new episodes are a joy to watch, largely due to the unbridled joy and unmatched emotion of its two leads.

The previous run of Doctor Who, led by showrunner Chris Chibnall, was largely seen as a low point for the 50-year old franchise despite a strong performance by Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. BBC brought in Russell T. Davies to revitalize the series similar to how he brought back the series in 2010 after a lengthy hiatus. Davies closed out the previous “era” by bringing back fan-favorites David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the 14th Doctor and Donna Noble respectively and using the duo to establish a new status quo over the course of three specials that both respected the past storylines but also drew a soft line to separate the old from the new. Gatwa was brought in at the tail end of the third special as the 15th Doctor unencumbered by the immense trauma that previous Doctors’ have been burdened with. 

The next two episodes of Doctor Who that were made available for review build on the chemistry of Gatwa and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday, a well-adjusted teen with a mysterious past. The Doctor and Sunday have an instant connection, not built upon a hinted romance but rather the shared joy of enjoying the wonder of the universe. While the pair are faced with some weighty threats during the two episodes, Gatwa and Gibson spend most of their shared screentime smiling or smirking as if the pair are in on a secret joke. The two bring an infectious energy to the screen and it’s hard not to smile when they do. 

Gatwa’s Doctor is a bit more reactive and cool than most of his predecessors, oozing with a sort of charm that can only come from someone who has traveled to the beginning and end of time. It’s amazing how effortlessly he’s slotted into the role of the Doctor and made it into his own, and he’ll likely be on the top of many fans’ list of favorite Doctors before his time on the show ends. What I enjoyed most about Gatwa is how he acknowledges all of the pain, hurt, and trauma that comes with being the Doctor without letting it define the character. Honestly, he reminds a lot of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor, but without the brooding that version of the Doctor was burdened with.

Besides the new cast, this new era of Doctor Who also seems to have shifted a bit away from science fiction and more towards the realm of fantasy. After years of facing Daleks and Cybermen and various other alien species, the first few episodes of Doctor Who instead explore more nebulous theories and ideas such as the power of coincidence or the effect of music on history. It’s not that Doctor Who hasn’t played around with these kinds of “big ideas” in the past, but they’ve rarely been the focus of the series like before. And by focusing more on the existential, Doctor Who is also given some more freedom to be a little goofier and whimsical than it was in the past. Some of this whimsy is a bit over-the-top at times, but most fans will find it to be a breath of fresh air after the slog of the previous series. 

Another interesting note from the first new episodes is how Davies pays homage to his last stint while teasing what could be coming in the future. Ruby Sunday shares a few similarities with Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper during Davies’ first run on Doctor Who) and there are a couple of story beats, especially in the second episode, that seem like homages to early moments from Rose’s introduction in the series. There are also a couple of tantalizing Easter eggs and references in the episode, especially regarding the Doctor’s past incarnations and the Time Lords, that feel a bit too on the nose to not play a factor in the rest of the season. The new era seems to be a conscious separation from what came before, but Davies is still a big Doctor Who fan and the show doesn’t abandon its storied history even though it is clearly aiming for a new audience. 

If you enjoyed the Doctor Who Christmas special that introduced Gatwa and Gibson, you’ll be pleased to know the new series of Doctor Who continues to shine with the same charm and energy. Even if you didn’t enjoy the more whimsical take on the Doctor, there are still plenty of mysteries hinted at in just the first few episodes that could set up storylines for years to come, some of which seem to touch upon neglected parts of Doctor Who lore not really visited since the show came back almost 15 years ago. This is a new era of Doctor Who and the show looks to be must-watch television once again. 

Review Score: 4.5 out of 5

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The first season of AMC’s Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire achieved what many fans of the late author’s most iconic work thought impossible; the series brought to life something that was simultaneously faithful to the characters and themes that generations of readers have come to love while also carving out something entirely new, taking viewers into unexpected corners of the lush and mysterious world of Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis du Pointe du Lac. But it wasn’t just a visual and narrative feast that Season 1 delivered, as it also left fans with the greatest of mysteries as it concluded with a “and then what?” when Louis and Claudia fled New Orleans in search of others like themselves after having killed their maker Lestat —with the viewer aware that it wouldn’t be quite that simple. With the stakes (and the drama) so high and so much of the story to unfold, Season 2 had a lot to live up to as the vampires headed into the European night — and it’s done exactly that. Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire pulls off a bit of theatrical magic, managing to be an even more authentic adaptation of an iconic story while still offering a fresh reinvention of Rice’s work and delivering even further on the heartbreak and humanity that is the drama of the undead.

Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire picks up where one would expect it to, with Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) in Europe on an existential quest: where did we come from? As series creators have said from the outset, the season follows roughly the second half of Rice’s novel and for the six of eight episodes that were provided to critics for review, this remains true, albeit with some tweaks and changes that enhance and clarify the voyage. Viewers follow Claudia and Louis as they seek their own kind and simultaneously try to deal with (or not deal with) their own fractured relationship in the wake of their lives in New Orleans before, eventually, making their way to Paris where they encounter the Theatre de Vampires, the first true coven of vampires like them they have ever encountered. It is the arrival in Paris and the incorporation with the Theatre that begin to pull both Claudia and Louis on their own journeys of self, ones that pull them further from one another but also that create new dangers as new clashes with old.

The season also maintains its dual timeline storytelling established in Season 1, moving between Louis’ memories as recounted to Daniel and the actual contemporary interview in which he is doing the recounting. This time around, however, the contemporary interview takes a bit more center stage. The end of Season 1 revealed that “Rashid” was actually the vampire Armand, and that memory — specifically what Daniel remembers from the original interview in 1973 — may not be what it seems. Season 2 leans into that a good bit more, creating a more pronounced secondary storyline that, in turn, drives how the recollection of Louis’ past is itself brought to life. Between the two timelines and the two stories, a richer, albeit darker tale begins to emerge, one that gives the season a feel not unlike that of a thriller that holds the viewer on the edge of their seat wondering when the facade of civility holding everything together – in both timelines – is going to crack. To put it more simply, this season feels more directly like intellectual horror than last season and it’s an excellent development.

In fact, there is a lot about Season 2 that simply works on a more elevated level than Season 1. The shifts to the canonical story are ambitious, but they are well-considered and well-crafted, particularly in the approach to Claudia and her time in Paris as well as Armand’s incorporation into the mystery of 1973. There are also plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the overall The Vampire Chronicles and they are done in ways that feel organic and like genuine narrative layering and not like Easter eggs at all.  

The biggest strength the season has going for it, however, is casting. Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson are again brilliant as Lestat and Louis, respectively, and Eric Bogosian’s Daniel continues to in equal turns bring humor and a bit of a “bullsh-t check” to the often very purple prose-y vampires. But the real standouts are the newcomers. Delainey Hayles picks up the role of Claudia from Bailey Bass seamlessly and then carries the role even higher, delivering a performance that perfectly conveys the horror of being imprisoned in a forever childlike body as well as the devastation of all the cruelty and wrongs done to her. There is a humanity to her monstrousness that burns through the screen every time she is on it. In the books, Santiago is one of the characters readers absolutely love to hate but in the brilliant hands of Ben Daniels, you not only love to hate him but you come right back around to loving him and perhaps even agreeing with him. There’s something malicious and charming about him that almost rivals Reid’s Lestat. Additionally, Roxane Duran’s Madeleine is possibly the best casting yet for a character that is relatively minor, but also very significant, and when paired in scenes with Hayles’ Claudia, there is a heartbreak that defies the medium and cuts through to the very soul.

Even with strong storytelling that both relies on and respectfully reinvents canon and bolsters it with top-tier performances, there are a few small flaws in the overall season. As fans know, AMC is looking to build out an Immortal Universe based on Rice’s works — Mayfair Witches already exists, and more are in development — and there are some moments in the season that, at least through Episode 6, that feel a bit forced, especially when one considers the power of the vampires involved. There is one particular character reveal that is, while very interesting and has potential, does feel slightly out of place, at least in the episodes we’ve seen thus far. There is also a hard shift as certain buried truths come to light that feels very abrupt and almost out of character — and, again, a little forced and jagged considering the power and nature of the vampires involved. Either of those aspects almost feel as though they’d be better suited to being their own, unconnected story.

Even for those little falters, Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire, to borrow from theater in a sense, brings down the house. With top-notch performances, careful pacing, and just the right amount of narrative shifts and tweaks, the series manages to take a story that so many think they know and not only leans into the familiar but make it even more thrilling, more fascinating, and invites the viewer to question their own memory – while compelling you to ask for more.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Interview with the Vampire Season 2 premieres on AMC on May 12th.

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At the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Knuckles the Echidna (Idris Elba) found himself a new home on Earth. That’s where things pick up for the character in Knuckles, a new series coming to Paramount+ on April 26th. As the series begins, Knuckles is struggling to get acclimated to his new surroundings. Enter the spirit of his ancestor Chief Pachacamac (Christopher Lloyd), who tells Knuckles that he will find his purpose by training a new warrior: Green Hills deputy Wade Whipple (Adam Pally). Wade’s bumbling nature makes him seem like a bizarre candidate, but their quest starts to take shape over the six-episode series. 

On the surface, the plot for Knuckles seems very similar to the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie: a police officer and his anthropomorphic animal friend work together while being pursued by a mad scientist (Rory McCann). However, those similarities are only surface level, because Knuckles is a very low stakes series. Wade’s great quest doesn’t revolve around the Chaos Emeralds, or protecting the planet. Instead, he’s trying to win a bowling tournament in Reno, Nevada where his estranged father (Cary Elwes) happens to be the reigning champion. On their way to the tournament, Knuckles and Wade come into conflict with a pair of agents (Scott Mescudi and Ellie Taylor) hired by a scientist that once worked with Doctor Robotnik. Trailers for Knuckles positioned that conflict as a big part of the show, but the mad scientist storyline is little more than an excuse to imbue some action into what’s otherwise a traditional road trip comedy. 

Wade the Unlikely Warrior

When Knuckles starts out, the show eases viewers in, reintroducing the established characters and their world. Wisely, the show does that via Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Maddie Wachowski (Tika Sumpter). Seeing these characters again was a nice reminder to how well director Jeff Fowler has built-up this Sega universe in just two movies. However, the show uses its format to add a lot of depth that we haven’t gotten for both Knuckles and Wade. The two series leads end up having a unique dynamic, and it’s very different from the one between Sonic and Tom in the movies. This propels the show in a direction that’s way more offbeat and bizarre than most audiences might be expecting. 

While Sonic was always cheerful and ready to embrace Earth’s culture, Knuckles is a lot more distrusting and judgmental. Meanwhile, Wade’s pretty much a police officer in name only, and fits none of the cop cliches. He’s nothing resembling a warrior, and he’s underestimated by every single person in his life, from his bowling partner (Julian Barratt) to his FBI agent sister, Wanda (Edi Patterson). Knuckles and Wade are both aloof in their own different ways, and that’s the key to the series. I’ve been a fan of Adam Pally since The Mindy Project, and while I enjoyed seeing him in both Sonic movies, he was mostly used as comic relief. Those comic chops are on full display in Knuckles, but we also get a greater sense of who Wade is as a person. As a result, Pally ends up stealing the show. The series is arguably more about Wade than it is about Knuckles, but Idris Elba does get some moments to shine. 

The humor in Knuckles is similar to the first two Sonic movies, but it leans much more into the absurd. The show’s fourth episode in particular dials things up in a very big way; while I found myself enjoying the first three episodes, it’s here that the show really finds itself, ironically just as Wade also starts to uncover his own inner strength. The episode might be my favorite thing that’s been done with the Sonic Cinematic Universe so far, and it’s destined to spawn a plethora of gifs and memes.

A Cinematic Universe Expands

Knuckles does have a few missteps, and while they aren’t major ones, they do stick out in an otherwise strong series. Throughout the six-episode run, I found myself frequently wondering about the current status of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. The show doesn’t do the greatest job establishing the general public’s knowledge about these aliens; the people of Green Hills might be used to seeing Sonic at this point, but no one in Reno seems to be fazed by a giant red echidna walking around, either. However, Wade’s mother Wendy (Stockard Channing) faints at the sight of him. It’s one of those things I had to “turn off my brain” about after a few episodes, and I just wish things were a little bit clearer. The final episode of the series also ends a little too abruptly, leaving a couple plot points from the first episode dangling. 

Despite some small issues I had with the show, I found Knuckles to be a delightful new chapter in the ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog Cinematic Universe. What could have been a drawn out movie with a lower budget is instead an absurdly hilarious adventure that adds more depth to a pair of established characters. The music’s great, and Adam Pally and Idris Elba might have better chemistry than we even saw between Ben Schwartz and James Marsden. There are bound to be some Sega fans disappointed that the show doesn’t feature a bigger threat, or more of a presence from Sonic and friends. We should get both of those things in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 though, and I’m happy that we got something weird and unique to flesh out this universe. Knuckles is not going to be the Sega adaptation anyone is expecting, but it’s a wild ride worth taking, especially for fans of the Sonic films. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Knuckles is set to premiere on Paramount+ on April 26th. All six episodes of the first season were provided by Paramount for this review.

