TL;DR – It was always going to be difficult being the vanguard of this new era, but for all its strengths, I am not sure this was the foundation that they needed.

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Creature Commandos Review –

Well, I don’t think you need to look hard to see the issues that the current DC slate of products has had in recent years. The DCEU never quite got on its feet and then floundered when choice after choice held back even well-performing films. Even their Elseworlds experiment has had issues with Joker: Folie à Deux floundering while The Penguin thrived. However, we are at an official turning point in the comic world. But can this new era thrive? And is this the best first start they can bring to the table?

So, to set the scene, the Belle Reve Correction Center is many things, including the Non-Human Internment Division. It is here where Waller (Viola Davis) and Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) watch as the Sons of Themyscira, led by Circe (Anya Chalotra), cross into the country of Pokolistan and start causing trouble. Waller cannot let that happen because America needs their oil, so it is time to activate the Creature Commandos, including The Bride (Indira Varma), GI Robot (Sean Gunn), Weasel (Sean Gunn), Dr. Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk), Nina Mazursky (Zoe Chao), to lend Princess Ilana (Maria Bakalova) a hand. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

Now, this is a bit of an odd duck, as it is trying to do a lot of heavy lifting, and not all of it succeeds. One thing it does get right is the style that leans into an energy that we don’t usually see. Part of that comes not from what you can see but from what you can hear. The series soundtrack leans heavily on Balkan brass as the impact moment in the end credits and the action sequences. These punctuating brass melodies help bring the intensity that they need while also giving the proper framing to the series in its generic Balkan location in Pokolistan. While it does fall back on a lot of the tropes that get applied to Eastern Europe, all comic films, even the MCU, always fall back on. There is enough freshness here to show that they did at least some homework.

In a series that follows a similar format to The Suicide Squad, a bunch of odd characters are brought together by fate, and Waller has to fight in a war they don’t want but must. But this does mean, especially at the start, it does feel like we are marching over well-worn territory. It does find a bit of its own personality as the season moves on, but it never truly escapes the legacy of its past. Part of that does come from it being the first entry into this new DCU, which is charting what is and what is not canon from the past entries. You can feel this weighing on most decisions in a way that makes you kind of wish they had just done a cold break, but then suddenly there is Viola Davis, like they did with James Bond’s Casino Royal.

The strength or weakness of this series is going to come down to how much you care about the characters, and here it was a mixed bad for me. The most sympathetic characters turned out to be the most alien choices. GI Robot is trying to find companionship even though he is only programmed to do one thing. Well, I didn’t have rehabilitating Weasel on my bingo board for this game, but goodness, did they pull it off. But then, for all the strengths, you have Rick Flag Sr. or Frankenstein, who had very few redeeming or interesting qualities. This is amplified by every episode being a flashback in some way, so if you are not engaging with a character, the structure will amplify that.   

Narratively, I would say that this season is quite juvenile in many respects. The violence is bloody and gory, the sex is everywhere, and also a bit uncomfortable in places. It is not to say that juvenile is automatically bad. I tend to like Rick and Morty, so I have no high moral ground here. This might be narratively amplified by the choice to end the season, which felt like an episode short. When I was watching the season for the first time, I narratively expected there to be an episode 8, and it was almost shocking that there wasn’t. It left the season with too many questions, and I am not entirely sure I was to come back and get a resolution.   

In the end, do we recommend Creature Commandos: Season 1? There was a lot that I did like: the voice cast was strong, the animation flowed well, and they made it very clear where they landed on Nazis, both those in the past and present. However, there were these added layers of frustration that held it back from excelling in the way that it could have. Have you seen Creature Commandos yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Creature Commandos
Directed by – Matt Peters & Sam Liu
Written by – James Gunn
Created by – James Gunn
Based On – DC Comics
Production/Distribution Companies – Troll Court Entertainment, The Safran Company, Lorey Stories, WB Animation, DC Studios, HBO & Binge
Starring – Indira Varma, Sean Gunn, Alan Tudyk, Zoe Chao, David Harbour & Frank Grillo with Viola Davis, Steve Agee, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Maria Bakalova, Diedrich Bader, Stephanie Beatriz, Linda Cardellini, Fula Borg, Anya Chalotra, Michael Rooker, Peter Serafinowicz & Julian Kostov and Matt Yang King, Irina Maleeva, Daisuke Tsuji, Robbie Daymond, Keith Ferguson, Piotr Michael, Derek Phillips, Maury Sterling, Paul Ben-Victor, Joe Zieja, Leon Chen, Crew Kingston Miskel, Summer Simpson, Kai Zen, Russ Bain, Luke Cook, Benjamin, Byron Davis, Parvin Sartorius, Gregg Henry & Joy Osmanski   
Episodes Covered – The Collywobbles, The Tourmaline Necklace, Cheers to the Tin Man, Chasing Squirrels, The Iron Pot, Priyatel Skelet & A Very Funny Monster