Netflix: Love, Death and Robots

This new Netflix season is an anthology of animated shorts. There are 18 individual stories each created in a different animation style but all rendered beautifully. Here is my episode by episode quick-fire rundown and review with a few minor spoilers:

1. Sonnie's Edge - a female warrior with apparent mental abilities to control a monstrous beast competes in death matches. It's a decent storyline with strong (if slightly cliched) characters and does a good job of dropping the viewer in the middle of a crazy fantasy world. A decent start with a big promise of more if they turned it into a series. 7/10

2. Three Robots - a funny short featuring three sentient robots on a holiday visiting a post-apocalyptic human city. Some humorous gags and wisecracks which makes for light relief compared to the gore of the previous episode. Imagine if Wall-E could talk and decided to go on holiday with his mates. 7/10

3. The Witness - I loved the photo-realist style of CGI and the dedicated recreation of Hong Kong. In this story, a girl witnesses her own murder and thus begins a long chase scene. The animation and art direction of this piece is truly stunning. Unfortunately, it is more style over substance as I got bored quite quickly even though it is only 12 minutes long. 5/10

4. Suits - Sci-fi mixed with a good ole Western. I loved this episode. Sure it didn't exactly spark much originality in the story (it's basically a shoot em up in the style of Starship Troopers) but the characters are so wonderfully written you instantly feel for them as they battle to save their farms from alien invaders. 8.5/10

5. Sucker of Souls - this one is a bit like a cross between Scooby Doo and Indiana Jones. I like the retro hand-drawn 1980's style of animation. It ends abruptly and I wonder if there will be a continuation of the story? 6/10

6. When the Yogurt Took Over - this one is very short at just a touch under six minutes but it's a brilliant bit of satire. The story? Exactly as the title suggests haha. Loved it. 8/10

7. Beyond the Aquila Rift - a classic tale of the long distance space journey that goes wrong. The human CGI skin on the characters is utterly extraordinary (see photo above). I quickly forgot that they were computer drawn models. The tension and the drama has a nice 'Alien' feel to it and the strong build up towards the end gave me pause for thought. This could have been a longer movie I reckon. 8/10

8.Good Hunting. Damn this one was really good. A longer piece at 17 minutes this story seemed to be a game of two halves. It began as a fairy tale of a village boy from China who meets a female fox spirit (Huli Jin in Chinese folklore) but then halfway through it switches without warning to a steampunk thriller. I loved it and wished it could have been a whole movie or a longer series. The two lead characters have endearing respect and affection for one another without reverting to a cliched love story. It reminded me a lot of Avatar and Korra. Superb 9.5/10

9. The Dump. A simple story, not much to it really. It's a bit of a filler episode and feels like a final year 3D digital art student project. Nicely rendered 3D modelling though. 5/10

10. Shape-Shifters. This is a neat twist on the usual American soldier in the desert story. In addition to regular humans, the army includes a few super powerful werewolves who seem to be loyal to the army....or are they? Similar to Aquila Rift, the CG on the characters is hyper-realistic. It isn't much of a story so much as a single highly awesome fight scene with a bit of filler. But man, that fight scene is jaw-dropping in its intensity and power. It's worth watching for that alone! 7/10

11. Helping Hand. Ha, this one had me consulting my physics textbook to review Newton's Laws of Motion. Cast adrift in space in what should have been a run of the mill satellite maintenance mission, the female astronaut must use her ingenuity to save herself from near certain death. Brilliant CGI, a perfect short story. 8/10

12. Fish Night. This one starts off drawn in the simplistic cel-shaded style that reminds me of season one RWBY but unlike RWBY the animation quality drastically improves as the episode progresses. The colour palette alone is just divine. Two travelling salesmen break down in the desert. With nothing to do they fall asleep but are woken at night in what appears to be a ghostly prehistoric underwater setting. Are they imagine it, perhaps delirious from exhaustion and dehydration? Are they, in fact, dead themselves or are these really supernatural beings come back to haunt the desert. I love the mystery and the beautiful animation. 9/10

13. Lucky 13. Do machines have souls? I must admit, despite this story being not much more than a console game cut scene, I really enjoyed it. I actually forgot I was watching CGI the action and character rendering was so good. 8/10

14. Zima Blue. The graphic styling in this story is stunning. I enjoyed the satire on modern art and commentary on artificial intelligence. This one really moved me. Brilliant! 9/10.

15. Bindspot. This one is so much fun. We're dropped into the middle of a heist as a gang of criminal robots tries to rob a train guarded by, er, robots! It's action packed with explosions and crazy camera angles. I loved it and really hope it becomes a series...pleeeeese Netflix make it happen!!! 9/10

16. Ice Age. Wait...what? This is proper film acting with real people, not CGI. Oh no here comes the CGI part. Well, it's an interesting and original concept I'll give them that. It feels like the beginnings of an 80's Disney movie when Disney ditched animation in favour of live acting. 4/10

17. Alternate Histories - I liked the idea of a time-travelling simulation where the user could alter history to see what happens. I think the writers kind of ran out of ideas after the third scenario involving the death of Hitler and each one just got sillier. Shame, the concept was cool. 4/10

18. The Secret War. Love, Death and Robots ends on a truly epic final story about Russian soldiers fighting an evil hoard of satanic monsters. The attention to detail on this one is amazing. I enjoyed the backstory and action. Superb! 9/10




Final thoughts
Wow, thank you Netflix for investing in animation. This series anthology shows incredible promise. There is a high ratio of quality to filler material over the entire series and it's a wonderful showcase of the very finest computer generated and hand-drawn animation styles. I loved it and if there are to be spin-offs, movies or a second season, I can't wait for all of them!

My favourite of them all?
It has to be Good Hunting, because I'm a sucker for the Chinese influenced folk story meets steampunk anime-style artwork. I also feel it is one that could offer more character and relationship building if it was a full series or a movie. Shout outs also to Zima Blue and Blind Spot.

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