I saw the news about this series a couple of weeks ago and I thought it seemed quite interesting. Again it was one of those Netflix original series which nowadays translate to a good quality show. Since it was about superheroes and I am definitely a fan of those genre, I was pretty excited and decided to binge watch this on Saturday and finished it in 2 days time. So how was this series? Let us find out more below.
Brief Story Line
Seven children who were born on the same day in 1989 were adopted by billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore - Anon, Trudeau mini series etc). Six of them apparently have some kind of power which made Reginald decided to form them into superhero team called The Umbrella Academy. In 2019, the children who were now adult were reunited once again. Number one aka Luther (Tom Hopper - Black Sails TV series etc) had become astronaut, Number Two aka Diego (David Castañeda) was a vigilante, Number Three aka Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) was a successful actress, Number Four aka Klaus (Robert Sheehan - Mortal Engines, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones etc) was a drug addict and Number Seven aka Vanya (Ellen Page - Flatliners, Juno etc) was now a struggling violinist.
Meanwhile Number Five (Aidan Gallagher - Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn TV series) would join them later. However, he was being chased by two mysterious deadly assassins Cha-cha (Mary J. Blige - Sherlock Gnomes etc) and Hazel (Cameron Britton - Mindhunter TV series etc) due to reasons that would unfold later. As everyone struggled with their own problem of handling their power, Vanya was the only one without it. As such she was finding it hard to fit in the family and became close with a regular guy named Leonard (John Magaro - Overlord etc).
With the family's relationship becoming distant due to various secrets kept by Reginald and his trusted assistant Pogo (Adam Godley), could they set their differences aside and stop an imminent danger? Find them all in this unique dysfunctional superhero family series.
End of Brief Story Line
I have to admit that this series was unlike what I expected. At first I thought it would be focusing on the children with special abilities learning how to use their powers and becoming superheroes in the Umbrella Academy. But it turned out the story was focusing on the adult version of these people. The scenes where they learnt to use powers were only shown in glimpses of flashbacks. And even those were only few as some of those flashback scenes were not always during their childhood years, but they indeed give us a lot better understanding on why and how the characters became like they were now.
Since the story was in their adult life where each of these children had seemingly becoming less of superhero but more of normal people, the problems they faced were more of adult problems instead of the light issues teenagers (or kids) would face. Hence the drama portion felt a bit heavy and the tone of the series were very dark. In fact, I thought it was quite similar to the dark tone of DC comics adaptation or Marvel series on Netflix. For those who are unaware, this series was based on comics with the same title, created by Gerard Bay and Gabriel Bá which were published by Dark Horse comics.
What I liked about this series was the visualization which was wonderfully done. It was also fun to see how the title "The Umbrella Academy" would be shown in each episode which I thought was very creative. In the first episode, from the way the characters were introduced one by one, we could see that it would be quite stylish. I especially loved the funeral scene and also the finale scene. The action sequence were also quite amazing and very violent as people die in this series and they were not afraid to show blood as well, albeit not to the level of really gore. Although I got to say that the background seemed to be very dim, making most of the scenes felt too dark, perhaps to add the gloomy sense.
Now the characters of these heroes were quite greatly portrayed. Each one had their own personal problem, like Luther as the supposed leader who was not willing to let go of their childhood glory. Or Diego with his extracurricular activities, Allison with her relationship problem with her young daughter, or Klaus who had to feed off from drugs to restrict his "power" of communicating with the dead. Not to mention Number Five with his own very unique problem. Number Six aka Ben (Justin H. Min) was not part of the main cast and only had recurring role (as you could understand why if you continue watching). I actually thought that the cast were given sufficient screen time to develop their characters and the actors/actresses portrayed them convincingly. Obviously with a rather large ensemble cast, there would be some that I like more than others. My favorite characters here were Number Five probably because his power was the best and his problem was very complex, plus Hazel who was very unique.
I thought that this series had some elements of mystery in it and twists as well. However, to my opinion the plot was somehow a bit predictable and the supposedly surprising scenes we could have guessed easily. Throughout the whole 10 episodes, there was probably only 1 or 2 scenes that could blow my mind (or at least give me a light shock). But one thing's for sure, the ending of the season finale was really really good. It gave me a very strong excitement to continue to second season which probably would only come in 1 or 2 years time. Before I forget, there is another factor that I truly loved about this series, which was the music. The songs here were abundant and mostly they really fit the scenes, like the lyrics or the mood the song brought out.
Overall this was a rather unique superhero series coming not from the 2 major comic books whose superheroes had been made in so many movies & TV series. It was pretty dark, got some nice action sequence, rather unconventional power of the heroes and a real adult sense, plus very good visualizations. If you are looking for such quality in a series, then you could definitely enjoy this one. However, if you prefer a lighter series or one that focus on young superheroes, then this might not be to your liking. I thought it was a good series and quite enjoyable & entertaining, though the rather predictable plot did not fully satisfy me. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating 4 out of 5 stars
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