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The Fallout TV show from Prime Video tells a wholly original story, but you’ll often forget that while watching if you’re a fan of the games. That’s not because its story lacks impact or creativity but is instead because the show’s creators have done such an impeccable job fleshing out the world of Fallout that it feels like the characters are treading stories and quests you’ve experienced yourself in one way or another. By staying faithful enough to the source material to earn any liberties it takes with the world of Fallout, the show has once again raised the bar for what a video game adaptation can look like.

Fallout‘s creators had the unenviable task of adapting a series that’s far from straightforward. It’s very much a choose-your-own-adventure RPG where one player’s character is far different from another’s. The solution then was to have three main characters: Lucy MacLean, a Vault Dweller from Vault 33; The Ghoul, an irradiated bounty hunter who predates The Great War; and Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Across eight episodes, these Fallout characters fulfill different sorts of character archetypes with intertwining stories that end up largely being successful in the pursuit of an RPG adaptation.

Other supporting characters like Thaddeus, Norm, Chet, and several more bolster the show’s cast as well and do wonders to again make it seem like the show’s creators truly understood the ins and outs of a Fallout world worth visiting. From the very start of the show when we see life in a Vault, telltale Fallout references like the S.P.E.C.I.A.L traits and the iconic Vault Boy mascot for Vault-Tec are just as common as talks of tempered linings in Power Armor suits and Sugar Bombs. Never do these references feel cheap either with each one as organic as the next, and try as you might to poke holes in explanations or justifications for why thing are the way that they are, the Fallout show remains as accurate as it can given that it’s in uncharted franchise territory.

Across all three main characters, the very general theme of their individual stories is “family” which, again, should not be something Fallout fans are unfamiliar with. Vault 33 inhabitant Lucy is the catalyst for the story, a Vault Dweller searching for her father while also eager to see the surface for the first time. Through Lucy’s eyes, viewers are able to experience the thrill of stepping out into the Wasteland. Flinching at anything that moves and approaching everything with caution, while largely being ignorant to how things work up there outside of the Vault, Lucy more than the other characters is a reflection of the newcomer experience Fallout players have when embarking on their first adventure.

Perhaps I’m biased towards Walton Goggins’ performance as The Ghoul and would welcome a spin-off encompassing his 200 years spent in the Wasteland after the bombs dropped, but it does seem at times like screentime distribution between our protagonists feels a bit uneven. Some pre-war flashbacks technically show more of The Ghoul back when he was a human movie star named Cooper Howard, but when you factor in how many other side characters there are at times and their branching “quests” they’re all invested in, the absence of whoever your favorite of the big three might be doesn’t go unnoticed since time is needed elsewhere so often. Part of that can be attributed to natural character pairings, though there’s also a very awkward romance which was insisted on for some reason.

Humor is another strong point of the Fallout show, though not in a conventional way. I can’t recall ever laughing much during Fallout, but the same can be said for the games, too, where humor is a coping tool, a way of rationalizing the harshness of the post-war Wasteland. The Fallout show very much understands that with incredulous and borderline ridiculous moments as if you’ve taken on the Wild Wasteland trait from Fallout: New Vegas, but never does it go too far. The closest we come to true laugh-out-loud moments, ironically, is when the stoic Brotherhood of Steel is featured, particularly when Thaddeus is on-screen.

In fact, Fallout takes measures not only to capture humorous moments where possible but also to emphasize the harshness of everyday occurrences in the Wasteland. Take the Stimpak, for example. In the games, a Stimpak is a nearly infinite resource, a quick fix for any wound that’s so second nature that you’ve got it hotkeyed to a button to press without another thought. In the Fallout show, a Stimpak is something someone begs for, a last hope when you’re attacked by raiders or creatures or whatever else wants what you’ve got. The thing itself is a horror too – it’s a giant needle you have to stab yourself with time and time again to remedy whatever pain you’re feeling. Like the smallest of threats such as the Radroaches, a Stimpack is nothing to be taken lightly, and that emphasis is something only possible through this live-action adaptation.

Those Radroaches and other wild Fallout threats look quite authentic in terms of special effects and CGI, and the same goes for the Power Armor. These T-60 Power Armor suits look as weighty and destructive as Fallout fans would hope, though they can look at bit funky when helmets and faceplates are removed. Other inconsistencies in the world’s less human characters are seen through things like the ghouls which look fantastic throughout compared to the Yao Guai encounter which looked quite animatronic by comparison.

But even where the Fallout show slips on occasion with an unneeded kiss or a questionable encounter, time and time again, I kept marveling at how authentic the world felt. The original story told in Fallout is paramount to this trait since it lets us focus on the characters, world, and narrative rather than getting hung up on shot-for-shot remakes of key moments. Fallout is technically canon, according to Bethesda’s Todd Howard, so it’ll be under the microscope for nitpicking and “well actually” moments, but even when the show takes leaps to expand on the world, it always feels deserved.

Rating: 4.5/5

Fallout streams on Amazon’s Prime Video starting on April 10th at 6 p.m. PST.

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X-Men: The Animated Series came to an end in 1997 when Professor Charles Xavier was left dying and in a coma. Nothing on Earth could save him, so the X-Men contacted Lilandra, and their beloved leader was sent to Shi’ar Throneworld where he would have to remain to survive. Back in 2021, it was announced that Marvel Animation would be creating a follow-up series that would see the return of much of the original voice cast. After a long wait, X-Men ’97 is here, and it picks up right where the original series left off. In an age of television reboots that rely too much on nostalgia, X-Men ’97 is a breath of fresh air. While the nods to the original show and the X-Men comics are incredibly strong, the show stands on its own thanks to beautiful animation, gripping storytelling, and that glorious drama that makes the X-Men the X-Men. 

When X-Men ’97 was announced, it was hard not to be a little excited considering how X-Men: The Animated Series has stood the test of time. However, there’s also a sense of worry that comes with a long-dormant show’s return. As a fan, you can’t help but fear that the thing you love could be butchered, and no one wants their childhood favorites to be tainted. There have been many TV reboots in recent years, and despite a few exceptions, they tend to be nothing more than a mere glimmer of what came before. These revivals have a habit of retreading the same waters, recycling the same jokes, and relying on sentimentality. In the case of cartoons, animation has changed drastically over the years, so there is also the added concern of a show’s updated look. However, X-Men ’97 manages to squash all of those worries almost immediately. 

As the X-Men learn to continue their lives without Xavier, the team’s status quo begins to change. Scott Summers and Jean Grey are expecting their first child together while newcomer Robert Da Costa reluctantly seeks help from the team. Meanwhile, old enemies like Trask and the Sentinels remain a threat to Mutantkind. The first episode ends with a big twist that sees an unexpected shakeup at the mansion. From there, Episodes 2 and 3 only surge into a showcase of twists and turns. Each episode is unbelievably packed considering their 30-minute run times, and they manage to evoke the spirit of X-Men: The Animated Series while proving that even Marvel’s most iconic cartoon can be improved upon.

X-Men ’97 will transport you back to Saturday mornings in the ’90s, but the fun doesn’t stop with a simple return to form. The animation is a vibrant improvement that manages to conjure the feel of the original while elevating a format that was once deemed “just for kids.” There are genuinely impressive action sequences with a crisp design that will have you cheering at the TV. 

As for the writing, the new series is rated TV-14 while the original show was TV-Y7, which means the content is slightly more mature. The series is undoubtedly kid-friendly, but the episodes are not afraid to tackle big themes and showcase exciting action as well as rocky romances. It wouldn’t feel like the X-Men without some love triangles, but don’t expect the same old Scott/Jean/Wolverine story. The writing shows deep care and love for X-Men lore while still keeping those who know the comics’ history on their toes. 

It’s important to note that X-Men ’97 is also easy to follow for newcomers. While knowledge of X-Men: The Animated Series and comics will undoubtedly improve the experience, the new show stands on its own. In fact, we’re willing to bet that if you were to come into X-Men ’97 completely blind, it would not only satisfy, but it’s likely to make you want to go back and learn more. This show is one of the strongest things Marvel Studios has created since the launch of Disney+, and it only makes us excited for their future, especially when it comes to animation. 

Whether your favorite is Scott, Jean, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Beast, Morph, Bishop, or Magneto – or if you’ve never seen an episode of X-Men: The Animated Series in your life – you will not be disappointed by this next phase of Marvel Animation. If the rest of the season is on par with the first three episodes, X-Men ’97 will go down in history as one of the best examples of how to properly execute a television reboot.  

Rating: 5 out of 5

X-Men ’97 is now streaming on Disney+ with new episodes airing each Wednesday.

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Invincible came into Season 2 with all the challenges of a breakout hit show entering its sophomore season – and then made the bold move of splitting Season 2 into two halves, separated by a long stretch of months. Now, Invincible Season 2 Part 2 is premiering on Prime Video, facing the even bigger challenge of making fans pick up their cares for Mark Grayson/Invincible (Steven Yeun) and his world where they dropped them, as well as making Invincible Season 2, overall, a strong followup to the epic run of Season 1. 

So does Invincible Season 2 Part 2 meet all the challenges facing it? For the most part, yes, it does, paving the way for an even more interesting and exciting Season 3 to follow. 

NOTE: The Review of Invincible Season 2 Episodes 5-8 is spoiler-free 

The second half of Invincible Season 2 turns out to be remarkably similar to the pace of Part 1. That boils down to Episodes 5 and 8 (the bookends) being faster-paced and more action-packed episodes, while Episodes 6 and 7 tend to be denser, and driven by the character dramas of the sprawling ensemble cast rather than major action set pieces. Invincible has fairly earned a reputation for having episodes that are denser than so many other shows (animated or live-action); each of these new episodes strikes a balance between action and drama, but the biggest fights are placed strategically at the beginning and end of this block of episodes.

There are also some ways that Invincible Season 2 Part 2 borrows from Season 1, in terms of throwing some pretty shocking twists and turns into the story. Viewers who haven’t read the original comic series are definitely going to be taken back several times over by the time Episode 8 ends. 

A sophomore season tends to be challenging for a reason. Once the initial concept and principal story arc of a series are established, it’s much harder to expand the scope of that focus and still retain the quality and excitement level. Because Invincible takes on such complex character arcs within a vast comic book universe, bringing all those characters and stories along and developing them is a massive undertaking. The biggest accomplishment of Invincible Season 2 Part 2 will likely be the most divisive amongst mainstream fans: namely, the deeper storytelling opened up. 

There will probably be backlash to where Invincible Season 2 leaves things (compared to the finales of Season 1 and Season 2 Part 1); however, this second season never loses the throughline of its thematic core: the ramifications of Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man’s (J.K. Simmons) heel turn against Earth, and what it does (mentally and emotionally) to Nolan, Mark, and Debbie (Sandra Oh). Amid all the galactic and/or alt-dimension machinations that are unfolding across the second season, Invincible makes sure that Mark, Debbie, and Nolan’s arcs go from a place of trauma and confusion to new resolutions or outlooks that already set Season 3 up with some surprising new context and exciting new stakes. 

That’s not to say that Invincible Season 2 Part 2 doesn’t have some big payoffs to deliver – because it most certainly does. Once again, Robert Kirkman and co. prove that even in an over-saturated market of superhero stories, Invincible will do things and go places (literally and figuratively) with familiar tropes and lore that virtually no other superhero series would think to. Season 2 Part 2 gets pretty wild and very gnarly, at times.  

Invincible Season 2 meets the challenge of a sophomore season – even if it doesn’t do so without some flaws. The world of Invincible is successfully expanded, and most of the characters and storylines in that sprawling web feel important and necessary. It’s always hard to predict where this unpredictable show will go next, but even the early hints will have most viewers hoping that promises of Invincible Season 3 arriving sooner before later are true. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 

Invincible Season 2 Part 2 will debut on Prime Video on Thursdays starting March 14th.

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“It was always about getting back to you,” Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes intones in voiceover to Danai Gurira’s Michonne on The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. AMC’s new spinoff series – which Lincoln and Gurira co-created with TWD Universe chief and former showrunner Scott M. Gimple – was always about the indomitable “Richonne” love story, literally left up in the air after Lincoln and Gurira each departed the zombie drama before the end of its 11-season run. First announced as a Walking Dead movie trilogy, Rick and Michonne make their long-awaited returns in the strikingly cinematic six-episode series premiering February 25th. Intense and intimate, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is epic, emotional, and explosive television. 

