Most people in the gaming community is familiar with Ubisoft: the video game publisher responsible for series like Assassins Creed, Rayman, Far Cry, Just Dance, and a few others. The point is, they're kind of a big deal. Now, what people may not know is that they recently released a show on Netflix called Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. Inspired by Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - though inspired is about as far as I'd go with similarities - the show's a mesh of Ubisofts games in one creative hodgepodge of a plot. Long story short, it's a bit of a mess, but I loved it. Here's my review. Light spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
Let's start with the obvious. The shows a mess, and by this, I mean there are a few concurrent plot lines running here. As I said, Captain Laserhawk pulled from a few of Ubisoft's characters. We have Rayman the alien newsman, Marcus Holloway from Watch Dogs 2 (and Wrench, my beloved, you deserved more screen time), characters from Far Cry 4, Splinter Cell, and even an Assassins Creed inspired assassin frog to name a few. Now, these characters are all pulled from widely different universes (Watch Dogs and Assassins Creed being the exception) and take place across different time lines. In canon, these characters don't coexist with one another, except for in this show. For obvious reasons, the canon set in the video games doesn't fully exist here. For example, Marcus Holloway and his Dedsec crew exist in 2016 while Captain Laserhawk takes place in a dystopian, early 1990's, retro video game setting. Because they're still inherently hackers trying to make the world a better place in their own way, they're still trying to overthrow their inherently evil oppressors, but in a different setting. Same characters, different world.
To be clear, I adore this. There were so many characters here that I loved and quickly grew attached to. The mesh of characters made for an interesting combination of personalities.
Now, this also creates an interesting issue between them. These characters are, for the most part, the heroes of their own story. They're the victors, the ones who win. But that can't happen here. Not if you want to tell a good story. Not every gets to win. Not everyone gets a happy ending. So, what kind of
government can overthrow a mix of people who are highly competent at what they do in their own way? A terrifying one. For there to be any real storytelling here, there has to be a terrifying villain. There has to be loss and manipulation. There has to be death and bloodshed because these are people more than willing to die for their cause. These are people who've looked at the game over screen again, and again, and again, and always stood back up. The only way for them to lose is for them to die. Ubisoft Films does a great job of embodying this. Of showing that these characters aren't going to give up without a fight and they do it in a real way and it's fantastic. It's thrilling and surprising. If you want to manipulate a super soldier, you're going to have to do the same thing to the audience and they do. I write about plots and characters enough to guess where most are going, but even I found myself gasping in shock more than once and that's good storytelling.
Now, beyond the fantastic story, Captain Laserhawk also has some outstanding animation. And I don't mean that it was top quality picture, I mean that it took from video games like Metal Gear Solid, and from platformers to give some life to what would've been stealth or escape missions. And that's again, just to name a few. It's important to note that the show doesn't live in these moments, but uses them. They're quick and have a purpose. No, the show lives in a more of an early 2000's anime vibe. Dolph Laswerhawk, the main character and a cyborg super-soldier gone rogue embodies this. He has the half-cybernetic body and the edgy anime boy haircut to go with it. His design embodies the time frame they live in and one look will tell you exactly what the show's going to look like.
If it wasn't clear enough, I adored this show. All of it. It was brutal and violent while being funny and real. I loved the character - I could go on about my favorite anthropomorphic frog assassin, but won't. I love how it paid homage to everything it took from while making something new. I loved the animation. I loved the world. Realistically, over all, there was nothing I would change about this and I would recommend everyone drop what they're doing to watch it.
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