Josh Reviews Creature Commandos

Creature Commandos is a seven-episode animated series for MAX, based on the (somewhat obscure) characters and concepts from DC comics.  James Gunn (who wrote and directed all three Guardians of the Galaxy films, and who is now the mastermind behind the revamped DC universe of movies and TV shows) wrote all seven episodes.  Taking place after the events of The Suicide Squad movie (the second one, the one written & directed by James Gunn) as well as the Peacemaker show (which was also written & directed by Mr. Gunn), we see that Amanda Waller — the secret spymaster of the DCU with a strong mistrust of superheroes — is no longer able to force imprisoned metahuman villains to work for her.  So now she’s turned to non-humans — imprisoned monsters and other creatures.  Under the command of Rick Flag Senior (the father of the Rick Flag character who appeared in the two Suicide Squad films), Task For M — otherwise known as the “Creature Commandos” — are sent to the European nation of Pokolistan, on a mission to protect the Princess (an important U.S. ally) from an attack by the super-villain Circe.

Creature Commandos is the first installment in the newly rebooted continuity of DC animated movies and TV shows, being overseen by James Gunn and Peter Safran.  The next major installment is this year’s Superman movie, written & directed by Mr. Gunn, that’s coming out this summer.  (Click here to watch the excellent trailer.)

It’s very strange to me to launch the new DCU with this show, which is a direct sequel to two projects from the old DCEU continuity (The Suicide Squad movie and Peacemaker season one).  (Mr. Gunn has said that those projects are basically still in continuity for the new DCU, except for the appearance of the Justice League at the end of Peacemaker season one.)  Creature Commandos does stand on its own, though I think it’ll have more impact if you’ve seen those two previous projects (and recognize characters like Amanda Waller, John Economos, etc.).

It’s also strange to launch the new DCU with this show because — and it pains me greatly to say this — it’s something of a mixed bag.  I love James Gunn and I think it’s awesome that he’s taken over the DCU, and I am beyond excited for his Superman movie and the many other DCU projects for film and TV that have been announced.  I’ve loved pretty much every superhero project Mr. Gunn has had a hand in.  And yet, I was underwhelmed by this show.

I want to be clear: I had fun watching this show, and I enjoyed every episode.  That’s good!!  But as I was watching, I kept thinking that it didn’t feel to me like the show was “clicking” in the way I’d wanted it to, and looking back on it now it feels like the whole was somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

The main problem is that it’s way too short.  At only seven episodes, each with a run-time of only around twenty-ish minutes, there’s just not a lot of room to work with here.  I also think the structure Mr. Gunn chose to utilize undermines the storytelling.  I’d expected each half-hour episode to be its own adventure.  But instead, the season tells one long story of the Creature Commandos’ mission to Pokolistan.  At the same time, every episode devotes a good chunk of it’s run-time to a flashback, giving us the backstory of each of the main Creature Commandos characters.  I think this Lost-style structure has been done to death, and I think the show’s short run-time means both halves of the storyline wind up getting short shrift.  The flashbacks are too short to feel more than superficial; the tragedies depicted in each flashback don’t land with as much emotional power as I’m sure Mr. Gunn & co. had hoped for, because we don’t have enough time to get deeply into the story.  It’s like getting the Cliff’s Notes version of each character’s background.

Meanwhile, I didn’t find the Pokolistan mission interesting enough to sustain across the whole season.  Because half-ish of every episode was devoted to the flashbacks, it felt like the story crawled along at a slow pace.  More importantly, we didn’t have enough time with the present-day characters to really get to know and love them.  Mr. Gunn;s secret weapon has always been his characterizations; how he’s been able to take these weird, oddball characters and make them lovable so the audience invests in them and roots for them.  I didn’t feel that happened here.  I like all the characters fine, but I don’t love them.  I just didn’t get enough time to get to know them.

The animation was fine; good but not great.  I don’t love the look of this particular style of animation.  The characters all felt a little stiff to me.  There wasn’t much beauty to be found in this animation.  It wasn’t bad; it wasn’t distracting.  But it didn’t elevate the storytelling, in my opinion.

I did like the choice of characters, and the voice cast Mr. Gunn and his team assembled was terrific!  With more time, I could see myself growing to love these characters; the show just didn’t get me there yet.

Shall we dig in deeper?  Beware some SPOILERS ahead!

OK, let’s start with the characters and voice cast.  This is a fantastic voice cast and they all do great work.

