Review Roundup: Is Netflix’s ‘Altered Carbon’ Worth Watching?
Altered Carbon, Netflix's latest original show, has dropped and the reviews are in.The word, for the most part, is good.
Blade Runner Meets Black Mirror
Certain quarters have tantalizingly described the cyberpunk sci-fi show as a delicious combo of Blade Runner and Black Mirror.
The show is a twist on the typical murder mystery, based on Richard K. Morgan's 2002 novel Carbon. Set 300 years into the future, Altered Carbon puts the spotlight on soldier Takeshi Kovacs, played by Suicide Squad star Joel Kinnaman.
After waking up in a new body, freed from prison by, the possibly sinister, Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), Kovacs is sent on a mission to find who killed his previous body.
The show includes diverting, Memento-esque flashbacks, and is set against a pulsating neon backdrop.
Most reviews for the new Netflix must binge-watch series are positive.
"Netflix's Altered Carbon is Blade Runner meets Black Mirror with Westworld's morality thrown in - and it's your new TV obsession," gushed Games Radar.
"Think of Altered Carbon as a cyberpunk Game of Thrones, except that winter is already here, three centuries into the future," raved The San Francisco Chronicle.
"The roads that Altered Carbon takes to its destination aren't new to us but enough of us have enjoyed previous versions of these trips to appreciate this version of the ride," reasoned Salon.
"It's refreshing to see a show so unashamed about its pulpiness," said The Guardian.
Variety had a similar take on Altered Carbon's unashamed embrace of pulpy sci-fi madness.
"When Altered Carbon is unafraid of embracing its the pulpiness at its core, it becomes both more enjoyable and more addictively textured," they said.
Exploitative, Flawed, And Empty-headed
Other publications, however, were not as convinced by the show's nihilistic take on a dystopian future.
"[It] has some interesting ideas about the wages of immortality, such as the possibility of endless torture. But the resources and technology of the future it depicts appear to be devoted primarily to the pursuit of sexual gratification and exploitation," griped The New York Times.
"Altered Carbon is often quite a bit of fun, but its flaws are large and glaring. The dialogue is rarely better than hacky and ham-handed, clunky lines of wannabe hard-boiled detective-speak interlaced with ponderous and exposition-heavy interludes, " said The AV Club.
CNN's Brian Lowry was, even more, cutting in his analysis.
"Altered Carbon — a sci-fi experiment gone awry — joins that pantheon of the quickly forgettable. ...the series looks great ... but in terms of substance, offers little more than an empty sleeve," he argued.
Neftlix is likely looking to capitalize on last year's Blade Runner 2049, which struck the right note with fans but faltered at the multiplex. Altered Carbon has a lot of momentum behind it and the mostly positive reviews will certainly work in its favor.
Netflix will also likely push advertisements for Altered Carbon harder than the doomed Bright.
