Home Entertainment Those early reviews were right – Marvel’s Inhumans is terrible

Those early reviews were right – Marvel’s Inhumans is terrible

4 min read
77

After its unprecedented IMAX debut last month, the two-hour premiere of Marvel’s Inhumans finally aired on normal broadcast television, including DSTV locally, this Saturday past. I watched it hesitantly, having heard all the bad buzz earlier in the year. I had missed the IMAX screening due to unexpected work but in retrospect that was a good thing. Simply put, I would have been physically angry if I had paid a premium to watch this hot garbage.

Spinning out of the events of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD (sort of), Inhumans tell of the titular race of human offshoots, who millennia ago were experimented on by the alien Kree race and thus gained special abilities through a process called terrigenesis. AoS dealt with the watered down ancestors of these Inhumans, but this show deals with the original race who all live in secret in an invisible city on the moon named Attilan.

In the spotlight is the Inhuman Royal Family, headed by King Black Bolt (whose voice is powerful enough to crack mountains) and Queen Medusa (who possesses powerful prehensile hair). Surrounding them are their siblings and cousins, but of particular interest is Black Bolt’s brother Maximus, a scheming man – yes, man, as through a quirk of fate he possesses none of the genetic gifts of the rest of his race – who covets the throne for himself.

That’s admittedly a rather out-there concept, but that’s the appeal of comic book legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original creation. The Inhumans comics were big idea sci-fi storytelling wrapped in Shakespearean familial drama. It was creative, epic and dramatic – everything that this TV series is not.

Showrunner/writer Scott Buck, somehow still in a job despite already ruining Marvel’s Iron Fist, finds the most inane way to tell this story, and then doubles down with cringe-worthy dialogue. It certainly doesn’t help that these clumsy lines are delivered through some mostly terrible acting.

Note: I said “mostly”. Game of Thrones alum Iwan Rheon seems to think he is still in HBO’s fantasy drama as his Maximus is essentially just Ramsay Bolton with the psychopathic tendencies turned down a notch. Still, as familiar as it is, it’s an admittedly charming turn, especially since he’s supposed to be the series’ villain but Buck’s writing actually gives him the far more sympathetic story.

And that’s where the good news ends.

Anson Mount as Black Bolt, forced to communicate merely through his expressions and a special sign language he developed, doesn’t give us much either way, but that’s mostly down to the writing. The same goes for Isabelle Cornish as Medusa’s sister Crystal. But Medusa herself, actress Serinda Swan, as well as others like Mike Moh as the amphibious Triton and Eme Ikwuakor as hoofed warrior Gorgon, simply don’t have that excuse. They’re just bad.

That’s an equally apt descriptor for the low-budget video game level CGI that animates Medusa super-hair. It’s so terrible that Buck even writes himself a way out of having to animate it each week. Add in fan cosplay level costume design, sparse sets, and nearly all interaction in this entire city seemingly always taking place in the same four tiny locations, and you have an overwhelming feeling of cheapness.

With that in mind, I would hazard a guess that what production money there was went into creating Lockjaw, the giant teleporting dog used by the Inhumans (yes, you read that correctly). The fully digital canine certainly looks decent enough, but we’ve seen better on weekly shows with a far lower profile.

There was definitely only a pittance spent on getting in decent action choreographers, or even just somebody who can teach the cast how to throw a punch. If you thought the fight sequences on Iron Fist was terrible, wait until you get a load of these, choreographed and shot as unexcitingly as possible and performed with a robotic clumsiness that is laughable. A particular scene involving Ken Leung’s Karnak, an Inhuman who is supposed to be devastating in hand-to-hand combat thanks to his ability to spot weaknesses in everything (an ability that is never actually explained properly here), is painful to watch as he goes through the motions with a geriatric sloth.

At least when the action shifts to Earth, it’s set in gorgeous Hawaii and there’s no denying the beauty of the tropical backdrops on display here. But even if you wrap a turd in the shiniest of golden ribbons, it’s still a turd. And there’s no denying that that is what Marvel’s Inhumans is.

It’s been noted that when Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD launched it also had a rocky start before eventually finding its groove and becoming arguably the best pure comic book show on TV. There’s been recent talk that Inhumans’ second season may already have been scrapped, denying it the chance to undergo its own terrigenesis. After these first two episodes, I think it was the right call.

Last Updated: October 3, 2017

77 Comments

  1. I didn’t find it completely terrible. I liked Black Bolt & Karnak, but the rest were between average & poor. It does look really cheap & some of the dialogue was very jarring. Maximus looks particularly non-threatening whenever he stands near anyone else, because he’s a hobbit and everyone towers over him.