Years after Rick sacrificed himself by leading a walker horde to a bridge he then blew up to save his family and friends in The Walking Dead Season 9, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live picks up with Rick at the C.R.P.: The Civic Republic of Philadelphia. Jadis (Pollyanna McIntosh) secretly saved-slash-stole Rick from the riverbed and shuttled him away aboard a helicopter piloted by the Civic Republic Military, the mysterious three-rings group that operates with a code: “Security and secrecy above all.” No one leaves or escapes, ever, explaining Rick’s eight-year absence. Now toiling away culling walkers (called “delts”) as Consignee Grimes, he’s under the charge of CRM Lt. Col. Donald Okafor (a commanding Craig Tate), who reminds Rick: “There’s no escape for the living.” 

Six years after the bridge, Michonne found Rick’s belongings and then embarked on a mission to find “the Brave Man” and bring him home to their children, Judith and Rick Jr. On her journey to find Rick – who she believes and hopes against hope is alive, but can’t be certain — Michonne comes across two straggling strangers, Aiden (Breeda Wool) and Bailey (Andrew Bachelor), part of a mass-migrating group that never stops for anyone who falls behind. Now, with sweetly-sassy pyromaniac and tinkerer Nat (Matthew Jeffers) as her traveling companion, the katana-wielding warrior is on a collision course with the CRM. And there will be as much bloodshed as tears shed.

The 55-minute series premiere, titled “Years,” reveals what happened to Rick in the years after that fateful helicopter flight. The teleplay (written by Gimple from a story he co-wrote with Lincoln and Gurira) incorporates flashbacks, time jumps, and Gimple’s signature non-linear storytelling from his tenure as showrunner on Seasons 4-8 of The Walking Dead to tell a story that plays like a TV-tailored version of what the first Rick Grimes movie might have been. 

Deftly directed by Bert & Bertie (Marvel’s Hawkeye, the AMC Studios-produced dystopian drama Silo), “Years” is the most cinematic piece of Walking Dead filmmaking since the Frank Darabont-directed “Days Gone Bye” pilot in 2010. Each episode feels like a mini-movie, and the Gurira-penned Episode 4 is an emotionally charged masterwork that encapsulates what The Ones Who Live is about: If you live for the ones you love, what happens when you lose them? What comes after – and what do you become? (AMC provided the first four of six episodes for review.) The post-Rick episodes of The Walking Dead asked such existential questions, but with the Civic Republic’s army acting as an existential threat to Rick and Michonne’s love and lives, the series digs into who these characters are apart… and who they are together.

Gimple, Gurira, and Lincoln (also executive producers) have a clear understanding of the characters Rick and Michonne, and their reunion is the fulcrum that the whole story turns on. AMC has asked that reviews not spoil how or when Rick and Michonne reunite, but it shouldn’t be a spoiler to say that the Richonne-centric series doesn’t keep them apart much longer. Faithful fans who have waited with breathless anticipation since 2018 to see long-lost loves Rick and Michonne together again can rest assured: it’s as satisfying as you’re expecting, and maybe more subversive than you’re expecting. The Richonne relationship is more complicated and complex than it ever was on The Walking Dead, their circumstances the ultimate challenge to the ultimate love story. Rick and Michonne will either save the world – or burn the whole damn thing down. To quote Rick Grimes: “They’re f-cking with the wrong people.”

“Security and secrecy above all” also applies to the often shocking and spoiler-filled series, its propulsive storytelling and episode-ending cliffhangers sure to leave you chomping at the bit for the next 50-minute chunk of the story. It puts pedal to the metal and almost never slows down, except to flesh out its compelling characters and their dynamics. 

With its expansion of the CRM mythology that crossed over to Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: World Beyond – and with enigmatic new characters like CRM Sergeant Major Pearl Thorne (Lesley-Ann Brandt) and shadowy CRM Major General Beale (Terry O’Quinn) – The Ones Who Live plays out as a conspiracy thriller against the backdrop of the post-zombie apocalypse. Part Prison Break and part World War Z, with such influences as Casablanca and the romantic drama Somewhere in Time, this is The Walking Dead on the scope and scale of a zombie movie blockbuster. It’s all superbly acted by the perfect pairing of Lincoln and Gurira.

The Walking Dead spinoffs Dead City and Daryl Dixon have revitalized and revivified AMC’s long-running franchise, and the Rick and Michonne show is more proof that there’s still a lot of life left in the TWD Universe. After all these years gone “bye,” The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is well worth the wait.

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live premieres February 25th on AMC and AMC+, with new episodes airing Sundays at 9 p.m. ET.

The post The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Review: Epic, Emotional, and Explosive appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Halo returns for Season 2 on Paramount+ after what can only be described as a turbulent first season. Behind-the-scenes issues resulted in a live-action TV series experience that Halo game fans were disappointed in, while mainstream viewers had trouble accessing the series and its mythology – which only got more convoluted in its TV adaptation. More than anything, there was clear unevenness in the production of Halo Season 1, with showrunner Kyle Killen dropping out before filming even began, and showrunner Steven Kane having to then steer the show, before exiting himself. By the Season 1 finale of Halo, it was clear the series needed new creative energy – but has it been enough? 

Halo Season 2 showrunner/executive producer David Weiner wastes no time putting his stamp on the show, with director Debs Paterson (Willow TV series) helping him lead the charge. The Halo Season 2 premiere “Sanctuary” gets right into it with the kind of Halo battle sequences that fans of the game love to see. It’s made clear from the initial action and character beats that this new creative team is working smarter when it comes to measuring out the visual effects and camerawork, using fog, and Covenant elite active camouflage to create an atmosphere of real dread, danger, and edge-of-your seat tension (while saving on VFX). The same proves true as the season rolls on, with each episode offering at least a taste of some compelling action and stuntwork, again indicating a smarter overall game plan as to how the season is being budgeted and paced. There are much more loyal and detailed nods to the Halo games in the battle sequences, staging, props, and overall design work and production on Season 2.

While the opening sequence is a good starting point, Halo Season 2 is not free from the obligation of servicing the story that came before in Season 1. That means the initial thrust of action must inevitably take a backseat to the first couple of episodes catching us up with the extensive web of characters from Season 1 and all their arcs – while also introducing new elements, like James Ackerson (Joseph Morgan), the new intelligence officer overseeing the Spartan program. 

Episode 2 is more of a “moving the pieces” story, with far more drama than action – but even those “slower” portions tend to be more focused and compelling in Season 2, with each character feeling more interesting and fully formed – especially the Spartan unit, whose banter and connections already give Season 2 a stronger emotional core. Longtime Halo game fans will likely be happier with how Master Chief (Pablo Schrieber) is depicted – even if there is still a substantial time of Schrieber appearing outside of the iconic character’s armor. 

On the whole, the creative team behind Halo Season 2 gets through the clean-up effort from Season 1 pretty quickly and sets a much cleaner and more accessible premise for Season 2: The Covenant is gathering its might in the shadows and striking out with impunity and no one believes Master Chief about the dire level of threat that’s coming, so the Spartans need to prove it before it’s too late. Everything beyond that is kept vague or implied enough for viewers to lock into and sets up an arc that’s basic yet dynamic enough to keep viewers coming back each week for more reveals and the exciting battles we already know are coming by the end of Episode 2. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Halo Season 2 is streaming new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+. 

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The first season of True Detective debuted in 2014 and, thanks in large part to it being developed by the mostly unknown writer Nic Pizzolatto, the series became a surprise success. Anchored by top-tier stars Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, and Michelle Monaghan, that first season took a traditional detective story and injected it with time jumps and a sense of the supernatural to elevate the adventure into an immensely engaging experience. Being an anthology, the next two seasons, while written by Pizzolatto and also featuring impressive actors, failed to capture the attention of audiences or critics in quite the same way. Now, with True Detective: Night Country, showrunner Issa López brings the series back to its more unsettling roots, delivering audiences a twisted and terrifying tale that is the best the series has been since that debut season.

Set in northern Alaska, a team of researchers working on a mysterious project goes missing, causing Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) to investigate. When the men are found, evidence of the bizarre event could provide a connection to an unsolved murder that Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) could never let go, as the pair work together to uncover the events that led to the grisly deaths of these researchers. In traditional True Detective nature, their investigation unravels a web of revenge, greed, coverups, politics, racism, and even a bit of the supernatural.

With all seasons of True Detective being anthology narratives, both audiences and filmmakers have struggled to define what it was about that first season that resonated so strongly with viewers and what it is that defines the nature of the concept. For the first three seasons, the essence of the series was that they were all detective stories that Pizzolatto wrote, regardless of what themes these narratives touched upon. Interestingly, Night Country started its life as an entirely independent story from López that had nothing to do with that iconic TV show, with HBO noting there were enough similarities to their popular program that, with some tweaks, this story could easily be folded into the True Detective banner. This could prove to be the key to this season’s revival of the franchise, as López seemingly was able to avoid aiming to replicate the success of the debut season and could instead deliver the best story imaginable, only to retroactively find some tonal and narrative connections to its predecessors to make for a more cohesive venture.

López landed on many genre fans’ radars thanks to her 2017 film Tigers Are Not Afraid, a magical-realist story about young children caught in the aftermath of a Mexican drug war. Fans of that film will quickly connect with the tone of Night Country, as it not only offers an entertaining story on the surface, but she also managed to organically inject culturally relevant conflicts of this isolated community. Complicating the overall events of Ennis, Alaska are the growing tensions between the Inuit community and the rest of the town’s residents, as a mining operation brought money and jobs to the town, though at the cost of the mining operation destroying the land, increasing pollution, and contaminating water supplies. None of these concepts are being explored for surface-level enrichment or narrative distractions and are key components of the entire storyline. 

Night Country feels less like a replication of that first season and instead serves as a mirror of that journey’s more effective elements; Season 4 trades the humid and sun-baked South for the frigid winter of Alaska at the time of year when the darkness is inescapable. Rather than the fringe beliefs of more radical religions, revival tents, and cult-like worship seen in Season 1, we’re seeing communities who believe in the land and something far more ancient and powerful than can even be grasped by outsiders. While previous seasons had opening credits featuring Blues-inspired riffs, Night Country opens with Billie Eilish’s “bury a friend,” signaling to audiences just minutes into the season premiere that we’re venturing into fresher territory.

The first three seasons of True Detective tackled some intense themes, though all fell more into the realm of thriller and noir genres, with Night Country easily being the most horror-centric story the series has seen yet. The isolation of a research team in a frigid environment will immediately feel reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, while the plunge into a seemingly endless darkness will remind fans of the vampiric 30 Days of Night. There also feels to be a lot of influence from the real-life Dyatlov Pass incident back in 1959, as both events focus on the mysterious disappearance and discovery of researchers with no clear explanation for frozen bodies, nearby clothing, and destroyed or missing body parts. Night Country will satisfy horror fans more than any other season, thanks to an omnipresent sense of unease and darker forces, as well as a handful of jump scares, though not at the cost of alienating audiences more interested in the detective story. Episode 2, though, features a horrifying scene of body horror that will likely go down as one of the year’s most memorable and unnerving. 

Even if Night Country bucks some trends of True Detective, one constant it maintains is a compelling cast. Foster, having won an Oscar for playing detective Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, is as good as ever in her return to true crime. What feels fresh about her Danvers, both for Foster and for the series, is that our leads typically have superiors to report to, but given the isolated nature of this Alaskan town, she gets to call the shots, even when she’s overextending her reach and asking too much of people, to their detriment. Boxer-turned-actor Reis brings a physicality and intensity that isn’t often highlighted in the series, yet does so with restraint and an unexpected vulnerability, allowing her to avoid being pigeonholed into being a stereotypical character who is merely rough around the edges. The ensemble is rounded out by actors like John Hawkes, Christopher Eccleston, Finn Bennett, and Fiona Shaw, with every supporting character in the series being as complex, empathetic, and problematic as the leads. 

Everything about Night Country feels like a success, which should all be championed, but what prevents it from being excellent is that it never quite feels like more than the sum of its parts. We’re given a compelling murder mystery that’s injected with elements of cosmic horror, we’re given troubled characters that resonate with us, and we’re given a satisfying resolution, all while López manages to organically inject an effective exploration of the exploitation of native cultures. All of it works, and its six-episode length gives more urgency to the story, yet it is never quite transcendent. You can’t help but wonder if Night Country would have worked better on its own, without having to incorporate branding and narrative connections to the beloved series, or if it would have been stronger without these references. (Also worth noting is that the connections to that debut season amount to little more than glorified Easter eggs, so don’t count on learning more about the Yellow King or Carcosa.) In fact, it makes the viewer wonder why Night Country was lumped into True Detective while 2021’s Mare of Easttown, a similarly compelling murder mystery featuring a star cast, rural setting, and grisly outcome, was allowed to exist as its own story.

