The Umbrella Academy

So I'm actually surprised on how popular this show got in a very short time. When I first saw the trailers for it, I kind of shrugged and guessed that I might check it out if I don't have a whole lot else to focus on. However, the buzz on this show really went off and I got to the point where I thought it was necessary for me to check it out and figure out what everyone was talking about. And oh boy do I have thoughts on this one.

The Umbrella Academy follows the story of 6 individuals who were born on the same day at the same time to women who previously were not pregnant. They are gathered together by an eccentric billionaire by the name of Reginald Hargreeves (played by Colm Feore) who recognizes that most of them have super human abilities and wishes to utilize them to create a twisted Charles Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters called The Umbrella Academy.

The show mainly takes place after all the students have grown up and grown estranged from both their harsh father and each other. However, they all come together when they hear of their father's death. That sets off a series of events that require these individuals to work together to prevent the apocalypse and a shadowy force trying to take them out.

So right off the bat, the show doesn't sound too out of the ordinary. X-Men did the superhero school before, Heroes did the preventing the apocalypse before. None of this on paper seems too ground breaking... and then you watch the show.

Tom Hopper plays an abnormally large giant with super strength who previously lived on the moon. Robert Sheehan plays a gay drug addict with the ability to communicate with the dead. Aiden Gallagher plays a student who teleports his way through time, lives away from the academy for decades then comes back but the same age as the day he teleported his way to the future.

That's only a couple of the main cast and doesn't cover the wacky side characters like the cartoon mask wearing assassins or the Chimpanzee Manservant who can talk and in my opinion was criminally underutilized (voiced by Adam Godley).

As many moments as you could say that it's ripping off other properties, there are just as many moments where you think to yourself, "that's new" or, "that's freaking weird", in a good way.

For example, throughout the show it utilizes a familiar and upbeat pop culture heavy soundtrack, very similar to Guardians of the Galaxy. At the same time, you've got time traveling assassins with weird masks complaining about the bureaucracy and how funding has been cut on their assassin trips.

I have to give the show credit in that there were a lot of WTF moments within the show. I didn't really know where the show was heading next and when they have those wacky moments, I was entertained.

I think I also enjoyed how dark the show could get. It's definitely the epitome of a dark comedy in that there is a lot of serious themes and dark moments in the show that pulls it away from the generic superhero tropes you may expect.

That being said, both those elements of wacky or dark and edgy moments seem to backfire in a lot of places, maybe just as much as they really land in other places.

The show seemed to be trying to throw everything it could at the wall. Some of it lands really well and it's wildly entertaining like the idea of a CGI chimpanzee manservant, a superhero turned actress (played by Emmy Raver-Lampman) who uses her powers of suggestion on her daughter that pushes her into a custody battle, or a previous member of the academy who had the ability to have large tentacles protrude out of his chest and devour enemies. A lot of that is really fun and zany.

On the other hand, the show had a lot of moments that kind of jumped the shark for me or were either too wacky or too dark for my liking. Sending a character back in time for 10 months, have him fight in Vietnam, fall in love with another Soldier, come back with PTSD in a matter of an episode, then get in a fight with Veterans in a VFW to me didn't ride that line of serious dark and edgy story telling with the zany themes very well. Maybe it worked better in the comics, but again, it comes down to a lot of WTF moments. Some of them were so crazy it worked, sometimes it really didn't work. I appreciate the show's commitment to creating something just out of the ordinary in general, but I think they also need to accept the fact that it's not always going to work.

Essentially I feel like this was me the whole show...

I think a lot of the issues could be fixed if I liked any of the characters, but the reality was that these characters are majorly flawed throughout the entire show. Now to be fair, that's not a bad thing. Flawed characters often make for really interesting story telling. And it fits with the theme of this show where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I think with me, the characters worked sometimes, but I was never really interested in the fate of the characters enough to make me blast through this show like I feel I have with other shows.

Again, I appreciate the wide variety of characters displayed. Ellen Paige plays a shy, uncertain of herself violin player with no powers. David Castaneda essentially plays a not so crazy Bullseye from Daredevil who takes the traditional vigilante path in his adulthood. And overall, I liked the cast. I think I enjoyed Ellen Page more as the show went on and the kid who played Number 5 was actually a lot of fun.

 But the show just kind of meanders for 10 episodes and makes their eventual coming together at the end a long awaited but cumbersome finality.

And that's another issue, I feel like this show would have been served better if it was limited to 8 episodes. The story really drags so much to the point where I barely remember the first 3 episodes. Things finally start to pick up in episode 4 and 5 and you get a semblance of a continued plot as opposed to just random gun fights, but even at that point, the show is just tiresome for me.

Oh and it might not be fair to bring this up again since this is a Netflix TV show that I'm sure they didn't have a huge budget for, but I will say again, the Chimpanzee in this show is criminally underutilized.

I'm not even saying he's an interesting character. It just felt weird that you had this wacky zany show that had the great idea to include a British talking Chimpanzee and he's barely in the show. Again, criminally underutilized. The CGI isn't bad though.

If I'm being honest, another reason I became interested in this show was due to the fact that it came out around the same time that I started seeing a buttload of ads for DC's Titan Spinoff show, Doom Patrol.

Since Doom Patrol was doing episodes week by week as opposed to Umbrella Academy dropping all the episodes at once, and both shows seem to have a similar zany wacky take on superheroes, I thought it would be an interesting conversation to watch both shows and kind of compare and contrast.

I haven't started watching Doom Patrol and I don't know if I'm actually going to get through it, but that's just a potential review that could come out in the future... so get ready for that... maybe...

Overall, I have mixed feelings about The Umbrella Academy. I applaud it for breaking some rules, doing something out of the norm, and definitely taking risks. I do think that by the end I was at least a little bit invested in the characters and plot that the last few episodes became more entertaining to watch, but overall, it's a mixed bag for me of good and bad opinions. I don't know if I can whole heartedly recommend it seeing as though I doubt I'm going to be waiting in pure anticipatory delight for the second season to come out. However, I do think I'll watch it eventually. I think there was enough that I liked to delve back into this alternative punk rock super anti-hero show. So overall, a mixed bag.

But those are my thoughts on The Umbrella Academy. What did you think? If you liked it, what did you like about it in particular? If you didn't like it, do you agree or did you strongly dislike it? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for shows or movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!