Creator: Duffer Brothers
Rating: 4 /5
Stranger
Things is currently on Netflix it was created by the duffer brothers. Tells the
story of a young boy named will Byers who disappears, his mother of release
chief and his group of friends who are investigating his disappearance trying
to figure out what happened as some strange otherworldly forces just might be
involved in some way.
This review mostly spoiler free because I have
friends who haven't watched it yet. I'm going to be vague about plot details.
Hence it will be mostly about the quality of this show, if you are well versed
in cinema of the 1980s or literature of the 1980s then it's very clear to you
that this TV show is very much so inspired by Stephen King's early novels and
Steven Spielberg's early films and if you are a fan of these things. This show really
brought in audience by the style and appeal of it. It's obvious that the duffer
brothers are huge fans of this source material because everything from the
opening logo which looks just like Stephen king’s font for his earliest books
too many plot elements sharing very similar themes to Spielberg’s movies as
well as Stephen King's books.
I liked the show a lot as it touched all the
right places but in the long run this style can only get you so far regarding
emotional investment as the show has got to have some substance to weight
behind it to make us care and want to watch more. It does by making the main
hook of this show the disappearance of
this boy and mother trying to search for him played by Winona Ryder very well,
I might add a police chief played by David Harbour who slowly gets more
obsessed with various possibilities as he investigates this boy's disappearance
with a local government agency that just might be involved in some way the
downward spiral of his character in this show for me was one of the biggest
hooks.
Other
characters worth mentioning the three kids were searching for their best friend
these kids were absolute gold they were so funny so likable. I loved how guys
in the series had a tight knit friendship they have their own little code almost.
My favorite part of these characters is that they talk like kids one of the
biggest downfalls regarding child actors and child performances for movies and
TV is that adults are writing this dialogue and sometimes it's hard for an
adult to put themselves in the mind of a child and write dialogue that a kid
would say in this show. The kids dialogue feels realistic as kids really are,
no attempts could be seen to make things or scenes extra emotional as sometimes
somethings for kids really don’t matter so they didn’t add in on those kinds of
scenes.
Older
brother of will Byers played by Charlie Heaton was excellent in this show
because he has a very reserved character. His character is kind of the loner
more like the outsider and a lot of people look down on him while he finds
himself constantly having to explain himself to other people for his actions.
Winona
Ryder Will byer’s mother who goes kind of insane at least in the eyes of most
people because she's trying all these different ways to contact her son because
to her it's working there's also this weird entity that's going around and only
a few people are seeing it and so obviously in this small town where nothing
bad ever happens most people look at these people like yeah you're nuts and so
there's also that element where you want these characters to be proven right
you want them to get their moment where they're like see this is what I've been
saying it's real happening and whenever you have that momentum built up within
a show or a movie it makes you want to watch more because you want to see that
justice given to these characters.
Now
coming to the character, I’ve been saving this character for the last because she is by far the best part of this
show the character of 11 a young girl with a shaved head who arrives who
doesn't say much. She clearly has a very damaged past as we see through
flashbacks that experiments were done in the past, she also possesses
telekinesis this is easily the most intriguing character in the show played by
Millie Bobby Brown. She was so excellent in this show that it felt like an
adult performance squeezed into a little girl's body. She was so real there was
never a scene where I felt like she broke character there was never a moment
where I felt like she wasn't being completely real she was easily the best and
most compelling character in the show and her performance is Emmy worthy.
I do have one major problem with this show and its sort of a gray area. As it was inspired by so many shows and movies from our childhood so they can come off very easily as not doing anything new and just sort of recreating things that they already love and copying off of things there are moments in this show that are exactly like ET three kids hiding someone in their basement this time it's a girl that has weird powers in ET with three kids hiding and alien that has weird powers there's a scene in this show where they're on their bicycles and the girls on the bike with them and their fleeing from the government Matthew Modine’s character in this show might as well be the keys character from ET except in this show his intent is far more evil there are just a lot of things where you're like that really is exactly like Firestarter written by Stephen King or that's really like ET and you just see all these connections and it's like I love that you're attributing it seeing the same scenes with different actors in a different era isn’t really that appealing. But to conclude the overall series were really captivating worth watching so add to your binge-watching list now and buckle up as this was only season 1 there are 2 more already released on Netflix.
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