    Reply

    • Original Heretic

      October 3, 2017 at 13:20

      With everything else out there to watch, is it worth the time to watch?
      Or should I just read the synopsis from Wikipedia?

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        October 3, 2017 at 13:23

        Since it doesn’t appear that it will even be interacting with the other Marvel properties, it may not even be worth a Wiki read

        Reply

        • Original Heretic

          October 3, 2017 at 13:26

          Yyyyeessh, THAT bad?! That’s really tragic, considering how awesome some of the Inhumans comics have been.
          But are sure it won’t be interacting with other Marvel properties? I’m sure I read somewhere that in s2 (if it ever happens), they will start spilling over more in other Marvel series.
          One thing seems very clear, though, Scotty has to go.

          Reply

          • Kervyn Cloete

            October 3, 2017 at 13:28

            The only thing it could possibly interact with is AoS as divisions in Marvel have resulted in these shows operating almost in silos.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:32

            Yeah, the divisions in their series make them almost as bad as DC movies.

          • Sgt. M

            October 3, 2017 at 13:37

            But Scotty doesn’t know

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        October 3, 2017 at 13:37

        If you’re busy or got other stuff you want to watch I’d say no. I only watched it because I was curious & I’ll watch another episode to see where it goes. I gave The Awful 3 episodes before writing that shit off.

        Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      October 3, 2017 at 13:26

      Ken Leung is a fantastic actor and I can watch him do anything… except these sloppy fight scenes.

      I will say that not having watched Hell on Wheels, I was completely unfamiliar with Anson Mount, and I feel that he has the potential to be great here. The problem is that he’s not given much to do in the first two episodes. He does seem to be able to handle the physical aspects of playing Black Bolt as well as being likeable. He just needs the material.

      Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      October 3, 2017 at 14:54

      Maximus’ description is pretty much Marvels approach to bad guys though.
      They like their weedy bad guys.

      Reply

  2. Gavin Mannion

    October 3, 2017 at 13:11

    Anyway I can watch this without paying DSTV?

    Is it on Hulu or Amazon Prime or Netflix?

    Reply

    • Skittle

      October 3, 2017 at 13:15

      • Gavin Mannion

        October 3, 2017 at 13:15

        nope… it’s the legal life for me

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          October 3, 2017 at 13:19

          You don’t wan’t a puff of this?

          Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      October 3, 2017 at 13:35

      Will more than likely eventually hit Netflix thanks to Disney’s deal with them, but right now it’s only DSTV locally

      Reply

    • Kromas Ryder

      October 3, 2017 at 13:36

      Showmax?

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        October 3, 2017 at 13:37

        Nope. Anyways, Showmax is free with DSTV

        Reply

        • Kromas Ryder

          October 3, 2017 at 13:38

          I canceled my DSTV ages ago when I got Netflix. Also I only got Showmax for my secret shame. VEEP.

          Reply

        • Original Heretic

          October 3, 2017 at 13:39

          I’m about to choose between Netflix and ShowMax. Which is better?

          Reply

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:40

            Netflix

            by a rather large margin.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:41

            Netflix US?

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:43

            Even local has more shows at a higher quality. Literally the only show worth it on showmax for many people is GoT.

            Netflix has all the Disney stuff in their pocket (for now) plus all the netflix originals and they keep adding a ton of new stuff to the local libraries. A us account is better but not a deal breaker as it is only older shows that suffer.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:45

            Oh … Showmax has South Park.

            And Netflix has a small library of decent Anime.

            Then again for Anime get Crunchyroll.

            I also had Amazon Prime …. waste of time.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:47

            Oh and Netflix has Star Trek Discovery. But after 3 episodes most people concluded it is just a waste of time for Trekkers.

          • Admiral Chief

            October 3, 2017 at 14:04

            LIES!
            ST:D is epic (notice the semicolon hehe)

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:06

            What you said.

          • Admiral Chief

            October 3, 2017 at 14:07

            The semicolon or the other thing 😛

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:07

            Haha!

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:06

            Bullshit. Every Trekker I know loves it.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:14

            Every Trekker I know hates it.

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:19

            Every Trekker on RT seems to like it, boom! RT to the rescue 😛

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:28

            The difference between The Orville and Discovery is that The Orville went
            out to make science fiction fun — and Discovery went out to make Star
            Trek relevant for the critics.

