The Umbrella Academy: Netflix assembles its own damaged Avengers | TV



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Academy of Umbrellas
Performers – Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, Robert Sheehan, Emmy Raver-Lampman, David Castañeda, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton, Colm Feore
Note – 3/5

In an alternate story where John F. Kennedy was never murdered, 43 unrelated and unrelated women gave birth on the same day and at the same time. They showed no sign of pregnancy at the beginning of the day. Dr. Reginald Hargreeves, famous explorer and adventurer, found these women and tried to adopt their children, considering them as the collective incarnation of the messiah. He managed to get seven.

To avoid arousing emotions in children, Reginald would address them the address not by their name, but by an badigned number, which, to the dismay of six d & # 39; 39, between them, was also an undisclosed ranking. He would impose cruel rules and insist that children follow them. It was for the best, he said. They were trained for a greater purpose – saving the world.

Watch the Umbrella Academy trailer here

Children quickly began to display powers. Together they form the superhero group known as the Umbrella Academy. Luther had a great strength, Allison could change the reality with his words, Diego was an expert in throwing a knife, Klaus could talk to the dead, Ben could conjure up monsters, The boy could travel back in time and Vanya … Well, Vanya could not do anything.

She is the stranger and pariah, having spent all her life being told that she was nothing, living in the shadow of her famous brothers and sisters. Much of the show, which will be available on Netflix on February 15, is told through his point of view, although it's really a play for all.

But Reginald's methods soon begin to fracture the family. As the children grew up and the absurdity of their lives hit them, they started to move one by one.

Our story begins, like so many stories of superheroes, by death. More than a decade has pbaded since the dissolution of the Umbrella Academy, and then the news comes to the idea: Reginald is dead. Separated siblings are forced to gather in their childhood home – a large house resembling Wayne Manor or Professor Xavier's Academy Xavier – to confront the trauma of their past and solve the mystery of death from their father Apocalypse.

Superheroes are often born of trauma. Bruce Wayne witnessed the murder of his parents. Clark Kent has problems with abandonment (and identity). Peter Parker lost his Uncle Ben and Tony Stark has PTSD. And by some cosmic coincidence, they all chose to face their damaged psyche by donning stupid costumes and fighting crime.

The Academy of Umbrellas is the antithesis of this theory. At about the same time that other superheroes will experience life-changing events that will drive them away from capes and hoods, the seven main characters in the Umbrella Academy are almost finished dressing. Being superheroes was their trauma. To have the burden of responsibility, to be immersed in a life that they have not asked for (children, no less) and to spend every moment of their lives under constant surveillance – that has ruined them.

They act in the way that so many engineering students do in our country – by abandoning the high-pressure education system and becoming writers, comedians and filmmakers. This is what so many Chinese athletes – conditioned from an early age to reach their full potential – as soon as they are able to retire. They start a family and do not talk about sport anymore

Reginald had his own reasons to treat his children the same way. He even made a robot mother and his personal butler – a talking chimpanzee, called Pogo (!) – accompanied and guided the children.

For a very long time (seven episodes, in fact), there is no "bad guy" that the Umbrella Academy can fight. Their conflicts are internal and ideological, shown scene after scene of claustrophobic confrontation. Some characters are matched and sent on individual missions, and the entire team only has two or three episodes.

This is one of the many changes brought by the viewer Steve Blackman to the adaptation to Netflix of the comics by Gabriel Ba and Gerard Way. , former singer of the alternative rock act My Chemical Romance. Some of the oddest comic book ideas, however, have been lost in translation – for example, the first time the world sees a glimpse of the Umbrella Academy in action in comics, they battle a sensitive Eiffel Tower. The show replaces this, presumably because of budget constraints and the fear of alienating some viewers, by a simple bank robbery.

Contrary to the recently concluded series A, A Series of Unfortunate Events, another cult property animated by the streaming service, the Umbrella Academy seems to hesitate a little to fully accept the strangeness of its sources . It covers that with impressive production values ​​and a very, very expensive soundtrack, which includes Queen, Radiohead and Mary J Blige (who plays a supporting role in the series), but oddly no MCR.

Gerard Way wrote the series while My Chemical Romance was still together, and I wonder if the fear that they will dissolve in the future (which turned out to be a valid concern; they separated in 2013) had weighed it down. Because the characters, in many ways, are like rock stars, languishing in the memory of their past glory.

The heart of history, both in comics (of which I am a big fan) and in the series (meh), remains the same. Like Netflix's recent The Haunting of Hill House, Umbrella Academy focuses more on family dynamics than eccentric gender sensations. We are all headed to our own personal apocalypse, seems to say the show. It's called death. And it will always be best to confront him with friends.

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The author tweets @RohanNaahar

First published: February 15, 2019 08:29 IST

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