TL;DR – This is an almost perfect adaptation of the original game, full of tasks, murder, and voting people to their doom.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ service used to view this series.

Among Us Review Introduction

Back at the heart of COVID in 2020, there were a few things that helped get us through it. One of those was this weird little hidden role game where you set yourself a bunch of tasks to complete on a spaceship while one or more of you are aliens trying to kill you. Now, I played a lot of Among Us during this time, and my self-reports were legendary. Which means I am very interested to see how this animated adaptation turned out.   

So, to set the scene, deep in an asteroid field, a bunch of new employees, Green (Elijah Wood) and White (Patton Oswalt), for the MIRA Corporation, have begun the trip up to their new ship. Fun. Engagement. Fun-Gagement. These are the pillars of MIRA. All they have to do is take this new Ore+ from the asteroid to Industria, a simple trip. As Orange (Yvette Nicole Brown) gives them a tour of the ship and the crew, including the doctor Blue (Dan Stevens), we find a whole bunch of quirky characters for a trip like this. It all looks to be going swimmingly, well, you would hate it if there was a secret imposter on board wanting to take everyone else out one by one. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

It Gets What Made the Game Work

The first thing you see is that this is a show that fundamentally understood the video game that it was adapting. So often in these sorts of adaptations, you can feel the creators either didn’t do enough homework, or worse, were kind of embarrassed about the work they were adapting. Not here, in Among Us, you can feel the love in all the details. There is a way that they naturally add most of the tasks in the game into the narrative. It is done in such a clear way that you would expect from a narrative perspective, even if you have never played the game before. The show also builds on the world that had been before, only hinted at with set designs.

It also helps that they have created a pitch-perfect recreation of The Skeld, the first map that was ever released for the game, and I think personally, the best. Just from memory, you could feel that they understood the ship, and the characters flow through the different sections as they should. All the characters feel like they should be in a world like this, and help both root the surreal story and create more context around it. It was also nice to see that one of the impostors was just bad at their job and got voted out like they should have been in the game. Also, never go into electronics alone, never.

The Animation

When you hire Titmouse to oversee your animation, you know it will be good because we have seen it before in shows such as Lower Decks. Add to this the creator, Owen Dennis, who has worked on major projects like Regular Show, and you have a great foundation. All the animation flows in this natural way that you go with the fact that their hands are not attached to their bodies, and it is not clear if their suits are suits or their skin. You don’t try to get around those things, you lean into them. There are these little touches that help elevate everything, such as the way that when people are moving as a group, they pan out to a map like in the game. Or when the oxygen got low, and they delved into many other animation styles. The animation builds on the strong foundation to give you traction for the show.

The Narrative

How do you make a narrative out of a game that famously does not have a narrative? That was my question coming in, because we have seen people fail at this, even when the game they are adapting has a strong in-built story to work from. What they understood is that even if the game does not have an in-built narrative, each round of the game has a flow to it. If you understood that flow and placed it in a situation where the characters did not know they were in a hidden-role video game, then there would be a story you could build around. Is it a perfect story? No, it gets a bit long in the end. But each episode never outstays its welcome, there is a good flow to everything, the characters are all interesting, if a little broadly written, and the voice actors bring their own charm to the proceedings. So, I can’t be that mad about it.       

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Among Us? Look, if you have played the game, then I think you will get a kick out of this adaptation because it fundamentally understands the game. There are a ton of callbacks to the game, but it also works for someone who might not be familiar. I am also intrigued to see where they could go for a second season. Have you seen Among Us yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, 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 Among Us
Direction by – Kristi Reed & Melissa KingWritten by – Owen Dennis, Kiran Deol, Brian David Gilbert, Karen Han, Alex Horab, Justin Michael, Madeline Queripel, Ayla Glass, & 
Created by – Owen Dennis
Based On – Among Us by Innersloth
Production/Distribution Companies – Key Bot, Titmouse, Innersloth, CBS Studios, & Paramount+
Starring – Marcus Bromander, Yvette Nicole Brown, Kimiko Glenn, Liv Hewson, Ashley Johnson, Wayne Knight, Phil LaMarr, Randall Park, Dan Stevens, Debra Wilson, & Elijah Wood
With – Patton Oswalt, & Ayla Glass
Episodes Covered – A Pizza Party Where Nothing Bad Happens, You Can’t Be Hot and Smart, Chaos Has Found a New Home!, And They Like To Kill!, Good Vibes Only, Insecurity In Security, 6 Angry Crewmates, Impostor Syndrome, I’m Just Venting, & Everyone Is Still Alive. No One Is Dead.