This is technically very impressive. Visually, it's absolutely breathtaking. The acting is impressive all across the board. The make up, holy shit, take notes Walking Dead. Thematically, it's very solid. I even think that if you watch it as a documentary series, it's very good. I acknowledge all of that.
But, this is a narrative series, and I have to judge it as such, meaning that story and characters come first. And I just don't think it works on that level. The characters in this are flat and uninteresting, and the story isn't told in a very engaging way. It's a series that reminded me a lot of the movie Dunkirk, especially in the sense that it's more concerned about depicting the event it's covering accurately rather than engaging you. Dunkirk in itself isn't a very special story, and Nolan didn't give any of his characters development either. But here's the difference: Nolan's actually aware of that. He also knows that messing with time, and making a puzzle box out of something like Dunkirk is a way to make the story more engaging. Chernobyl doesn't do that, and keeps everything fairly linear, and to be frank, it doesn't do any attempt to engage the viewer at all. It just assumes you're interested because this is important and recent history. Unfortunately, that alone doesn't do the trick for me.
Review by JordyVIP 8BlockedParent2019-06-30T12:05:01Z
Hot take incoming.
This is technically very impressive.
Visually, it's absolutely breathtaking.
The acting is impressive all across the board.
The make up, holy shit, take notes Walking Dead.
Thematically, it's very solid.
I even think that if you watch it as a documentary series, it's very good.
I acknowledge all of that.
But, this is a narrative series, and I have to judge it as such, meaning that story and characters come first.
And I just don't think it works on that level.
The characters in this are flat and uninteresting, and the story isn't told in a very engaging way.
It's a series that reminded me a lot of the movie Dunkirk, especially in the sense that it's more concerned about depicting the event it's covering accurately rather than engaging you.
Dunkirk in itself isn't a very special story, and Nolan didn't give any of his characters development either.
But here's the difference: Nolan's actually aware of that.
He also knows that messing with time, and making a puzzle box out of something like Dunkirk is a way to make the story more engaging.
Chernobyl doesn't do that, and keeps everything fairly linear, and to be frank, it doesn't do any attempt to engage the viewer at all.
It just assumes you're interested because this is important and recent history.
Unfortunately, that alone doesn't do the trick for me.
5/10