True Detective fans who felt disappointed by the previous two seasons will appreciate the overall premise of Night Country and its more straightforward investigation into a gruesome crime, which is anchored by talented performers bringing to life tremendously flawed figures who still feel compelled to do what’s right. Those fans who felt mostly drawn to the implication of supernatural forces in Season 1 will also feel satisfied by how Night Country leans even further into those elements, cementing this story firmly in the world of horror. Luckily, the horrors of the series won’t entirely turn off all audiences, as fans of films like Wind River, Hold the Dark, and Insomnia will also be engaged by the frozen foray into a small-town murder. Night Country proves there can still be life in the True Detective brand, so long as HBO continues to empower ambitious storytellers like López, while also showcasing that a gripping adventure is comprised of far more than just a recognizable title. Whether Night Country would have been better as a standalone series or not will never be known, but after waiting nearly a decade, longtime True Detective fans will be pleased to see that this new season is the best the franchise has been since we first learned that time was a flat circle.

Rating: 4 out of 5

True Detective: Night Country premieres on HBO on Sunday, January 14th at 9 p.m. ET.

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For fans of Rick Riordan’s beloved Percy Jackson series of novels, the Disney+ adaptation has been a long time coming. While the story of the titular demigod and his adventures was adapted to film — Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and 2020 and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters in 2013 — fans of the beloved series have long hoped for a fresh adaptation of the work, one that was closer to Riordan’s story. Such an adaptation is what Riordan himself promised when the Disney+ adaptation was first announced and now, with Percy Jackson and the Olympians set to arrive on December 20th, it’s clear that Riordan is making good on that promise. The new series is everything Percy Jackson fans could want and more.

From the first episode, “I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher,” the Disney+ series makes it clear that the series is staying true to the first book in the series, The Lightning Thief, quickly getting down to the business of introducing viewers to Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) and laying the groundwork for the rest of the season (ComicBook.com was given the first four episodes of the season’s overall eight for review): Percy is a demigod —half human, half god-child —and that makes the world not exactly a safe place for him, prompting him to be sent off to Camp Half Blood with other demigods. From there, and in subsequent episodes, more of Percy’s story is revealed, as well as an important quest he ends up going on alongside fellow demigod Annabeth Chase (Leah Jeffries) and Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri), Percy’s best friend who just so happens to be a satyr.

For those familiar with the book, the episodes unfold very much like reading the book itself, but for those who aren’t familiar, it’s not a detriment. Instead, this structure lays things out beautifully for viewers of all levels of familiarity with the series and, for the most part, paces things well. There are no boring moments in the first four episodes of Percy Jackson and, as is the case with any good story, each reveal builds upon the next. The series does a fantastic job of breaking down the individual story beats for each episode so that they feel perfectly contained, but also give the viewer just enough to make them eager for the next chapter — or, in this case, episode. The first two episodes do move a little quickly and compress a good bit of information into their run times, but once things move past the information dump, things even out. There are also some subtle changes from the books that longtime fans will notice, but they are just that, subtle, and end up serving to somehow make the books themselves better in how it all ties together.

Outside of its faithfulness to its source material and well-considered structure per episode, Percy Jackson and the Olympians excels in terms of its performances. This is a series that is expertly cast and every single actor is perfectly fit to the role they inhabit. Scobell’s Percy is relatable, a little frustrating, and endlessly root-for-able. Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus/Mr. D is an absolute gift, despite being in relatively few scenes. Both Aryan Simhadri and Charlie Bushnell turn in fantastic and quite heartfelt performances as Grover and Luke, respectively, and Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Medusa will make you see that character in a completely different light. The real standout in terms of the series’ performances, though, belongs to Jeffries’ Annabeth Chase. Jeffries doesn’t simply portray Annabeth; she inhabits her. Jeffries gives Annabeth’s attitude, intellect, and quiet strength and vulnerability a realism that makes the viewer, at times, forget they’re watching an actor play a role. The entire series is perfectly cast, but Jeffries even more so.

The series also excels on a technical level, with its effects — both in terms of creating the mythical creatures that are part of the world as well as some of the more intricate details of various mythical creatures’ physical appearances — being very well done. Nothing here looks cheap or cheesy. Megan Mullally’s Alecto is chilling in full Fury form while the very snakes that make up Medusa’s hair are simple, but they just work. There’s also a fantastic bit of interplay between the real-world locations in the film and the more mythical and magical elements from the series that lends to an overall feeling of both realism and wonderment.

A faithful, and truly excellent Percy Jackson adaptation may have felt like a near-impossible quest, but Percy Jackson and the Olympians has pulled it off. Between an obvious love and reverence for the source material and its devoted fans, some of the best casting you’ll ever find in a television series, fantastic performances, and even the magic of the visuals and world-building itself, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is about as perfect a television adaptation as you can get, almost as though it’s been favored by the gods themselves.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuts Wednesday, December 20th on Disney+.

The post Percy Jackson and the Olympians Review: The Adaptation the Gods Intended appeared first on ComicBook.com.

After two films starring Tom Cruise in the lead role, Lee Child’s beloved Jack Reacher character moved to the small screen and became an instant hit. Reacher saw the lead duties handed to Blue Mountain State and Titans alum Alan Ritchson and delivered Amazon’s Prime Video one of its biggest streaming success stories to date. The series broke records and drew critical acclaim in its debut season last year, and returns this month for a second installment. Like the Jack Reacher novels, the new season adapts a different story with an almost entirely new cast of characters. The places and faces may have changed for this new installment, but the quality certainly doesn’t — Reacher is as good as ever in Season 2 (maybe even a little bit better).

The first season of Reacher kicked the show off by adapting the first book in Child’s popular novel series, Killing Floor. Season 2, on the other hand, jumps ahead in the original series to tell the story of Bad Luck and Trouble, the 11th Jack Reacher book Child published. This story sees Reacher reuniting with a few members of his old military unit to uncover a conspiracy after several of their other comrades turn up dead. Those still left alive not only need to stop whoever’s behind the murders before they become the next victims, but they also want to be sure to exact revenge for their fallen friends.

While it may seem strange for a show to jump 10 whole books in a series for just its second season, Bad Luck and Trouble is perhaps the perfect choice for Reacher‘s sophomore season. The first season put Reacher in a place he wasn’t familiar with and alongside a group of allies he’d never met. He had to learn who he could trust and how they worked. They had to figure out how exactly to deal with his unique characteristics. That element of unfamiliarity between the characters helped create a lot of tension, but Season 2 flips that idea on its head to keep you on your toes. 

This time around, Reacher knows all of his allies and he trusts them with his life, as he has in the past. As the audience, however, we aren’t so trusting of those in the group, save for Maria Sten’s Frances Neagley, who appeared in a couple of episodes of Season 1. This allows the show to alter the way we watch the story unfold, as well as alter how Reacher operates. 

Make no mistake, this is still the hulking, enigmatic badass you came to love in Season 1. Ritchson’s performance as Reacher continues to be the centerpiece of the entire series, and every minute he’s on screen, it becomes more and more clear that this is one of those rare opportunities where just the right actor and character found their way to one another. Jack Reacher needs a level of physicality that very few can provide, but his quirks also require a very subtle and clever — almost childlike — comedic ability. I never thought that years of playing Thad Castle could help someone become one of TV’s most interesting action heroes, but here we are. There’s a boyish charm deep within the brooding physicality of Ritchson’s Jack Reacher that could have only been cultivated by starring in something as relentlessly silly as Blue Mountain State, and he shows an incredible amount of restraint bringing just the slightest pinch to the surface exactly when the moment is right.

It’s initially disappointing not to see some of the faces that made Reacher Season 1 so special. Malcolm Goodwin and Willa Fitzgerald were so vital to the magic of Reacher in its first season that you wonder how it could be remotely as engaging without them. Fortunately, Season 2 is up to the challenge. Sten returns as Neagley and makes remarkable use of her extended screen time, crafting a character that’s every bit as layered and interesting as Reacher. Serinda Swan and Shaun Sipos join the party as Reacher’s other former allies, each crafting something so different from what we’ve already seen on the show to this point. Domenick Lambardozzi may be the most delightful new addition, though, playing a detective with a chip on his shoulder who serves as a pitch-perfect foil to Reacher’s brand of vigilantism. This series is superbly cast from top to bottom and, while Ritchson is clearly the linchpin, Reacher doesn’t hum the way it does without this kind of precision in its casting department. 

It’s also worth noting that Reacher Season 2 ups the ante in terms of its action and set pieces. It’s got the same balance of humor, heart, and excitement as the first season, but the big moments here go so much bigger. Without getting into spoiler territory, there’s a sequence in an early episode of the season where Reacher and the team raid a potential enemy hideout that is just so expertly crafted on every level. The stunt and effects teams on Reacher do such a great job of proving you don’t need to spend every dime you can get your hands on to make effective action sequences that keep you on the edge of your seat.

Reacher isn’t just one of Prime Video’s biggest original shows; it’s also one of its very best. Ritchson is at his very best and he’s surrounded by a stellar cast and crew that continually go to great lengths to create the kind of action drama TV fans miss so dearly. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Reacher Season 2 premieres on Prime Video on December 15th.

The post Reacher Season 2 Review: New Faces, New Places, Same Great Series appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is once again bringing fans back into the world created by artist Bryan Lee O’Malley. Dropping eight episodes of the anime adaptation on Netflix, the series isn’t just expanding on the lives of the original story, it is also bringing back some of the biggest actors from the movie adaptation, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Michael Cera, Brie Larson, Brandon Routh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza, and many more reprise their roles, but even with this big cast, is Scott Pilgrim Takes Off able to live up to its predecessors?

Warning. To even discuss the story of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, we’re going to need to dive into spoiler territory, so be forewarned. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off fooled us all. It is neither an adaptation of the original graphic novels nor the feature-length film, telling a brand new story that revisits the characters but gives them an entirely new scenario to deal with. Scott himself takes something of a backseat for a good portion of the series to Ramona as she has to come into contact with her Evil Exes to solve a major mystery. Unlike the original graphic novels and the movie, the Evil Exes are now leading very different lives as a result of the eye-popping ending of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’s first episode.

First and foremost, this is Ramona’s story, and in that fact, Scott Pilrgim Takes Off is able to find its footing and weave a story that is able to hit just as emotionally hard as its predecessors, if not more so when it comes to its climax. The Netflix anime almost feels like a story of redemption not just for Scott and his friends, but for the Evil Exes as well. The series allows viewers to get a more in-depth look into what makes them tick, while also giving the villains some in-depth characterization that wasn’t explored in the graphic novels or the movie. There are some origin stories here that will give Scott Pilgrim fans a closer look into what made some of the Evil Exes “evil” outside of simply being broken up with by Ramona. 

This new take on the world of Scott Pilgrim takes such a big risk by deviating so much from its source material, and while that might come as a shock to many, it’s a risk that ultimately pays off. Takes Off feels like a Scott Pilgrim story made by creators who are simply at a different time in their lives. The Netflix series is a story that has been made for our current generation and the people that both fans of the original series and the creative minds responsible for the franchise have grown into. There’s an argument to be made that the original stories focusing on Scott and Sex Bob-Omb have elements that surpass Takes Off, but that doesn’t negate the strong story and voice work present in the Netflix anime.

When it comes to the animation from Science Saru, the production house is able to do justice and then some to the original graphic novels, capturing the energy and frantic style of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s artwork. The fights are as big as needed to maintain the spirit of Scott Pilgrim’s world, despite the story taking some big detours when it comes to the original comics. Surprisingly enough, the fast-paced frantic moments of the series often exceed the quieter moments, as it felt as though the production house made a mistake or two when it came to some characters’ movements and motions in the downtime. 

It’s great to say that the voice cast, which is mostly made up of the actors that brought Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World to life, hasn’t missed a step. You can tell that there is a serious love for the source material as the likes of Chris Evans’ Lucas Lee, Brie Larson’s Envy Adams, Brandon Routh’s Todd Ingraham, and many others are relishing the chance to step back into the shoes of their characters over a decade later. 

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a worthy re-imagining of the graphic novels and the movie, giving fans of both plenty of reason to stick around and check out the new lives of the heroes and villains of the series. O’Malley, Science Saru, and the creative minds behind the animated series are able to do justice to the spirit of what came before while giving viewers plenty to think about when it comes to these fresh paths that the characters are taking moving forward. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is currently streaming on Netflix. 

The post Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Review: Scott’s Precious Little Lie appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“No one’s gone until they’re gone.” What were once the last words of Clark family matriarch Madison (Kim Dickens) to her children, Nick (Frank Dillane) and Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey), have become the defining theme of the eighth and final season of Fear the Walking Dead. AMC’s first Walking Dead spinoff returns with the second half of its shortened, 12-episode final season on October 22nd with “Anton,” named after the new identity of a drastically reinvented Victor Strand (Colman Domingo). By finally reuniting Madison and Victor, the first hour of Fear‘s remaining six episodes establishes the oft-stated theme of the back half of Season 8: “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

The first half of the season saw Lennie James’ Morgan exit the series after passing the figurative torch of lead role back to Dickens, who returned in the Season 7 finale following the revelation that Madison survived a seemingly fatal heroic sacrifice midway through Season 4. With Dickens reinstated as series lead for the first time since 2018, Madison takes central focus as she sets out to rebuild PADRE into the sanctuary that the Clarks’ Texas stadium was meant to be before it was overrun and destroyed.