The two stand-out characters for me were Frankenstein and The Bride.  Frankenstein is voiced by David Harbour (Stranger Things, Black Widow).  This is Frankenstein’s monster from Mary Shelly’s novel, who here is depicted as an incel, hopelessly in love with The Bride and unable to understand why she doesn’t love him back.  As suck, he’s been stalking her for decades, always arriving to destroy her life.  This is an interesting spin on the Frankenstein character, and Mr. Harbour understands the assignment perfectly.  He’s so serious and impassioned as Frankenstein that he makes the character very, very funny, in a very dark way.  (Mr. Gunn doesn’t seem too interested in crafting Frankenstein as a character who could be redeemed; he murders a LOT of people over the course of this show.)  Also terrific was Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Luther) as The Bride.  I really liked this take on this “Bride of Frankenstein” character; someone who has rejected the role that name gives her, and who has been searching for a way to find herself and her place.  Ms. Varma’s deadpan line delivery was very funny and also emotional at times.  I really enjoyed these two characters.

Frank Grillo plays Rick Flag Senior, and Mr. Grillo will apparently be appearing as this character in live-action in both the upcoming Superman movie as well as Peacemaker season two.  Mr. Grillo previously played Brock Rumlow/Crossbones in the MCU (in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and it’s fun to see him now enter the DCU.  I like his performance here as Flag, though it’s weird to me that the character doesn’t feel nearly old enough to be Rick Flag Jr.’s father.  He has white hair, but otherwise he’s depicted as an active soldier and also a love-interest for the Princess.  It feels to me a little like Mr. Gunn regrets killing off Flag Jr. in The Suicide Squad, because he’s written a very similar type character here — a good guy military dud trying to wrangle all their weirdos.  Is this how he’s going to be depicted in Superman?  Based on the casting of Frank Grillo, I’d imagined that we’d see a Rick Flag Sr. who is angry and hates superheroes; someone with an axe to grind against heroes like Superman.  Maybe he blames them for the death of his boy, which would be understandable.  Weirdly, we don’t see much if any of that here.  This Flag Snr. seems like a pretty jovial guy!  I wonder if that will still be the case when we see him in live-action.  (I was also very surprised that the show ends with Flag crippled and near-death!  Is he gonna be in some kind of exo-skeleton super-suit when we see him in Superman?  Is that going to be why he’s angry?  I’m really curious; this seemed like a very strange place to leave this character at the end of this season.)

The great Alan Tudyk (beloved to me as Wash in Firefly) is fun as Dr. Phosphorous, a Batman villain who’s a radioactive skeleton.  Mr. Tudyk made Phosphorous the funniest character on the show; pleasantly nonchalant about all the murdering he does.  Sean Gunn (who performed Rocket for the Guardians of the Galaxy films, in addition to playing the Ravager Kraglin) plays both G.I. Robot and Weasel (who returns from The Suicide Squad movie).  I always love seeing Sean Gunn; he’s great at bringing strange characters and creatures to life.  And yet unfortunately I didn’t think he had too much room to work here.  Both G.I. Robot and Weasel are characters I liked, but they’re also both strangely flat.  Neither appears to have much sentience or awareness of what’s happening around them.  Neither seems to grow nor change as the story progresses.  Zoë Chao (The Afterparty, Party Down season 3) is strong as the fish-creature Nina Mazursky, who I believe was a new character created for this show.  I liked Nina, and Ms. Chao does a nice job bringing humanity and innocence to her performance.  But the show doesn’t have the time to develop Nina’s friendship with G.I. Robot, or then with the Bride, sufficiently to the degree that I really invested in either relationship.

Viola Davis

Maria Bakalova as Princess Ilana Rostovic:

Steve Agee as John Economos:

Michael Rooker as Sam Fitzgibbon: A military antique collector and member of a neo-Nazi group

Linda Cardellini as Elizabeth Bates: Weasel’s lawyer.

Shohreh Aghdashloo as Madam Gyurov: The madam of a brothel in Pokolistan.[28]

Gregg Henry as Edward Mazursky: A scientist from Star City and Nina’s father.[30] — Jason Quill in Guardians

Diedrich Bader as Nanaue / King Shark

Stephanie Beatriz as Aisla MacPherson: A professor who specializes in studying Themyscira.[24]

Peter Serafinowicz as Victor Frankenstein: A 19th century scientist, the creator of Eric and the Bride,

Julian Kostov as
Alexi: The Amethyst Knight Captain who serves Rostovic until he is killed by Doctor Phosphorus.[23]
Sergei: The second Amethyst Knight Captain who replaces Alexi following his death.[23]

Anya Chalotra as Circe: