Playing Pathologic 2 feels like suffering, and it’s meant to be that way.
It fits together disparate genres so perfectly that you wonder how nobody thought to combine them sooner.
The series visibly struggles to spin an enveloping atmosphere around its ideas.
Ava DuVernay’s series is a handsomely mounted dramatization, but it often veers into the trite, obvious, and maudlin.
The setting of the game is the familiar stuff of science fiction, but the lens through which it’s viewed is not.
Despite a more straightforward approach, the series still boasts Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s unmistakable voice.
This is less a miniseries as five-hour movie than episodic television, with new narrative wrinkles introduced each week.
The game meets the baseline level of quality we might expect from a big-budgeted joint, yet it remains a tiresome, empty experience.
The game is ambitious for its translation mechanics and its big-picture look at the evolution of culture through the ages.
Once an accidental act of violence sends the main character’s life into a spiral, the film unfortunately spirals with him.
The show’s greatest strength is still the way it upends our expectations via tonal shifts and amusing personal details.
There’s an unsteadiness to this return to that certain dimension of sight, sound, and, of course, mind that dulls whatever impact it intends.
The series struggles to find a distinct voice that isn’t beholden to the original film.
The game masterfully uses its microcosm of the internet circa 1999 to examine the way society functions when it’s extremely online.
The show pulls in too many directions at once, many of them far removed from the sporadic charm of its concept.
In its second season, the show’s leisurely road trip downshifts into a total lethargy.
The Occupation’s fierce commitment to immersing the player in its credible world is also the game’s undoing.
The game not only gets you to behave like a rampaging gorilla, it forces you to adapt like one.
The HBO film’s ostensible authenticity does little to add dramatic heft to its stock character moments.
The game ultimately seems less interested in the process of how humanity breaks down than its grisly end results.