Review: First Two Episodes Of Marvel's Inhumans Are Lackluster

Marvel's Inhumans debuted on network television recently and it is not off to a hot start. The 2 hour premiere is lackluster to say the least.

It is not as exciting as other comic book TV shows and movies. In a way, I would describe the first episode as boring and lackluster.

Bear in mind, there will be some slight spoilers in this review.

I won't be doing a full recap of what happens in the episode, although there are several things that annoyed me during the first episode that I must address.

It appears as the writers don't care about making the show exciting.

The premise of the TV show is that a bunch of "Inhumans" live in a secret city on the Moon called 'Attlian'. It is governed by the Inhuman Royal Family by Black Bolt (the King) and his wife Medusa (the Queen).

The status quo starts to crumble thanks to Bolt's brother named Maximus.

Maximus doesn't have any special powers and was an outcast in Attlian. Maximus stages a military coup to overthrow Black Bolt and Medusa to try and become the new leader.

For the first few minutes of the episode, I was intrigued. The actors and characters seemed likeable and having Black Bolt as a mute character is something different.

I also loved seeing the dog 'Lockjaw' teleporting everywhere. The character of Karnak also gets to do some cool action in the first episode which is cool to see.

Things start to go downhill in the second episode that changes the premise of the series in the wrong direction. One of the things I love about comic book TV shows and movies is seeing people with special powers doing incredible things.

I usually like to watch them to escape the real world. Well, the show writers didn't get the memo and made Inhumans feel more "human" by isolating them.

Basically after Maximus takes over Attlian, the good guys are all separated and are stuck on Earth.

The dog 'Lockjaw' gets incapacitated so he can no longer teleport them from place to place. Not to mention I don't get to see arguably the best character anymore.

The worst part is what happens to Medusa. Fans of the comics will know her special power is that she can move around her long hair.

Her hair is helpful in combat and is one of the things that makes the character special.

Well later in the episode, Maximus orders his cronies to cut her hair off. When she's on Earth, she has a buzz cut and is just a normal human being!

Black Bolt is also pretty useless because he's not allowed to use his powers. If he opens his mouth, it blasts out a lot of energy that he cannot control.

His mouth can pretty much kill everyone he sees which is why he chooses to stay mute.

Black Bolt also never wears his mask from the comic books in the first two episodes. He even changes his suit to wear a normal suit and tie that he found in Hawaii.

Surprisingly for a TV show based on superheroes, the first two episodes lack any type of action. The second episode was quite boring when all of the characters were separated.

It also seems as if the series won't have much action as they are saving money.

This is why they cut off Medusa's hair and incapacitated Lockjaw because it would have cost too much money to animate them in every episode.

If there's something good to say about the series, I admired the set design and locations. It is quite pretty looking at Hawaii and the city of Attlian looks majestic.

I also think the actors did a good job with the roles that they were given. It's just disappointing that the story ruins what could have been an exciting TV show.

I'm not sure if I want to watch the rest of the season, but I will give it a go for curiosity's sake.

Marvel's Inhumans could have been better if the story didn't isolate all of the main characters. The show would have also benefited if it had a bigger budget so we could see more action sequences.

Verdict: 2.5/5 stars

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