“The place I’m building, it’s not about me,” Madison says. “It’s about keeping something bigger alive.” That “something bigger” is Nick and Alicia, her kids who were long gone even before the final season premiere jumped seven years into the future. But when Troy Otto (Daniel Sharman) — who looked dead as a doornail when Madison twice bludgeoned him with a hammer to the head back in Season 3 — returns with his one good eye on taking PADRE, it threatens not just the Clark family legacy, but the futures that Victor Strand, Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades), and the little-seen Luciana (Danay García) have built (frustratingly, off-screen) for the past seven years.

Following Fear‘s recent slew of foes ranging from forgettable (“Filthy Woman” Martha, Logan, PADRE’s Shrike and Crane) to formidable (Virginia, the nuclear bomb-dropping Teddy, the CRM), resurrecting Troy Otto as the show’s final existential threat is almost an admission that there’s no better villain to end Fear with than a dead one — retcons be damned. Sharman reprises his role as psychopathic fan-favorite Troy for the first time since 2017, and he’s exceptionally effective as the final foil for Madison, bringing to Fear the same charismatic swagger that made Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan as magnetic as he was menacing. The drama heightens whenever Troy is on screen — especially when he’s needling Madison about Alicia and the reason why he has her daughter’s prosthetic from her zombie-bitten, amputated arm.

Still, by bringing Troy and then a second once-thought-dead character back to life in the span of two episodes — for a total of three resurrections, counting Madison — death seems less consequential in a show where anyone could be killed off. Fear‘s biggest advantage over The Walking Dead was that it wasn’t an adaptation of creator Robert Kirkman’s comic book, which meant comic readers didn’t have expectations about who might live or die (even if the flagship series often deviated from the source material). On one hand, AMC hasn’t yet announced any Fear the Walking Dead spinoffs, thereby retaining the dramatic tension that was lost when viewers knew Daryl, Carol, Maggie, and Negan would make it out of The Walking Dead alive to return in spinoffs. On the other hand, Fear feels like a zombie soap opera based on the frequency with which characters return from the grave and then explain why they’re not dead in expository dialogue.

Based on the first two of the final six episodes made available for review, there’s a sense that Fear is a bit rushed. Characters who didn’t appear at all in the first half of the season return with major roles to play in the back half, and so much happened during that seven-year time skip that even viewers who have been watching since the first season in 2015 might feel left out knowing that an entire show’s worth of story happened between the Season 7 finale and the Season 8 premiere. Even with its smaller ensemble, the show would have benefited — and certainly deserved — more than 12 episodes to wrap things up. That’s just half of the three-part, 24-episode final season that The Walking Dead had to deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 is at its best and its most compelling when it’s providing Dickens, Domingo, Blades, and Sharman dramatic material to sink their teeth into. In the first two episodes, Dickens, Domingo, and Blades are serviced with emotionally powerful performances deserving of their long-surviving characters, and longtime fans will appreciate seeing Madison, Strand, Daniel, and Luciana all together for the first time since Season 3. 

Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg, who have served as showrunners since the duo replaced series co-creator Dave Erickson in Season 4 onward, have almost reset Fear the Walking Dead to where Erickson left off when he killed Troy and blew up the Gonzalez Dam to end the acclaimed third season in 2017. While the new season naturally builds on some of the seismic shifts that occurred during the semi-rebooted fourth season that crossed over with The Walking Dead to bring Morgan to Fear, thematically, Chambliss and Goldberg circle back to Season 3 in such a way that it plays almost like a direct continuation of the Erickson era. 

Tenured viewers might remember that Erickson envisioned a seven-season arc transforming Madison into a villain, and there are echoes of that as Madison’s benevolence, inspired by her kids, is called into question when she reckons with vengeance, also inspired by her kids; mostly, Madison is a flawed anti-hero, who lived, died, and is living — again — for her kids.

“We’re building PADRE for Alicia, for Nick,” Strand says at one point, asking Madison: “What’s the point of saving it if we turn into the opposite of what Alicia wanted us to build?” The Clarks are still the beating heart of the complex human drama churning the final episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, which is worth seeing through to the end. After all, everyone deserves a second chance.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The final episodes of Fear the Walking Dead Season 8 premiere Sunday, October 22nd, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

The post Fear the Walking Dead Review: The Final Episodes Deserve a Second Chance appeared first on ComicBook.com.

When it comes to film, no monster is bigger than Godzilla. The behemoth has ruled the kaiju landscape for decades, and Godzilla took back the spotlight in Hollywood nearly a decade ago when the MonsterVerse began. Since then, the franchise has followed the epic highs that come with Godzilla’s reign, but there is more to the monstrous IP. This fall, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will set out to explore the human element behind the titans’ rise, and the compelling drama is a title worthy of Godzilla’s renown.

Under the watchful eye of Legendary Television, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters unpacks the drama that comes after a kaiju blitz. The show straddles two timelines, as it begins shortly after Godzilla’s MUTO showdown in San Francisco from the 2014 film. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows a woman named Cate Randa (Anna Sawai) on a mission to settle her dad’s affairs, but one of his secrets threatens to upend her whole family. The often-absent workaholic has ties to Monarch, and this history sends Cate and some newfound family on a journey to uncover the truth.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is incredibly strong when it is exploring its present-day narrative. In fact, it is at its best in these moments. Sawai portrays Cate with a jaded intelligence that pairs well with her traveling cohorts. In particular, the character’s bond with Kentaro (Rea Watabe) is nothing short of stellar. The estranged characters unpack all of the problems a legacy brings in the course of Season 1, and this conflict plays out in parallel with Cate’s mission.

While Monarch: Legacy of Monsters does have some thrilling titan fights, the show doesn’t present itself as a kaiju free-for-all. This sci-fi series is a human drama through and through. Split between grief and uncertainty, each character in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters folds into the MonsterVerse with ease. Kurt Russel’s unmatched talent grounds our protagonists, as Cate learns more about herself under the guidance of Russell’s Lee Shaw. And, as expected, the same can be said for Wyatt Russell, who plays a young Lee Shaw in the show’s flashback sequences.

After all, I did say Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is split between times. The show explores the 1950s when not busy with Cate’s present-day adventures, and that is where Wyatt Russell comes in. The star brings a charming authority to Shaw as the soldier finds himself at the forefront of MUTO research. But sadly, Russell is only one of the few highlights found in the show’s flashbacks.

Despite its top-notch acting, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters feels rather disjointed. The series swaps between its timelines at will with little, if any, transition. The highs of Cate’s gripping mission in Japan don’t mesh well with the lows of Shaw’s younger days. In fact, many of the flashbacks would have been better suited as simple asides. With so many flashbacks in play, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters loses its focus with ease. Honestly, the show only recovers from these stumbles thanks to its compelling performances.

And of course, what is a MonsterVerse title without monsters? Monarch: Legacy of Monsters does have plenty of titans, but don’t expect tons of kaiju throwdowns. Most of the titans introduced in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters are shown in short bursts, and as of Episode 5, none of the monsters have fought with each other. If you are coming into this show expecting a kaiju brawl, you will be disappointed, but the titan scenes we do get are intense, to say the least. 

After watching the first half of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, I confess that I was gripped by its story. In the past, the MonsterVerse has taken criticism for having too much human drama, but Monarch: Legacy of Monsters makes no bones about its story. At its core, this live-action series is about families, legacies, and the uncertainties of the future. These are all the themes Godzilla has embraced for decades. When the world wrestles with Godzilla, each person must wrestle with themselves, and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters makes this clear despite its muddled pacing. If you’re eager to visit an unexplored facet of the MonsterVerse, this Apple TV+ original will satisfy your curiosity.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is slated to debut exclusively on Apple TV+ beginning November 17th. 

The post Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Review: A Gripping Drama With Titanic Potential appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Few properties have as large a footprint as Goosebumps in the world of horror literature. The middle-grade series by R.L. Stine is nothing short of iconic, serving as the entry point into horror for millions around the world. Because of the firepower the brand carries, it’s one that’s been mined time and time again for spinoffs and adaptations, with the latest coming in the form of a live-action series on Disney+ and Hulu.

The Goosebumps TV series that debuted in 1995 has become a cult classic in and of itself, a nostaglic tentpole for ’90s kids everywhere. Then there was the film duology starring Jack Black that performed similarly with critics and audiences, though it arguably didn’t become as big of a deal as its predecessor. Luckily, for long-time fans of the book series, 2023’s Goosebumps reboot not only meets expectations, but overshoots any previous live-action adaptation.

Rather than following the formula of the first TV show and feeling more formulaically similar to the films, this Goosebumps takes place in a small Oregon town and follows the complicated relationships between teens Isabella (Ana Yi Puig), James (Miles McKenna), Lucas (Will Price), Isaiah (Zack Morris), and Margot (Isa Briones), who shift from friends to enemies to frenemies to romantic partners. When the gang throws a Halloween party at the town’s infamous haunted home, they learn that not only has new teacher Nathan Bratt (Justin Long) actually moved into the spooky property, but that he might not be the only one residing in the ominous abode. As the series unfolds, Nathan finds himself forming a connection with a former resident that’s a little too close for comfort, while the teens become the main characters of familiar Goosebumps stories, weaving together original plot points and beloved Stine stories. 

Featuring an ensemble that largely splits screen time equally, the latest iteration of Goosebumps is tonally comparable to a 1980s slasher draped with the setting of Twilight but without the vampires and werewolves—or the sparkly ones, at least. The Pacific Northwest provides the perfect backdrop to this story, one that weaves in and out of every episode between scenes and subplots that draw directly for the source material.

And that may be where the show shines best: its faithfulness to the words Stine first wrote decades ago. There’s a sense of naivety that courses through this show’s bones, as if it were the tween novels actually come to life. The characters are written for consumption by children, with each of them interacting and making decisions you might expect from the audiences reading the books. On that front, it can be cheesy and campy but stops short of being tacky each time. It’s fully aware of what it wants (and needs) to be, and executes near-flawlessly as it never tries to outdo the books it’s based on, rather it pays tribute to the terrifying tomes.

Goosebumps also happens to be surprisingly spooky, partially because of the rain-soaked settings and partially because of its dedication to hits like Say Cheese and Die!, The Haunted Mask, Night of the Living Dummy, and countless other Goosebumps classics. The show refuses to pull its punches, injecting some grotesque sequences that may be a little too much for some in the family.

While each of the 20-somethings-posing-as-teenagers carry their own weight throughout the duration of the show, Justin Long’s presence steals each scene every time he appears on screen. Long’s horror resume is very evident any time he pops up, a consummate professional in his dual role position.

Goosebumps provides plenty of spooks for those looking for a scare, no matter what kind. There’s body horror, monsters, possessions, jump scares, and more—all while being fully faithful to the books that have come before. Now that the calendar reads October, it’s hard to imagine a better watch for the entire family during the season. At the very least, you’ll be in for a ghoulishly good time.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The first five episodes of Goosebumps will hit both Disney+ and Hulu this Friday, October 13th. The remaining five episodes will then be released every Friday on a weekly basis.

The post Goosebumps Review: One Ghoulishly Good Time appeared first on ComicBook.com.

When Loki arrived on Disney+ in 2021, it was a shining moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It marked a bit of a deviation from the type of stories fans of the long-running saga were used to seeing, as it focused on the adventures of one of the universe’s most beloved bad guys. It also delivered a story that was fresh, engaging, and sparked plenty of discussion and speculation, as it took viewers deeper into Marvel lore, set a course for a very different MCU, and featured some of the franchise’s best character development to date. Now, two years after leaving viewers with a shocking cliffhanger that suggested dire changes to the Time Variance Authority — and the MCU — as we know it, Loki finally returns this week, aiming to not only further Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) journey of redemption, but take viewers ever closer to the next big franchise threat. Unfortunately, while Loki remains the best thing at the party that has become the MCU, the first four episodes are plagued with rushed storytelling, strange characterizations, and forced comedy, further serving as an example of why Marvel Studios might want to take a step back from that party.

Season 2 of Loki wastes no time in picking up the thread from Season 1, making an attempt to bring all the major players — including but not limited to Loki, Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) — onto the same page about the danger of He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). But almost straight out of the gate, Season 2 suffers from being and doing “too much”: the first episode is hectic, throwing new concepts, characters, and threats into the story with little explanation and little reason for fans to be invested. When the premiere does try to stop and ruminate on what Loki just experienced in the Season 1 finale, the end result becomes rushed and confusing. That overstuffed and slightly frenetic chaos sets the tone for the season and, of the four episodes of six screened for review, it’s not something that ever really lets up.

