Beautiful, post-apocalyptic, illogical. How did the Russian series "Heritage" turn out?

On July 28, the first two episodes of Legacies premiered on the Premier streaming service.

The world was struck by a strange disease that kills children under 12 years old. The population is declining, scientists cannot stop what is happening. To save humanity, they create the Heritage project - they freeze embryos, and experts are immersed in cryogenic sleep for 100 years. Their task is to survive the apocalypse, grow a new population of people and connect with those who spent all this time in the bunker. However, the new humanity, brought up by scientists, turns out to be cruel and creates problems for itself - it revives the institution of slavery, kills the weak and fights for survival.

A beautiful picture is the only advantage

Legacy looks like an expensive series that wouldn't get lost on Netflix. Stylish and bright picture changes depending on the situation.

The world of the future presented in the series looks like a compilation from "Tribes of Europe" and "It's hard to be a god». The settlements of people amaze with their dirt and darkness, they are opposed to pure and bright nature.

Images become more vivid due to good camera work. It is not worth waiting for innovations and unexpected tricks, the operator performs quite understandable tasks, but does it with high quality. So, the beauty of the created worlds is emphasized by underwater shooting and shooting from a bird's eye view.

But all the efforts aimed at creating a beautiful picture are leveled by the content of the series.

No internal logic

Questions to the plot arise from the first minute. Starting from the conventionality of "a threat on a global scale." The voice-over says that people have spoiled the Earth for so long that she decided to take revenge and therefore began to take away the future of mankind - children. Here I want to raise my hand and ask how exactly it works.

But after a few minutes, much more serious questions appear. For example, entire bunkers have been created in which scientists live and do not age. But the people grown by them... grow up.

There are many strange moments in Legacy. able to withstand any earthquake For some reason, the bunker is placed under a mountain that can collapse. A little girl becomes a master of survival in the wild overnight. People share secrets, for the disclosure of which the death penalty is threatened, almost immediately after they met.

In the first generation settlement, there are craftsmen who make clothes from animal skins. But in the first two episodes, no one ever appears in something leather or wool. Moreover, the heroes walk in the form that they were given in the bunker. Surprisingly, for several years in the mud and water, the clothes were not torn.

No interesting characters

All the heroes of Legacy are similar to the characters in the game. First of all, this is the fault of the writers - the characters are too primitive. The villain always speaks with hatred in his voice, good people thoughtfully pronounce common truths. Attempts to endow the characters with emotions fail due to the banality of the replicas - the dialogues look like a parody of a serious movie.

There are a lot of close-ups in the series that are supposed to emphasize emotions, but they only increase the awkwardness - the actors openly overact. Children, who are many in the series, can be forgiven, but adult actors are no better.

One of the "evil" characters always sticks out his tongue and bulges his eyes so that the viewer understands exactly that the guy bad. Another heroine simply parodies Cersei Lannister, stares meaningfully at the wall when she talks about her sinister plans - and also bulges her eyes.

Alexei Serebryakov also looks unconvincing. It is almost impossible to understand what his hero is - this is a stereotypical brilliant scientist without personal qualities. Perhaps during the season the character will be revealed, but two hour-long episodes do not inspire hope: there was plenty of time for disclosure.

Attempt to add hidden meaning fails

Some episodes of "Legacy" seem to hint to the viewer that everything is more complicated than it seems. You can even believe the authors and start looking for a hidden meaning, but the scriptwriters themselves destroy any theory about the second day.

At the beginning of the series, it seems that ecology is an important topic for the Legacy, because the Earth takes revenge on people. But this idea is immediately forgotten. The problems of new people are not related to ecology, but pure nature is dangerous for them.

A couple of times the writers try to show scientists as demiurges. To do this, Serebryakov's character is even prescribed a couple of grandiloquent remarks about what kind of people he wanted to create. He himself, to put it mildly, is a dubious hero even by the standards of "Heritage" - neither good nor bad, without a full-fledged background. And there is definitely nothing divine in it. But thanks to the holes in the plot, the viewer can easily perceive "Heritage" as a philosophical parable about the relationship between God and people, albeit of a terrible quality.

Legacy is a prime example of a large and complex world without adequate structure. «Game of Thrones” shows hundreds of characters and dozens of almost unrelated storylines, but does not crumble. The new Premier project was less fortunate. It has no internal logic. What is happening on the screen raises questions, but does not give answers. At the same time, both the characters and the actors playing them do nothing so that the story can be taken seriously, and the characters can be empathized with. And even beautiful views do not save.