Sci-fi epic Altered Carbon drops on Netflix
NETFLIX, FRIDAY 2 FEBRUARY
I f you thought the famously expensive Netflix series The Crown was lavish, this new ten-part sci-fi epic might have an even bigger budget and bolder ambition. Lead actor Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad, House Of
Cards) says, “They’re really going to be able to create a world that’s got a bigger budget than the first three seasons of
Game Of Thrones.” So, that’s pretty big. The series is adapted from a 2002 novel of the same name by Richard K Morgan, set 300 years in the future. And it’s a tangled world, for sure…
IT’S COMPLICATED
The big change in this new future is that human consciousness can be stored digitally in implants called “stacks”, so that people can upgrade their bodies (known as “sleeves”) and basically live forever. Although when we say “people” we mainly mean really rich ones. The rather complicated plot centres on an elite soldier named Takeshi Kovacs, who was once a killer for hire and then rebelled, and was imprisoned by the authorities. Now, 500 years later, he is woken up and given a new sleeve, which looks exactly like Joel Kinnaman with a ridiculous six-pack. Turns out he’s been specifically woken on the say-so of wealthy dude Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), who wants Kovacs to solve his own “murder” in return for a pardon for his crimes.
THE VERDICT
From the early episodes we’ve seen, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to become another proper Netflix popculture phenomenon. Sure, it’s clearly had big bucks spent on it, but visually and thematically it owes a lot to
Blade Runner, with flying cars rising above vast cityscapes while virtual women for hire thrust themselves at the dudes. Maybe once we get deeper into the mystery, it’ll click, but it does feel messy and derivative to begin with.