One might be able to look past that energetic storytelling shift given the urgency of what is coming — after all, He Who Remains did have a dire warning at the end of Season 1, and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars are on the horizon — but it’s far from the only flaw of the episodes. By and large, there is something off in most of the characterizations of Loki‘s characters. Sylvie’s dynamic with Loki feels jarringly more antagonistic, which would make sense if it was spread out over a bit of time, but it comes on very suddenly. B-15 and many of the TVA agents are suddenly more human than they were near the end of Season 1 — something that makes sense in the longer run, but feels very sudden and unearned in context. Even Miss Minutes takes a very strange turn in one point of the story, which feels weirdly creepy and unnecessary.

Loki Season 2 still has some of the best performances in the overall MCU franchise, but, at times, they are hindered from developing further. Hiddleston’s Loki continues to be a rich and layered character, and it’s fascinating seeing him function in a way that is less directly full of villainy. But at the same time, Loki itself keeps cutting Loki short, preventing him from really unleashing the complexity of the character and his journey. Wilson’s Mobius M. Mobius remains a delight, but the season leans too much into the “buddy cop” energy of his partnership with Loki, resulting in something that feels like caricature. Ke Huy Quan’s Ouroboros becomes what might be the most fun addition to the story, and Quan delivers a charming performance, even if, at times, the character is also very one-note. As Victor Timely, Majors does a great job of differentiating from the previous Kang variants we’ve seen, but some of the affectation he uses to do so borders on problematic. Perhaps the best performance of the season, however, is Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who gives Ravonna Renslayer a complexity and a humanity this season that makes her a compelling character in the same vein as Loki in Season 1.

For all the individual, detailed bumps Loki Season 2 has, the season still expands the MCU and the idea of the multiverse in a spectacular way. The lore of the TVA is further explored and fleshed out, as well as the mechanics of the timeline, contributing not only to the urgency of the threat Loki and his allies are facing in the season, but also the future of the MCU. Dealing with the onslaught of branching timelines and the danger they pose to the sacred timeline very much sets the table for future stories and conflict well beyond Loki, without overburdening the season’s sense of self-containment. Additionally, the overall aesthetics of the season – particularly with the cinematography – are outstanding. The retro-futuristic vibe of the series almost feels like a character itself, at times, both grounding the story in place and time while also being very, very stylish.

Loki may be one of the MCU’s most innovative and significant offerings, and Season 2 of the series certainly maintains the spirit of the first season and pushes not only Loki’s story but the future of the MCU forward. But like the Sacred Timeline itself, Loki Season 2 shows signs of coming apart in places with little bits that could stand refinement, reconsideration, or even just a strong bit of editing. Season 2 definitely doesn’t suffer from some of the pitfalls that would make people continue to question if superhero fatigue is real or not, but through characterizations, pacing, and too much self-awareness, it definitely feels like a very different show. It’s by no means bad, but it certainly feels like most of the fun will be in digesting each episode after the fact, rather than taking it in for what it is just while watching. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Loki Season 2 premieres on Disney+ on October 5th.

The post Loki Season 2 Review: Beautifully Burdened with Glorious Purpose appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Since first appearing on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, Castlevania has spawned countless video games that have players fighting Dracula. Despite the gaming franchise’s popularity, it was only until Netflix shone a spotlight on the Belmont family that the series was given an animated story to accompany the games. Following the first four seasons of the successful video game adaptation, Netflix has returned with a new series to follow the monster-hunting adventures of Richter Belmont, Maria, Annette, and their fellow monster hunters. Can Nocturne live up to Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard’s journey?

If you need an introduction to the story of Castlevania: Nocturne, it takes place hundreds of years after the events of Castlevania’s initial four seasons. Following our main characters during the French Revolution, the creatures of the night prepare for the arrival of their “Vampire Messiah” while forging some unlikely deals to make sure that an army of demons is waiting at said dark savior’s beck and call. A young Richter Belmont (Edward Bluemel), the latest in a bloodline of vampire hunters, finds himself teaming up with Maria Renard (Pixie Davies), a budding sorceress, Annette (Thuso Mbedu), a Caribbean ex-slave hunting for revenge, and Edouard, an opera singer whose future takes him to some dark places. It’s up to this quartet to push back the Vampire Messiah and the blood-sucking hordes looking to usher in an age of eternal night.

Richter, as a protagonist, is far different from the self-assured hero who first led the animated series, Trevor Belmont. Rather than brashly fighting against vampires with a smile and a level of snark, the latest Belmont will retreat if need be as he struggles with a dark event from his past that haunts his present. Of the characters that lead the charge, Annette is perhaps given the most background, as an entire episode is dedicated to what set her on her path of revenge, granting her the most characterization in the process. The characters don’t quite have the same level of chemistry that the initial trio of Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard did, but that chemistry took time to flourish and it makes sense that the first season of Nocturne would need to build the world before fully fleshing it out.

The villains here are something of a mixed bag. Before Adult Swim ruined the concept of “Too Many Cooks,” that statement could be applied to the vast number of characters we see in Nocturne, which is true for both sides of the aisle. Standouts such as Orlox, the vampire responsible for killing Richter’s mother, are compelling enough, though the same can’t be said for other fang-bearing members. Drolta and Erzsebet Bathory simply don’t have as much characterization when comparing them to the antagonists that came before, such as Dracula and Carmilla, making them far less compelling. 

Where Castlevania: Nocturne is able to shine is both in its jaw-dropping animation and its wildly impressive fight scenes. The choreography of the battle sequences was an element that helped to push the first four seasons of the previous series in the minds of animation fans, and it’s clear that Powerhouse Animation has improved on what came before. Fights are brutal, fast, and inventive, often having the viewer waiting to see the next big set-piece that will take the opportunity to show off the skills of both heroes and villains alike. Powerhouse does a fantastic job of making this a story of its time, capturing the feel of the French Revolution, whether that be through the country’s upper crust or the poverty inherent in France’s lower class. There are moments in the series that almost feel downright experimental with the line work and coloring, but it all works in further fleshing out this current time period. 

One major caveat to this first season is that it is most assuredly presented as a “Part One” to the sequel storyline. There are quite a few plotlines that find no resolutions this time around. In fact, I believe the vast majority of them end with a big “to be continued” feeling for viewers. Fans might find themselves at a loss, especially when it comes to the mind-blowing cliffhanger that Nocturne’s season finale gives us and what that means should the animated series continue. There are sure to be viewers who will come to the stark realization that there are only eight episodes in total following the season finale’s final moments as fans look for what comes next. 

Castlevania: Nocturne, like the series before it, has loads of Easter eggs courtesy of executive producer Adi Shankar. As a major ‘Vania fan myself, I was surprised at some of the big reveals and mentions peppered throughout the first eight episodes. There are moments and character beats that will have keen-eyed viewers taking to Wikipedia pages to help further flesh out the history that is laid out here. Much like my previous complaints, some of these elements could have used more screen time, but it’s apparent that they will be examined in a potential second season. 

Castlevania: Nocturne shows a strong opening performance, and while it doesn’t hit the same heights as its predecessor, it feels like the series is on the right path to do just that. Think of Nocturne as a “Freshman Orientation” and cross your fingers that more seasons are on the way, because it’s clear that the animated series will up the ante in what comes next.

Review: 3.5 out of 5

Castlevania: Nocturne is out now on Netflix.

The post Castlevania: Nocturne Review: What a Glorious Night to Have a Curse appeared first on ComicBook.com.

To this point, the John Wick franchise has consisted of four feature films, all starring Keanu Reeves and all directed by Chad Stahelski. That will change this week with the premiere of The Continental: From the World of John Wick, a prequel series set in the 1970s that focuses on how a young Winston Scott took charge of the iconic assassin hotel from the films. The Continental does indeed tell the story of Winston, a core character from the John Wick films, and it includes plenty of references to the larger world that Reeves and Stahelski’s films have alluded to. But that’s about all the connective tissue this show shares with the movies that preceded it. The series doesn’t pack the same sleek action, tight narratives, or mystifying aura. The Continental is John Wick in name and name alone.

Stahelski and Reeves have been making modern action magic for the better part of a decade with the John Wick movies, all of which have been released to critical acclaim and box-office success. Without those two directly involved, The Continental is an empty shell of the films that inspired it. There are a couple of solid action sequences littered throughout the three, 90-minute episodes, but most of the fights and chases are jumbled and incoherent. The brilliance of John Wick‘s colors and lighting didn’t make the leap to the small screen. If The Continental wasn’t attached to the John Wick name, it would be a serviceable, sometimes pretty enjoyable event. But hitching its horse to the greatest action franchise of the 21st century only holds a magnifying glass to its shortcomings.

The ties we do get to John Wick don’t come in the form of actual tone or style. There are some characters we know. We learn a little more about the origins of the Bowery (probably the most interesting element of the show). And there are plenty of frustrating nods to the films that were done specifically to grab your attention and nothing more, like Winston ending the first episode by delivering an iconic John Wick line for no reason at all.

The Continental spends its three episodes focused on how Winston (Colin Woodell, taking over for Ian McShane) took control of New York’s premiere assassin hotel in the 1970s. That’s really all you need to know going in. It’s admittedly not too interesting of a premise, given that there are dozens of questions you want answered from the John Wick movies before you get to, “Hey, how come the older gentleman in the ascot is in charge of this place where killers hang out?” He just is, and at no point in any of those movies do you doubt that he could accomplish such a task. Winston belongs to the Continental and the Continental belongs to Winston. Like many things in John Wick, it works so well because no explanation is needed.

It’s not necessary, but the backstory we get for Winston and right-hand man Charon (Ayomide Adegun) is interesting enough. Some other intriguing characters populate the story as well; the brother-sister duo of Miles (Hubert Point-Du Jour) and Lou (Jessica Allain) are a pair I’d love to spend more time with in the modern Wick world. Most of the additional story we get in The Continental, however, makes it all entirely too busy. A story about two detectives trying to tie a gun-running operation to the hotel gets what feels like a third of the show’s run time, but seemingly only exists for one moment of pay-off in the finale. A lot more time is given to the show’s big bad, current Continental operator Cormac (Mel Gibson), than really feels necessary. 

The series as a whole is doing way too much, while somehow also not doing nearly enough. A simpler approach could’ve made The Continental a lot more effective, which is the path of the John Wick movies. Alternatively, a longer series could’ve helped create characters and stories that are actually worth investing in. Instead, it falls somewhere in the middle, not intricate enough to create something lasting and not simple enough to keep an interesting pace. 

The majority of the cast does great work with what they’re given. Both Woodell and Adegun do a great job of breathing new life into the characters that McShane and the late, great Lance Reddick built from scratch back in 2014. Allain and Point-Du Jour are the clear-cut standouts of the series. Mishel Prada turns a lifeless character into a much more interesting one. Mel Gibson is…Mel Gibson? He does exactly what he’s hired to do and it makes total sense why he was hired to play an absolute maniac who loves drugs and terrible puns. It’s also a role that a lot of other people could play and likely bring something much more interesting to the table. 

Over the course of three episodes, The Continental tells a mostly complete story that won’t leave you with a lot of questions or open ends. And it’s worth noting that the series ends with a solid bang, with the quality of the third episode easily surpassing the first two. At the end of the day, you’re left with a decent period-heist drama that’s fun to watch, but you’ll probably forget about it before too much time passes. It’s good enough, but if it’s John Wick you’re looking for, Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski must have taken all the magic with them, because they sure didn’t leave it at the Continental. 

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

The Continental: From the World of John Wick premieres September 22nd on Peacock.

The post The Continental Review: Peacock Prequel Is John Wick in Name Alone appeared first on ComicBook.com.

“God is make-believe in the world of The Walking Dead.” That’s according to the zombie saga’s creator, Robert Kirkman, and it’s a nonbelief instilled in Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus). When Beth, the religious daughter of a devout Christian, once admonished Daryl that it wouldn’t kill him to “have a little faith,” he snarled in response, “Faith ain’t done sh-t for us.” For a show about the resurrection of the dead, The Walking Dead tended to lean more secular than spiritual. So it’s somewhat surprising that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon (premiering September 10th on AMC and AMC+) has what Reedus called a “religious vibe” with themes of hope and faith.

The Walking Dead series finale ended with a goodbye between best friends Daryl and Carol (Melissa McBride) before Daryl left Ohio’s Commonwealth community to go search for Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira). “I’ll find them,” Daryl promised their young daughter, Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming). “I’ll bring them home.” After a detour, the 60-minute Daryl Dixon premiere picks up months later with Daryl thousands of miles from home as he clings to an overturned lifeboat adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. Judith’s words echo in voice-over: “You deserve a happy ending, too.”

