Today, just about any video game is ripe to be tailored for a movie or TV present. However that didn’t make it any much less odd when it was revealed Netflix was aiming to make a cartoon out of 2013’s Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, a retrofuture parody of 80s motion media. That fondly remembered standalone hangs over Ubisoft’s Far Cry franchise in an odd method, and it wasn’t solely fallacious to assume that the newly launched Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix was exhibiting up very late to the occasion. Regardless of the preliminary strangeness, the completed product is a surprisingly enjoyable good time, made all of the extra fascinating by how a lot it’s dedicated to offering its personal distinct, but pretty acquainted model of goofiness.
Captain Laserhawk’s normal pitch can finest be described as “Ubisoft’s Suicide Squad, by means of the lens of outdated GI Joe cartoons.” The present is ready within the alternate, distant way forward for 1992, the place a megacorporation dubbed Eden has taken over what stays of the USA and turned it right into a dystopian technocracy. Cyborg supersoldier Dolph Laserhawk (Nathaniel Curtis) is pressured right into a becoming a member of a black ops group alongside Jade (Courtney Mae-Briggs) and Pey’j (Glenn Wrage) from the cult basic recreation Past Good & Evil and a speaking bullfrog (Yves Bigerel, aka “Balak,” the present’s inventive director) who operates because the final member of the Assassins from Ubisoft’s long-running stealth collection. With bombs of their heads that’ll detonate in the event that they don’t comply, the foursome run ops for the jail’s warden, all whereas Dolph tries to reckon with being put n this case as a result of he was betrayed by his boyfriend Alex (Boris Hiestand) throughout a heist.
If that each one sounds fully ridiculous, that’s as a result of the present is strictly that. Whereas Castlevania’s reveals really feel methodically plotted and like they’re making an attempt to seize the spirit of the games they borrow their title from, Laserhawk is extra like an animation group that actually likes Ubisoft video games threw out a bunch of concepts on the fly and stitched collectively a unifying plot after the very fact. The tip result’s a present the place you’re by no means fairly certain what’s going to occur subsequent, totally on a visible degree: the first animation aesthetic borrows from GI Joe with typically stilted motion and lip-syncing that feels a little bit off, however not a lot that it takes away from the expertise. However now and again, animation studio Bobbypills throws a curveball—all of a sudden the present will change its animation model to imitate 2D sprites, or pixelated live-action—that finally ends up working significantly better than you’d anticipate.
Those that’ve performed various Ubisoft franchises through the years will get just a little one thing further out of watching Laserhawk unite disparate characters and concepts from these properties right into a single present. (With two homosexual males because the core relationship, it even manages to dip into poisonous yaoi territory, made funnier by the truth that a yaoi manga of the 2 really exists.) It lacks a normal coherence, but it surely makes up for that with its power: it’s admittedly pleasant to look at an arrogance venture from one of many largest third-party recreation publishers not work time beyond regulation to make each certainly one of its franchises come off as a very powerful factor ever.
For higher or worse, the present has a little bit of a imply streak in the way it regards some Ubisoft characters, resembling reimagining Rayman (David Menken) as a delightfully unhinged, pathetic speak present host working as a mannequin minority working as Eden’s propaganda machine. On the similar time, you possibly can inform that Bobbypills, director Medhi Leffad, and creator Adi Shankar—who helped get Castlevania off the bottom for Netflix—are having real enjoyable with these properties and the odd premise they’ve cooked up. Even when you’re somebody who’s lengthy been sick of Assassin’s Creed nonsense or can’t end up to care about Watch Dogs or Splinter Cell anymore, this present gives some intelligent spins on characters (or themes) from these titles. Whether or not it’s watching Bullfrog recite the mantra of the Assassins earlier than springing into motion or the group’s Warden (Caroline Ward) regularly unveil her motivations, Captain Laserhawk manages to be genuinely partaking when it simply might’ve been self-congratulatory IP fare.
When the present is bouncing between several types of animation and letting its eclectic forged do their factor, the present is at its finest. However when it’s not doing that, you possibly can see a few of its flaws stand out. The present doesn’t have as a lot time because it in all probability wants to essentially dig into the themes of resistance and destroying regimes, leaving that a part of its story feeling unfinished in order for a hopeful season two tease. And very similar to how Castlevania: Nocturne might’ve benefited from one other quartet of episodes, the identical holds true right here. Laserhawk makes probably the most out of its six-episode run, however sure characters and emotional beats really feel like they might’ve benefitted from some extra respiration room.
Captain Laserhawk is endearingly goofy and disposable, even because it tries to earnestly concentrate on what it seems wish to insurgent inside a restrictive system and the lengths folks go to to take care of their particular person personhood. In no way is it revolutionary, but it surely received me over inside minutes, and it was exhausting to not need a second season after how every little thing ended. In that sense, it actually is sort of a Ubisoft recreation: you might not absolutely know what you’re stepping into at first, however there’s ultimately one thing that will get its hooks into you and retains your consideration.
The whole first season of Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is streaming on Netflix.
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