            As a result, The Orville brings the hope for the future that every Star Trek series (and most of the movies) have. Discovery aims for the darkness, which killed Enterprise — a series that it contradicts, given that Enterprise explained the Klingons were devolving because of disease [as a way of explaining the differences between depictions in the original series and TNG].

            I am certain both shows will find their place but then again Star Wars episode 1-3 had massive battle and super special effects as well and are considered the worst movies in the series. At least we got clone wars and rebels out of it.

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 14:34

            I will start watching it tonight or tomorrow.

            Then we see if EVERY trekker hates it. My internet has been down for a MONTH and streaming on my cell phone package data is not on.

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 14:33

            I also had Amazon Prime …. waste of time.

            Um. Far more than that. A waste of electricity, space and all that.

          • Matthew Holliday

            October 3, 2017 at 14:52

            All I want from Amazon Prime is Grand Tour.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:48

            I’ve been leading toward Netflix anyway, but then my wife’s friends told her Showmax is better, so now I’m getting hassled there. because of course I don’t know what I’m doing or talking about.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:51

            Showmax app is terrible. Showmax streaming also has a tendancy to not work or the shows sometimes skip an episode on autoplay for no reason. Showmax streaming also does not auto adjust quality based on connectivity it has to be done manual.

            Think of showmax as the mentally challenged brother of Netflix backed by whatever is exclusive to DSTV.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:52

            That’s exactly what my impression of it was, too!

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:53

            Oh and PC does not have an app.

            So get this. The website has not rewind feature. You can not rewatch an episode from the web. You have to use a phone app to rewind the episode … play it a bit then use the website again. …. brilliant engineering.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 13:54

            Actually … you know what? Both have a 14 day trial. I suggest trying both out.

            Netflix will win though .

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:57

            That’s what I said to my wife. Free trial periods, so WE can decide what WE want, as opposed to just listening to her friends who usually give her bad advice anyway (oh, the bad advice, oh man, there have been some terrible things…)

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 14:32

            ShowMax has some unique local content you will never get or see anywhere else.

            We have both, costs like R240 a month for both depending on the exchange rate.

            ShowMax Xbox One App is ok and we stream off a chrome browser (does not work on Edge or IE, at all). some small issues, Netflix is a better tech product, for sure.

          • Matthew Holliday

            October 3, 2017 at 14:49

            Netflix also does some amazing witchcraft with their streaming, Netflix will stream 720 when you have to buffer youtube at 360

            Just gotta be carefull about cap.
            Capping yourself is alot easier now and if youre on uncapped, you’ll hit those acceptable usage thresholds even faster.

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 15:26

            Uncapped all the way, cause we use easily 3+gb an hour streaminh HD through the Xbox, youtube, Netflix or Showman pretty much the same. This is based on the Xbox’s own hourly total of usage, while not downloading a game or some-such.

          • Matthew Holliday

            October 3, 2017 at 16:13

            No issues with being throttled after going over the “acceptable usage” ? I moved back to capped a few years ago because of it.
            I take it its improved since?

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 16:26

            We pay extra for Premium with a certain crystallian ISP.

            It costs a bit more, BUT, we get great latency and they do not care what we do, as long as we do not peer to peer downloads during the day. Which we do not not at all.

          • miaau

            October 3, 2017 at 14:12

            We use Netflix Local and there is plenty of cool stuff to watch, really.

            For the price…. it is well worth it. And the tech is excellent. We had issues on our ADSL years ago and got speeds of 0.1, 0.2 and ping of > 700ms and Netflix, on the Xbox One app loaded a show, jerked for a few seconds, made adjustements behind the scenes and it worked. We watched.

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            October 3, 2017 at 13:40

            Netflix with a US account, otherwise it’s a toss up depending on what shows you want. Showmax has HBO locally.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:41

            I want HBO.
            Is it tough to get a Netflix US account?

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            October 3, 2017 at 13:42

            Need to use a VPN, otherwise you get geo-locked.

          • Original Heretic

            October 3, 2017 at 13:43

            Does that mean Keanu Reeves rocks up to beat me up?

  3. Ottokie

    October 3, 2017 at 13:12

    That first pic looks like a super hero version of Game of Thrones.

    Reply

  4. Kromas Ryder

    October 3, 2017 at 13:35

    Happy to say I will give this a skip.

    Reply

  5. For the Emperor!

    October 3, 2017 at 13:39

    This just sounds so bad, and I will honestly say that the picture with the cast already left me with a lifeless, joyless, soulless feeling. AoS had a slow start, but was not terrible at the beginning in my opinion.