Washing ashore in post-apocalyptic France, Daryl “struggles to piece together how he got there and why,” per a semi-misleading logline that suggests an amnesiac mystery out of The Bourne Identity. It’s not so much a puzzle to Daryl as it is to the viewer, with sporadic memories emerging in flashes to fill in the gaps until the fifth (and penultimate) episode of the first season stops withholding answers and reveals how and why Daryl was transported across the Atlantic Ocean. (AMC made all six episodes available to critics.) Transatlantic ships are scarce, so the new Walking Dead spinoff follows the marooned Daryl “across a broken but resilient France as he hopes to find a way back home. As he makes the journey, though, the connections he forms along the way complicate his ultimate plan.”

Daryl encounters nun Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) and takes shelter at the Abbey of St. Bernadette, part of a group called l’Union de I’Espoir (“Union of Hope”). Once a pill-popping pickpocket, the prudent Isabelle found religion after witnessing a miracle at the onset of the outbreak 12 years earlier. She’s the guardian of the orphaned Laurent (newcomer Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), a precocious 11-year-old boy born just as les affamès (“the hungry ones”) rose from the dead. When it appears that Daryl’s arrival is divinely preordained, Isabelle tells Daryl that he’s the “messenger” they’ve been waiting for to deliver Laurent to The Nest: a community up north that will raise and nurture him “to be who he was born to be,” says Isabelle. “To be the new messiah. To lead the revival of humanity.”

An atheist, Daryl is skeptical of the boy’s alleged abilities and seemingly supernatural perceptions — as uncanny as it is when the empathetic Laurent tells him, “I feel your sadness. Not to despair, Monsieur Daryl, but you deserve a happy ending, too.” As fate would have it, the treacherous path to The Nest leads to La Havre, a port rumored to be active with operating ships. Daryl agrees to chaperone Isabelle and The Chosen One up north in exchange for passage home, undertaking an odyssey across zombie and peril-plagued Angers, Orleans, Paris, the Seine River, and Normandy.

Daryl’s simple raison d’être is to get home. It would be a spoiler to say why Daryl gets tangled in the strife between l’Union de I’Espoir (“Union of Hope”) and Pouvoir Des Vivants (“Power of the Living”), a political movement that’s controlled most of France since the outbreak. The antagonists — it isn’t quite right to call them “villains” — are nuanced in areas of gray. “The American” quickly makes enemies of Pouvoir patriot Madame Genet (Anne Charrier) and her Guerriers (“warriors”), including the tattooed, strong-willed soldier Stèphane Codron (Romain Levi).

With a tasteful, artful approach, creator and showrunner David Zabel (ER, Mercy Street) and directors Daniel Percival (the dystopian thriller series The Man in the High Castle) and Tim Southam (totalitarian sci-fi drama Colony) recall the understated Frank Darabont era of early Walking Dead with real bite. Where The Walking Dead: Dead City evoked the gritty pulp of Escape from New York, Daryl Dixon is thematically and aesthetically akin to Children of Men or The Road. Its questions are intriguing: Is Laurent the messiah, or a false hope? Is the boy supernatural, or spiritual?

The shot-on-location French settings — from the Catacombes de Paris to the Eiffel Tower, an eroding monument of groaning metal eerily looming over the darkened City of Lights — offer a strikingly different aesthetic than The Walking Dead and are beautifully captured by director of photography Tommaso Fiorilli (Baron Noir) and production designer Clovis Weil (BBC’s Marie Antoinette). France proves fruitful for action, too, and plenty of it; blood-pumping set pieces include Daryl wielding medieval weapons in battle alongside killer nuns, fighting his way out of a castle’s zombie moat, and gladiatorial combat against amped-up super-walkers.

The Walking Dead: World Beyond ended with a credits scene set inside an abandoned French lab that CDC virologist Dr. Edwin Jenner (Noah Emmerich) referenced back in the first season of The Walking Dead. Graffiti in the lab reading les morts sont nes ici — “the dead are born here” — suggested that the zombie “variant cohorts” mentioned in Jenner’s video logs resulted from human experimentation. The coda was a clear setup for Daryl Dixon and makes Walking Dead‘s zombies more of a threat: these variant walkers are smarter, stronger, faster, and deadlier than ever. When Daryl suffers the searing touch of a brûlant (“burner”), mutated hungry ones with acidic blood, the rules have changed. 

Daryl Dixon is epic and entertaining as it expands the Walking Dead mythology with rich world-building. France feels like a lived-in, dramatically different corner of the Walking Dead Universe, populated by an intriguing cast of new characters. Along their journey, Daryl and company encounter Lou (Kim Higelin), the resilient leader of scrappy forager youths; Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney), a well-connected Parisian ally of the Union of Hope; and Quinn (Adam Nagaitis), the dimensional, double-dealing owner of an underground Paris nightclub. 

Norman Reedus is magnifique, reenergized by what is destined to become event television. Already renewed for a second season, the new series delivers what Walking Dead fans want — and something entirely unexpected. Daryl Dixon is The Walking Dead as you’ve never seen it before, enlivened and reinvented to prove that there’s a lot of life left in the zombie drama. Vive la Walking Dead. Long live The Walking Dead.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premieres Sunday, September 10th, at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

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There have been a ton of nostalgic revivals in the last few years, especially as animated projects popular in the 1990s and 2000s have returned for reboots or sequels. The newest of these revival projects has brought back Tiny Toon Adventures as the brand-new Tiny Toons Looniversity. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Discovery already had experience with bringing back a classic cartoon for a new run with Animaniacs on Hulu last year, and it seems like that revival was successful enough to bring back Amblin’s very first animated effort, Tiny Toon Adventures in a brand-new way. 

Tiny Toon Adventures was notably an animated series released during the boom of showcasing younger versions of popular characters that resulted in the likes of Muppet Babies, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry Kids, and more releasing around the same time. But Tiny Toon Adventures was a standout in the fact that they openly referenced the fact they knew they were in a cartoon (thanks to the Looney Tunes D.N.A.) and used that for maximum humor. It’s a bit difficult to juggle that idea these days since it’s so overdone now, but Tiny Toons Looniversity avoids these pitfalls by stepping out with a brand-new looney experience instead. 

Tiny Toons Looniversity isn’t quite like the Tiny Toon Adventures fans of the early ’90s series might remember, as its premise is played completely straight. The original series was quite literally crafted by Babs and Buster Bunny themselves as they needed to come up with a show or be tossed out in the trash, but Tiny Toons Looniversity instead sees each of the young toons enrolling in Acme Looniversity for the first time. There are a few changes to go along with this new take, as well, that could take hardcore fans by surprise, too, like a few seemingly missing characters or making Babs and Buster twins. But they aren’t egregious changes by any means. 

Babs and Buster Bunny had a unique dynamic in the original series that could sometimes be flirty, but making them twin siblings (with a surprising mother) makes them more tight-knit than ever. This actually plays into the main draw of Tiny Toons Looniversity as well, as while each of the toons are as wacky and zany as they were in the original series, there’s more attention paid to their respective character quirks and personalities. Going back to Babs and Buster, for example, the first episode has them dealing with the fact that they are separated for the first time in their lives as they need to use their new school experience to branch out. 

Tiny Toons Looniversity has a different structure, but it’s still very much a playground for looney antics. It’s tethered to a sense of forward momentum for the characters, and the attention paid to a central narrative ultimately offers a much more rewarding experience. There is admittedly a feeling of just a little bit of loss, however, as this structure also means that not all of the characters can be highlighted at all times. These students are no longer just younger versions of their Looney Tunes counterparts, so dynamics have been changed overall. Different toons are interacting with one another, too, such as Sweetie Bird, who was just outside of the main group in the original, but has now been elevated to the main cast. 

These shake-ups mean that fans of the classic series might be disappointed in some of the changes, but they ultimately work out for the better, as it results in a fresh and fun new cartoon show overall. Just like how Tiny Toon Adventures felt like a fresh and approachable version of the classic Looney Tunes formula for the then-1990s audience, Tiny Toons Looniversity feels like it has been appropriately made for kids of this generation. Tons of fun jokes, character-focused stories, and wacky slapstick abound for a whole new era. 

There’s new life breathed into this franchise with Tiny Toons Looniversity, but it never loses that nostalgic allure. They’re just fun cartoons that you can jump into if you want that bit of youthful, loony energy, and will scratch that itch for wackiness that you’re looking for right now. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Tiny Toon Adventures streams with Max on Friday, September 8th and will be airing episodes weekly on Cartoon Network beginning on Saturday, September 9th. 

The post Tiny Toons Looniversity Review: Still Tiny, Still Toony, Still All a Little Looney appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Monkey D. Luffy is a busy man. The pirate came to life in Weekly Shonen Jump circa 1997 and changed manga for the better. Luffy’s tale in One Piece is known the world over now as the manga has outsold comic giants like Batman. With a successful anime on hand, One Piece is a true phenomenon, so the stakes were set high after series creator Eiichiro Oda announced its live-action future. After years of work, One Piece‘s live-action TV show is finally here, and I’m pleased to say the series is fit for the future King of the Pirates.

Hollywood’s anime curse has been a blight on the anime fandom for decades, but you’d never know it existed watching Netflix’s One Piece. The show’s first season is self-contained as it focuses on the main aspects of Oda’s story: its crew and its sea. Showrunners Matt Owens and Steven Maeda spent years crafting One Piece‘s live-action debut, and their care is impossible to miss.

To start, One Piece tells the story of Monkey D. Luffy, a novice pirate who is eager to become the King of the Pirates. After eating a powerful Devil Fruit, Luffy takes to the sea after an eventful childhood training, and One Piece picks up with Luffy on his first day at sea. From there, Netflix’s One Piece follows Luffy and his growing crew as they sail the East Blue and follow the trail of a legendary treasure called the One Piece.

In the manga, One Piece is vast, but it always comes back to family. Luffy’s nakama drives him forward as he hunts to reach his dream. In Netflix’s One Piece, Luffy comes to life courtesy of star Iñaki Godoy. The up-and-coming star really is Luffy, and that is that. Whether you know the pirate’s history or not, Godoy’s infectious optimism makes the pirate endearing. Luffy’s boyish charm sets the foundation of the Straw Hat crew, and Godoy nails it while bringing home the captain’s confidence.

It is a joy to watch Godoy’s strong performance take to sea, and he is joined by a truly impressive cast. Mackenyu embodies Roronoa Zoro’s steadfast strength and impressive combat skills. When Usopp is introduced, actor Jacob Romero Gibson regales audiences with a striking swagger. The same can be said for Taz Skylar’s Sanji as the wayward chef’s flirtatious personality is tempered by his convicted performance. And when it comes to Nami, actress Emily Rudd brings the navigator’s daring spirit to life with a gentle ease.

From its principal cast to its secondary pirates, One Piece is cast perfectly, and their chemistry is undeniable. Under close supervision by Oda and his team, the Straw Hat crew feels like family in Netflix’s One Piece, and that makes its seas all the more exciting.

The seas of One Piece are brought to life in this live-action adaptation with care. From the Going Merry to Shell Town and the Baratie, the sets of One Piece are appropriately grand. The adaptation allows itself to lean into the whacky nature of Oda’s original tale while grounding it in all the right spots. Even the manga’s wildest loves like Transponders Snail with a surreal yet level-headed vision. Netflix’s adaptation may have needed to condense its pacing a hair to adapt everything it needed for season one, but it isn’t done in vain. The streamlined story is accessible for fans and newcomers alike, so One Piece can rest easy about its cuts.

Just like superhero films before them, live-action anime has had a rough go in Hollywood, but every streak must end. Netflix’s One Piece marks a definite turn in that sour reputation. Decked with a perfectly curated cast and intimate stories, One Piece captures the heart of what makes Oda’s tale transcendent. At its core, One Piece is about dreams and those destined who see their hopes fulfilled. For years, we’ve waited to see whether Netflix’s One Piece would sink or swim. So as Luffy begins chasing his dream in live action, it is a privilege to say Netflix’s One Piece is worthy of telling the Pirate King’s tale. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

One Piece is now streaming on Netflix. You can also find the original One Piece anime on Netflix as well as Hulu and Crunchyroll. Got any questions about the hit series? Let us know in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your questions!

The post Netflix’s One Piece Review: A Seafaring Triumph Fit For the Pirate King appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Before The Mandalorian kicked off the era of live-action Star Wars television, only a handful of characters from that galaxy far, far away that hadn’t appeared in any of the Star Wars movies had become anything close to as beloved as the heroes of the Skywalker Saga. Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi apprentice, was one of those few. Created by George Lucas and Dave Filoni, Ahsoka first appeared in the dreadful 2008 Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie and the much better Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series. Viewers watched the young Padawan grow up within the Jedi Order, experiencing a gradual maturation unlike anything in the Star Wars films, and one with an unexpected ending as she ultimately left the Order behind. After appearing in The Clone Wars‘ successor series, Star Wars Rebels, and making her live-action debut via guest appearances in The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka headlines Star Wars’ latest live-action series on Disney+. Those already intimately familiar with Ahsoka’s journey to date are likely to be intrigued by this next chapter, while others may appreciate its ambitions, but some will be frustrated by its reliance on characters introduced elsewhere in the Star Wars franchise or by the ways its reach sometimes exceeds its grasp.

