Fallout Season 1 (04.19.24)

 

As existentially horrifying as the idea of nuclear war is, I will say that at least it has inspired some creative fiction over the years. For a good example of this, look no further than Fallout, the hugely popular video game series where the radroaches are humongous, the mutants and ghouls are plentiful, and the Geiger counters enthusiastically sing their clicky song of death. It’s an interesting world to visit and one that was ripe for adaptation, and wouldn’t you know it, but Amazon Prime has given us a pretty great one, even if it feels like it takes a while to get going.

Fallout the television show is not based on any particular game in the series but is instead its own thing, a big positive considering how bogged down with minutia that straightforward adaptations can get. It starts with a bang (several bangs in fact, each one of the nuclear persuasion) before reigning things in a bit for a solid hour and a half of world building as we follow three characters—two heroes and a scene chewing villain played by the always fantastic Walton Goggins. Despite some (fairly gruesome) bloodshed that kicks off Lucy’s (Ella Purnell) journey things start out pretty slow, and it’s not until halfway through the second hour-long episode that things begin to coalesce a bit into a cohesive narrative. But the world of Fallout is just so interesting that it doesn’t matter much. As the bombs fell in a world analogous to our 1950s the tunes are all old-timey, the tech the dream of someone from that era imagining what the future would look like in the distant year of two-thousand-whatever. The giant budget that Amazon threw at this project is seen everywhere, from the ruinous sets to the CGI on the freaky mutated beasties to the grungy makeup that makes everyone but the two heroes look like grody little trash goblins.

Fallout was always a series that had its tongue firmly in its cheek, drawing satirical humor from such places as the naivete of the people who grew up in radiation-proof vaults or the borderline jingoism of the Brotherhood of Steel, a fairly fascistic organization that has all the subtlety of a bull driving a tank in a China shop. This humor is present in the show, if a bit dialed down, keeping things fun to watch even when things are bleak. A lot of humor is also derived from some over-the-top violence that would not seem out of place in an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, so if head popping and silverware ballistics are not your thing you might want to look elsewhere.

But for existing fans and newcomers alike Fallout is a triumph, standing among some of the best video game to

              Fallout season 1 is now available on Amazon Prime.

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on April 19th, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com. 

X-Men '97 Season 1 (04.12.24)

 

Saturday mornings meant one thing for me when I was a kid: Setting my alarm clock for 8:00 so I could tune into new episodes of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Like most kids of the pre-streaming era, such moments were sacred; they were times to unwind, eat heavily sugared cereal, and, most importantly, not be at school. Kids WB was always my jam, but if I had ever deviated from my strict schedule and flipped over to Fox Kids I would have no doubt fallen in love with X-Men, the massively popular animated adaptation of Marvel’s classic band of merry mutants. The show was such a hit that Disney has decided to continue it twenty-seven years later with X-Men ‘97, an enjoyable cheese-fest with cool action, beautiful animation, and a bit of an identity crisis.

I tried going back to watch the original run not long before the revival and found myself having a hard time with it. Although I am a big X-Men fan in general, the show was clearly not meant for me as an adult with no nostalgic feelings toward it. But as X-Men ‘97 is Disney’s first attempt to bring the team to the screen since its acquisition of Fox back in 2019 I thought I’d give it a shot anyway, and I am glad that I did. It does have that corny 90s aura in abundance, from the silly one-liners to the bombastic, overly dramatic voiceover work of both new and returning cast members. But the animation has also improved greatly since the show’s previous incarnation, the motion of the characters having the fluidity and grace one expects from a television show made in the 2020s.

Nowhere is this animation bump more apparent than in the action scenes, which are pretty darn cool, each one utilizing each mutant’s superpowers in new and creative ways. Supplementing the action is a soundtrack worthy of the original’s iconic theme, a leitmotif that never fails to thrill whenever it returns.

But though I personally believe that X-Men ‘97 should be an intergenerational hit that both adults and children can enjoy, there is no doubt that not all adults will enjoy it, nor will all children. The corniness may be too off-putting for some grown-ups, and although I am a firm believer that kids are more than capable of handling heavier themes like prejudice and identity (and that these themes, which are so vital to the X-Men brand in general, should never be cut from any adaptation), I could definitely also see some kids getting bored with the non-punchy bits of X-Men ‘97. It lives in an odd no man’s land between adult and kid appeal, but I believe it does so quite well, bridging the gap in a way that many other shows would fail at.

If you do watch X-Men ‘97, learn from my mistakes and watch it in the morning with a bowl of Lucky Charms. There is no other way to do so.

The first four episodes of X-Men ’97 season 1 are now available on Disney+, with new episodes releasing each Wednesday.

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on April 12^th, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com.