Marvel’s Inhumans opened in IMAX theaters to unfavorable reviews, and now, after its TV premiere, the rest of us can see why. I love the Inhumans and wanted to ignore the negative reviews and watch with an open mind. Any opportunity to see my favorite characters on the big or small screen is almost always a delight, and in some ways, this holds up for The Inhumans.
The things that worked for me with Inhumans are the acting choices. Anson Mount’s portrayal of Black Bolt is incredible. His facial expressions and physicality make for humorous scenes, and I look forward to seeing his character more fully fleshed out. Though promotional photos caused me to instantly dislike Serinda Swan, in the show’s context she’s a perfectly believable Medusa. The same can be said for the rest of the cast of the Royal Family, with one exception.
Isabelle Cornish as Crystal does not work. Her costume isn’t great and although she certainly resembles Crystal, she straight up can’t deliver lines. I haven’t decided whether her character’s lines are just poorly written or if the showrunners just casted the wrong person, but her lines come out flatter than a Flat Earther’s home world.
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The show’s special effects look decent enough, most of the cast is on target, but the show’s pacing is really a giant turnoff. Technically we’ve seen two episodes and, while things have happened, we haven’t really gotten anywhere. The pace of the overall story is too slow. I really don’t know how they justified putting that in theaters, as the first two episodes are hardly a story at all. So, we’re left with good pieces to a potentially cool puzzle, but no table to put that bad boy together on.
The show being eight episodes long does not give me hope either. Yes, it’s a short season, but if they intend to follow the current plot arc throughout it, then it is actually 5 episodes too long. “Evil brother steals kingdom out from under king” should have been wrapped up in episode 2 and we should be moved on to something more interesting by episode 3.
Inhumans ire only adds to ABC’s superhero programming woes as they were forced by Disney and Marvel to renew Agents of Shield for a 5th season despite their desire to cancel the show. ABC has since moved Agents of Shield’s airtime to Friday nights. (Friday Night! It’s like hospice for TV Shows!) In any case, it’s certainly sad to see such interesting intellectual properties do so poorly during the supposed Golden Age of Television.
