How the Incredibles about Victorian superheroines turned out

April 12 on the American HBO channel (in Russia - on Amediateka) a new series "The Incredibles" will start. It was developed by the famous Joss Whedon - the author of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer"And"Firefly». He came up with the idea, produced, co-wrote and directed several episodes.

True, already at the final stage of production, the creator left Joss Whedon Exits HBO Sci-Fi Drama ‘The Nevers’ the project is either because of his own fatigue, or because of numerous accusations of unprofessional behavior while working on previous films and TV series.

Given the number of scandals, Whedon's future career is in question. But, fortunately, this did not affect the release of The Incredibles. After all, no matter how you relate to the personal qualities of its creator, he knows how to make excellent series.

As in previous projects, the author was able to register living and at the same time driving characters and create an unusual fantasy world. However, there are also disadvantages to The Incredibles. Judging by four of the six episodes that were provided to the press, the story now and then rolls into platitudes, and certain scenes look too drawn out. But first things first.

Very twisted plot

In London in the late 1890s, after a mysterious phenomenon, supernatural powers awaken in some people. Moreover, most of their owners, who are now called "gifted", are women. Some of them gather in a special boarding house, which is run by the strong and brave Amalia Tru (Laura Donnelly), who is able to look into the future. She is assisted by the talented inventor Penance Adair (Anne Skelly).

Women have to deal with many problems at once. The inhabitants are aggressive, and parents keep their own children with super powers in shackles. High society wants to declare war on the gifted, and then masked villains open a hunt for them. And some of the owners of superpowers choose the criminal path.

From the very first scenes in The Incredibles, almost all possible genres are mixed. And this atmosphere will continue throughout the series. After a long and gloomy introduction without words, the main characters are thrown into the action: they save a gifted girl from kidnappers. Moreover, Amalia True scatters villains in hand-to-hand combat, and Penance Adair uses many fantastic gadgets that clearly do not belong to the Victorian era.

But the story doesn’t turn into an ordinary sci-fi action movie. Very soon there will be several detective lines. Amalia is confronted by a gang of gifted people who are massacring the theater. Meanwhile, someone is kidnapping women with supernormal abilities, and leaflets from the boarding house itself are used to attract them. The Mad Doctor is trying to find the source of super powers. And these are just a few of the main topics - there are others.

At the same time, the series strangely does not turn into a mess of many characters and scenes. The lines intersect well with each other, and the characters are quickly remembered, although there are a lot of them. By the way, for those who get confused, HBO has prepared a cheat sheet. The nevers with actors and descriptions of heroes (sorry, no portraits)

The ending of each episode is built in the best traditions of serials that are released gradually (and not for an entire season, as on Netflix). The second episode will change the attitude towards some heroes, and the ending of the third is simply shocking. This is how the creators of The Incredibles make the viewer wait for the continuation and build theories every time.

But there are many commonplace cliches

In this case, you shouldn't find fault with the fact that the author devoted most of the plot to female characters. Whedon was famous for his ability to prescribe strong heroines before (remember all the same "Buffy" or "Doll House"). Moreover, in the atmosphere of Victorian England, gender division looks very realistic.

But there are plenty of other cliches in history. The main villains, of course, are shown elderly aristocrats who are planning to fight the threat posed by the gifted. Amalia Tru's clash with the villainous Maladie (Amy Manson) leads to an overly melodramatic line, as if it came from a soap opera.

Steeped in debauchery aristocrat Hugo Swan (James Norton), of course, will play a role in the plot. But most of the time, his participation seems to be a necessary tribute to the adult rating of the series: every second appearance is accompanied by scenes sex or at least naked bodies.

With a very successful idea, such cliches seem too commonplace and interfere with taking history seriously. Especially when the show lacks momentum.

Fantastic world and heroes

The main advantage of the series is the entourage and characters. The fantasy base gives authors complete freedom without being tied to the real story. Therefore, Whedon turns nineteenth-century England into a world steampunk. First of all, the charming heroine Anne Skelly is responsible for this. Her carriage is driven by a robot, and she herself drives a motorized carriage, launches flash grenades, fights with an umbrella with a stun gun and uses dozens of other inventions.

Fortunately, HBO's budgets allow both to show various fantastic technologies and to visualize the unusual abilities of the heroines. Of course, this does not look like Hollywood blockbusters, but the picture turned out to be breathtaking.

Alas, Amalia Tru's abilities seem to be secondary. She occasionally falls into the future, but more often relies on the strength of her arms and legs. But the fights in the series are staged very dynamically, and the fantastic component adds variety to them. There is, for example, a scene where the heroine fights with a man who can walk on water. And she herself has to swim.

The very idea of ​​the plot allows authors to go far beyond the standard superhero stories. Not all gifted people benefit from their powers, or even joy. A striking example is young Primrose (Anna Devlin). She is just very tall and only suffers from this, dreaming of being ordinary. And one of the important plot heroines, Myrtle (Viola Prettedjon), speaks a mixture of all possible languages, so no one understands her.

But timing is artificially tightening

Each episode of the series lasts about an hour. Unfortunately, this is not to say that it does not harm the pace of the story. Some moments seem to be too long. This is especially true for the conversations of minor characters.

The meetings of aristocrats discussing the struggle with the gifted take quite a long time and look as boring as possible. Outside the window there is a whole magical world, and the viewer has to look for several minutes at the camera switching between close-ups of the heroes, who also speak platitudes.

Of the villains, only Malady adds at least some energy to the action, while the rest are passive most of the time. And in general, in the plot, there is rarely any combat or tragic scene, after which all the characters will not stop to talk.

With constant changes in tempo, even artistic inserts sometimes start to get in the way. Beautiful broad plans and scenes with music add atmosphere, but they would seem more appropriate if the rest of the time the story moved faster.

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"The Incredibles" will surely appeal to fans of fantasy and steampunk. This series has many bright characters and an unpredictable plot. Some rough edges can spoil the feeling, but in general, the project preserves the atmosphere and immerses you in the world of unusual abilities and inventions.