Those of us who associate video games with throwing turtle shells in car races or choosing Chun-Li almost as an act of dissidence, are a little lost when series like Fallout arrive, which Prime Video premieres this Thursday. Especially when it has as a cover letter a trailer as disconcerting as yours, which indicates that it has an apocalyptic and retrofuturistic, nuclear aesthetic, with monsters, a kind of articulated zombies, robotic men, organ-removing robots and a lot, a lot of sense of humor.
The series is created by Graham Wagner, who comes from the world of comedy with series such as The office, Portlandia and Silicon Valley, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, with experience in female action with Tomb Raider and Captain Marvel, although it weighs a lot the name of the producers when introducing the project: Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, responsible for Westworld or Person of Interest, with Nolan also directing the first episodes.
From what I understand, the series is set in a post-apocalyptic reality after, in the midst of the paranoia of the Cold War that forced us to think that a nuclear holocaust could destroy everything, civilization as we knew it disappeared. Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), the protagonist, has been raised inside a bunker in a community that has not surfaced for two centuries and with a mental framework characterized by the traditions of the fifties: extreme kindness and outdated values. for the rest of humanity.
But Lucy decides to go outside after her community is violently raided by outsiders and her father Hank (Kyle MacLachlan) is abducted, against the warnings of their leaders. And, taking into account that she is armed with kindness and an innate ability to give the benefit of the doubt to whoever is in front of her, she is an easy prey for a context that she does not know and where, in short, the philosophy of every man for himself prevails.
And, while waiting for a server to be able to see an episode, the surprising thing is to discover the first reactions of critics: Fallout, as happened with The last of us more than a year ago, defies the curse of adaptations of videogame. What do critics say about her?
“The creators somehow manage to combine traditional resources of the postnuclear apocalypse with semi-ironic approaches to 1950s themes, B-movie conventions, and a sense of horror blood and gore,” they point out from The Guardian, where They say that “the story has a perfect rhythm that is both fun and self-aware without winking at the camera.”
In The Hollywood Reporter they are not so enthusiastic but they are positive. They claim that Fallout knows how to find “its vibe” but they miss that its dramatic weight and twists often rest on characters without too many nuances. Of course, they do not fail to describe the adaptation as an “intelligent, witty and immaculately constructed” work that “completely captivates and entertains on its own terms.”
Forbes comments along the same lines: “Do you hit? not many. There’s not much emotional weight to much of anything until the final minutes, but it’s so entertaining that you don’t even care.” And from Verge they recognize that “it is Fallout’s jokes, more than the plot, that make it one of the most faithful (and best) video game adaptations.”
“The first half of Fallout is, without a doubt, the most powerful, as Lucy tries to understand the lies she has been told about the world while barely managing to stay alive,” they warn from Variety. But they also recognize that it is a “strange but intensely fun” series like nothing ever seen: “For this reason alone, you won’t be able to turn your back on it.”
“Viewers who love video games will enjoy the opportunity to discover new aspects of the Fallout universe. Those who have never played them will enjoy a vivid and brutal game with flashes of absurd comedy and set in a fascinating and detailed world,” predict the BBC.
With these first reactions, maybe it’s time to take a look at Fallout.
