Martin Carr reviews the seventh episode of Marvel’s Inhumans…
As expected things move at a glacial pace and nothing of substance really happens. There is teleportation, regal stand offs and cloak and dagger missions which serve to get us from point A to point B but feel shiny yet flat. Any sense of progression is scuppered by a transparent plot line, lack of resolution and waste of screen time. Once more Black Bolt, Medusa and their immediate family skulk in dark corners, plot within thick walls and inflict stylised damage with no emotional attachment.
Karnak, Medusa and Black Bolt get given the best scenes with a modicum of dramatic content but these actors feel wasted yet again. Having no character development whilst trying to engage in counterterrorism against a mutinous militia proves uninspired and wasteful. Inhumans has clearly had monies lavished on it and everyone looks so polished, tailored and untarnished by dirty reality which is where this show falls down. Hostile takeovers of sovereign countries are often openly bloody, deeply disturbing and layered with political malcontent. Maximus on the other hand comes across like a petulant child who got sent to bed because he failed to finish his dinner.
Being moody and striding around an obviously constructed series of dimly lit television sets is neither convincing nor particularly interesting. His sense of purpose is so single-minded and selfish that he is just unpleasant rather than villainous, which is where the producers got it wrong. Putting someone in the role who has defined sadism in an understated yet terrifying way is not going to breathe life into things. Game of Thrones had huge character opportunities, back history and truly great writing in its corner. Ramsay Bolton was on the page and this actor merely translated his interpretation from that source material. My point being that if the basis is lacking then this man is blameless.
Similarly the royal family suffer an identical fate being no more believable than Chuck Norris in Dodgeball. Working from an undeveloped idea which is half-baked and rushed these Inhumans have been savagely short-changed. There has never been any doubt of the validity of this as an idea just the execution. I said at the outset that the Inhumans was an honest to God Shakespearean tragedy just waiting for the right platform, but this simply is not it. This poorly constructed movie of the week leaves Marvel’s byproduct nowhere to hide. Our expectations have seen it unravel in spectacular fashion week after week, until we are left with nothing more than an abject lesson in style over substance.
Martin Carr – Follow me on Twitter
Originally published November 6, 2017. Updated November 29, 2022.