Developed by Filoni, who wrote the entire eight-part series and directed the first episode, Star Wars: Ahsoka begins at least a decade after the climax of Star Wars Rebels, years after the conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy, and sometime after Ahsoka’s appearance in The Mandalorian‘s second season, building upon all of those previous stories. With the Empire defeated, The New Republic is on the rise, but Imperial sympathizers still exist, and there are whispers that one Imperial Grand Admiral is still at large. Fearing that this Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) could unite the remnants of the Empire and start another war, the former Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) discovers a map leading to his whereabouts but cannot decipher it. She turns to her old friend, and fellow former Rebel, General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), for help. Hera suggests Ahsoka reconnect with another member of their old cell, Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), but it is clear that Ahsoka and Sabine aren’t on good terms. However, Ahsoka isn’t the only one searching for Thrawn, as Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson, to whom the first episode is dedicated), a former Jedi who managed to escape the Imperial purge of the Order, and his apprentice, Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), unite with Morgan Elbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), one of Thrawn’s allies, and make plans to take the map from Ahsoka.

Ahsoka opens with a text crawl, a bold leveraging of Star Wars’ iconography that speaks to an apparent desire on Filoni’s part to elevate these characters he’s been shepherding for 15 years and their stories to the same level of prestige and import as the Skywalker Saga and the iconic heroes and villains of the Star Wars films. Utilizing Thrawn, the villain who debuted in a series of early 1990s Star Wars novels that a generation of Star Wars fans believed would be the closest thing they’d ever get to a true sequel trilogy, also speaks to that ambition. Some shots even feel pulled from those movies, such as Ahsoka in her cockpit alongside her droid co-pilot Huyang (voiced by David Tennant), or moments of Shin Hati surveying the planet Lothal that are reminiscent of Darth Maul scanning the sands of Tatooine in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

For all of his cinematic ambition, most of Filoni’s solo writing credits are in animation, and the pacing of these episodes feels, at times, like the scripts are stretching to meet the expected length of a live-action episode. Sequences are dedicated almost entirely to the mechanics of the map device, which is nothing more than a MacGuffin (and one that is too similar to the Sith Wayfinder from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), and linger for too long. The often arch, overwrought dialogue comes with a lack of urgency that, without the enthusiasm that Filoni is used to getting from uninhibited voice actors, contributes to overly practiced deliveries.

Ahsoka‘s stakes are also built on background that viewers may or may not have. Anyone who hasn’t seen Rebels or read certain Star Wars novels has to take the show’s insistence that Thrawn is a threat at face value since he doesn’t appear in these opening chapters of the story. Without that, the tension and urgency in the narrative all stem from the nebulous threat of war, which comes off as mundane. This is a story set in the Star Wars universe. Was star peace ever an option? Still, the setup is big, broad, and operatic as the Star Wars films are, which meets the criteria Filoni seems to be trying to fulfill.

Similarly, the uninitiated get only a brief implication of why Sabine remains distraught over the disappearance of Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), a young Jedi who went missing with Thrawn in the Star Wars Rebels series finale. In the past, I’ve defended the interconnectedness of Filoni’s corner of the Star Wars universe — Ahsoka’s role in The Mandalorian is pretty straightforward, and that doesn’t change with additional context about her history. Here, that background is more load-bearing.  In almost any other show, one existing independently of a multimedia franchise, viewers might assume that the writers will eventually fill them in when the time is right. Here, it’s hard to figure out what the show takes for granted or otherwise assumes the audience will learn through independent Star Wars research.

If Ahsoka means to be a cinematic experience, the first two episodes available for review are the first act. While Ahsoka’s name is in the title, she shares lead protagonist duties with Sabine. The show reveals early on that Ahsoka had been training Sabine as a Jedi Padawan apprentice, but that relationship didn’t last. Ahsoka embarked on her quest to find Thrawn while Sabine remained on Lothal, growing lonely, listless, and verging on bitter. These first two episodes are about Ahsoka and Sabine reconnecting and bandaging up enough of their old wounds to work together again. It’s only when they finally get there at the end of Ahsoka‘s second episode (a moment first glimpsed in the epilogue to the Star Wars Rebels series finale) that the show feels like it has laid the requisite groundwork to get to the main thrust of its story.

How viewers accept this pairing may come down to whether or not they’re familiar with the duo’s past adventures. For the newcomer, that this Jedi, Ahsoka, had a Padawan is easy enough to grasp, and why shouldn’t it be Sabine? But for fans of Rebels, it may not be as clear-cut. 

Rebels established Sabine as a headstrong Mandalorian with the heart of an artist (her armor had a paint job just shy of infringing on Lisa Frank’s style) and a mind for a tech who already knows how to fight in the ways of her culture. She chafed against her tutoring the one time she briefly underwent lightsaber training and has never shown an interest in or aptitude for the Force. How did she wind up becoming a Jedi Padawan to anyone, let alone Ahsoka, who once rebuffed the Jedi Order in what this new series seems to want viewers to see as a symptom of her inability to commit and tendency to leave people behind, undermining the independent streak and capacity for critical thinking and speaking truth to authority figures that endeared her to many in the first place? It’s possible that Filoni feels the need to pair Ahsoka with a Padawan to contrast her with her former master, and maybe the series will eventually unpack how Sabine is trying to be something she’s not to honor Ezra’s memory. As focused as these episodes are on getting the pair back together, it doesn’t do much to foreshadow where their arcs will head. As is, it’s an odd dynamic to force upon the characters and one that doesn’t suit them as fans knew them.

Dawson’s performance feels distant, as well. Her Ahsoka is subdued, delivering her lines with a consistent calm even when she should be annoyed. Perhaps it represents how much Ahsoka has matured or her strength and balance in the Force. However, for someone who’s followed Ahsoka’s journey, it feels like the distinct character traits of the precocious “Snips,” as Anakin called her, have been subsumed by the mannerisms of a stock Jedi character. 

Bordizzo’s Sabine is a similarly familiar depiction, a frustrated young woman left to turn sour in a (relatively) small town. The difference is that her performance and Sabine’s passive-aggressive behavior fit the situation she’s in, and the moment she finally takes her Mandalorian helmet out from under her bed (where Chekov himself seemingly placed it in the foreground of several shots) signals her return to form. 

Ahsoka and Sabine contrast with the master and apprentice duo of Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati. Where some of the cast are too self-conscious to pull off the sincere, sci-fi serial camp that informed Lucas’ Star Wars and that Filoni seems to be reaching for, Stevenson seems entirely at home in that mode as Baylan Skoll, carrying himself with the practiced gentility and wisdom of an evil, or at least morally compromised, Obi-Wan Kenobi. To complete the set, Sakhno’s Shin Hati doesn’t have many lines but exudes the overeagerness of a Skywalker, reveling in every chance she has to put her skills to use.

The supporting cast acquits itself well all around. While dealing with Ahsoka and Sabine, Winstead plays Hera as an experienced, knowing, and mildly amused mother dealing with two siblings in a row and the performance charms. Elsbeth almost feels like a different character than the one introduced in The Mandalorian, growing from Imperial bureaucrat and middle-management lackey (albeit one who can stand up to a Jedi in a fight) to Thrawn’s witchy visier, but Inosanto proves up to the task. Tennant sounds like he’s having a great time reprising Huyang, still able to fully enjoy the comforts and freedoms of the voice booth as he is.

Ahsoka‘s presentation is similarly commendable. Baylan and Shin have a fresh ferocity in their fight scenes, and Sabine’s fighting style feels similarly distinct, blending strength and precision. Ahsoka’s lightsabers have an unusual weight to them, but it creates a style faster than the slow-paced duels of the original trilogy but with fewer spins and twirls than the flashy prequel trilogy fights.

These battles take place on stunning vistas aided by virtual landscapes that sometimes feel a bit too unreal but mostly stand to task and benefit from established Star Wars design. Without giving too much away, Ahsoka does present an occasion for creative innovation in that department that distinguishes itself from what came before in impressively meaningful ways in a short time.

It all comes wrapped in Kevin Kilner’s stellar score, alternating brash and tender. Kilner’s worked on the Star Wars animated series and leverages some of those established sounds here, proving particularly successful with his repurposing of Sabine’s theme from Star Wars Rebels within Ahsoka‘s episodes and as its closing credits theme.

In its first two episodes, Ahsoka comes off as Filoni’s truest attempt to bring the feel of a Star Wars movie to television, which shouldn’t be surprising given that we now know his television work is feeding into a Star Wars film he has in development. The red text of the opening crawl and the red Lucasfilm logo that precedes it conjures up memories of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi‘s crimson logo, drawing that connection as if to set itself up as that film’s most direct successor. By all appearances, Filoni wants to create a new cinematic Star Wars experience between the original and sequel trilogies on the timeline, taking advantage of the television medium and the characters who have thrived there to do it. These imperfect opening chapters succeed at setting that stage, despite the slow pace and some questionable decisions about the positioning of its lead characters. It’s a series that will appeal most to those who most love to immerse themselves in the expanded Star Wars universe, but that doesn’t mean it can’t appeal to patient newcomers. As the former, I may fall into the most easily targeted audience, and despite my criticisms, I still find myself eager to see the next episodes. Hopefully, the flaws in these episodes prove to be shaky first steps, and, having left Lothal behind, Ahsoka can fully right its ship and live up to its considerable potential.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ahsoka‘s first two episodes debut on Disney+ on August 22nd. Subsequent episodes of Ahsoka premiere on Disney+ on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.

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When it comes to comic book events, few stand out as much as Secret Invasion, where Earth is overrun by Skrulls. The shape-shifting alien race was first introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe during the events of Captain Marvel and they return in Secret Invasion, a six-episode limited series released by Disney+. Though the series has been hailed as an intense spy thriller throughout much of the marketing, including the release of a password-protected website that made fans search for a code to get in, the first two episodes of the series fail to embody the same spirit.

The series starts off with Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) in the thick of it, and that’s really the deepest the show gets into espionage over the course of its first two episodes. Instead, the show quickly pivots and takes a tone similar to that of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, down to the villains having awfully similar motivations.

Even then, Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik is a villain full-stop, and there’s little questioning what his motivations are. He’s out for blood, and Kyle Bradstreet and his writers’ room are quick to let viewers know that. That said, Gravik is mean and fearsome as he wears his heart on his sleeve, even if it’s to a fault.

Where the series shines exceptionally well is when it lets Samuel L. Jackson be himself. Though the episodes reviewed are without Jackson’s trademark “motherf-cker,” his wit and charm are still put on full display. Secret Invasion is very much the show of Nick Fury, and that might be its saving grace. After 15 years of playing the character, viewers get to see what makes the former SHIELD boss tick, finally providing some storylines that peel back the layers of the walking enigma. It’s an examination of the character in only a way Jackson could accomplish, and it’s something that’s long past due.

Jackson’s supported by a stellar ensemble with the likes of Ben Mendelsohn and Olivia Colman turning out incredible work as Talos and Sonya Falsworth, respectively. Talos finds himself with storylines similar to that of Fury, which may end up being even more impactful, as he’s an alien trying to make his way in a human world. Farnsworth, on the other hand, is an over-the-top MI6 boss that stops at nothing to get what she wants. It’s through Farnsworth that much of that signature Marvel humor comes, though that’s also spread out evenly amongst Jackson, Mendelsohn, and Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes as well.

The story is tired, even though it couldn’t come at a more proper time. Though the Skrull invasion is at the front, a new Cold War is boiling between the United States, Russia, and the rest of the world. It’s a major point of tension in the series, with a global conflict potentially dropping if the wrong phrase is uttered. It’s here that the story gets uncomfortably meta as it evolves to study humanity under a microscope. It forces viewers to reflect on the world outside their window, evoking thoughts of how to make it a better world in light of ample nihilism. Instead of 007 or Mission: Impossible levels of spy goodness, viewers are ultimately left with an amalgamation of Diet Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Expendables. That may not be a criticism, yet it’s a jarring shift from what Marvel Studios has promised of the show.

Secret Invasion is absolutely fine. Action is few and far between as the set pieces remain some of Marvel’s smallest yet. Dialogue between friends and enemies alike is at the forefront of the show as it avoids falling into traditional Marvel rhythm. Unfortunately for the series, even though into doesn’t fall into a traditional mold at the House of Ideas, the first two episodes are unable to stand out from any other action-adventure streaming today.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Secret Invasion debuts on Disney+ on June 21st with subsequent episodes dropping on the streamer every Wednesday.

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