    Reply

  6. Sageville

    October 3, 2017 at 13:39

    How does the directory of Iron Fist get a second chance???

    Reply

  7. Unavengedavo

    October 3, 2017 at 13:40

    After watching the 1st episode I found myself agreeing with Maximus. They are living on a small part of the moon which is becoming overcrowded. The people who have no abilities, or abilities that the rest don’t like, are place in the mines while the others live in luxury.

    Maximus wants them to be free and have more place to live, and he only said that they should go to earth and nothing about wiping out humanity and taking it over.(unless I missed that plan, I lost focus at some point)

    Reply

  8. RinceThis

    October 3, 2017 at 13:57

    Is it as Bad as the Orville?

    Reply

    • Kromas Ryder

      October 3, 2017 at 13:58

      It is as bad as Star Trek discovery.

      Also Orville is awesome.

      Reply

      • RinceThis

        October 3, 2017 at 13:59

        Yeah, a show that has dick jokes in each ep in the first 1 minute is awesome. For children and Adam Sandler. HAHAHA!

        Reply

        • Kromas Ryder

          October 3, 2017 at 14:01

          Actually you may want to watch a few more episodes. They deal with a lot of stuff shows like ToS and TNG dealt with. In fact most people hated the first episode but praised episode 2 and 3.

          So far. Things can change but I make my opinion on a show usually after 3 episodes and Discovery can go suck it while Orville feels more ST than ST.

          Reply

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:05

            I have watched the first 3 episodes of Orville, and when you have a show that is blatantly ripping off Star Trek: The Next Generation, but drops vagina speaking jokes in an ep about gender reassignment it can blow itself out an airlock. And the Orville feels more like ST:TNG because it IS, only it’s an Adam Sandler version. It sucks, which is why it’s on 20% on RT. Yes. That’s lower than Batman Vs Superman https://media.giphy.com/media/O5NyCibf93upy/giphy.gif

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:09

            Rotten tomatoes …. really?

            Did you see the average audience score? 90%.

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:10

            Yes. Really. People who click like are people who watch it. Just like Adam Sandelr has a following that leads to a 7 movie deal with Netflix. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2ffb80dc1345ba2c32178500b033e7e5fb2ad51a8d13ada402150aaae183a31.jpg

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:13

            Let us just agree to disagree. At least the ratings for Orville makes it a huge success and a season 2 will be on it’s way. Discovery is not yet there.

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:20

            Since it moved to Thursday I think you’ll find it’s ratings have dropped to 1.2, which is not good for any show. It probably will get a second season though. Easy to pick up and go shows often are.

          • Admiral Chief

            October 3, 2017 at 14:07

            Why the Discovery hate? I found it quite amazing

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:07

            There are Trek fans out there who want the show to be identical to the shows from 15 years ago. Which is just bloody stupid thinking in the time we live in.

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:17

            It isn’t about that. It is about ST being a SciFi show about morality and the human (or alien condition). Not about how many ships we can blow up in an episode like they are trying to be Micheal Bay or something.

            If you liked JJ Abraham’s stuff then you will most likely enjoy this. If you liked ToS,TNG or DS9 you may not like this.

          • RinceThis

            October 3, 2017 at 14:23

            Umm? Wolf 359 (how many ships destroyed in that ep?) Practically the whole story ark of DS9 from season 3 to the end have massive space battles that starts with watching a Galaxy class star ship being destroyed. What are you on about?

          • Kromas Ryder

            October 3, 2017 at 14:46

            You do know Wolf 359 was a large scale battle that we only got to see in detail like 5 years after we saw the aftermath of it right?

            Actually yeah I am going to stop as well.

  9. Matthew Holliday

    October 3, 2017 at 14:47

    Agents of shield was pretty fun, season 2 was far improved from season 1 and season 3 had one of the most jaw dropping cliffhangers Ive ever seen on Television.
    Got a bit boring towards the end of the last season, but still, leaps and bounds ahead of the rest, which turned into generic teen drama.

    This Inhumans series though, meh, /nothing it.

    Reply

  10. DragonSpirit009

    October 3, 2017 at 16:01

    I kinda liked it but it sure has some flaws.
    I don’t like Medusa. For some reason she annoys me.

    And I’ll say this again…. I want a dog like Lockjaw. Wish he had more view time.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Action-packed new Shang-Chi trailer shows off the Ten Rings in battle

A brand new trailer for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings shows us the revamped or…