Twilight of the Gods

It's hard to believe that someone who made the atrocious "Rebel Moon" also had a hand in making this very watchable animated series.

I suppose having equal inputs from Jay Oliva and Eric Carrasco - two experienced and skilled story-boarder and screen-writer - made all the difference.

Zac Snider unguided or assisted by lesser talents gets us really bad movies. The only exception is "Sucker Punch" - that movie could have been really bad, but somehow worked.

"Twilight of the Gods" is not in the same league as with "Blue Eye Samurai" and it plays fast and loose with Norse mythology. But it's an interesting version of Ragnarok.

It is a good take on the old Norse legends. The writer has done the homework and found a way to make it their own. It's fun to see them bring in concepts like holmgång.

The voice acting is good. The animation is a bit lackluster for this day and age, but it works well with its simplicity.

The show struggles at the border of edgy and cringe, often stumbling into the latter. This could have been a lot better if someone had reeled in whatever writer came up with stuff that sounds like it was written by a struggling teenager. I can't imagine that that it was easy to read by the voice actors.

If you like sword and sorcery stuff and old myths, do watch this, but bring your "skämskudde" (Don't know what it's called in English, but it's Swedish for a pillow you keep at your couch to hide your head in when a show is so uncomfortable you want to sink into the ground)

How come somebody who's just got booted out of comic movie production because of excessiveness, able to produce something more lore accurate than its famous, comic character's counterpart? Twilight of the Gods, it's the middle finger response from Zack Snyder to the superhero movie industry in general! I've learned so much more about Thor & friends in this, than any other high-end media today.

It's cool to hate him nowadays. And sure, i can agree that Rebel Moon it's a passionate garbage. But it doesn't muddled the fact, that nobody can do mythology like Zack Snyder! Its raw, faithful and heroic! They've taken the Nordic legends and doing everything right to justify it place in our modern eyes. And i can also confidently say that this series has one of the most beautiful animation this year!

Some problems i had with it, is that sometimes it can be pretty formulaic. Stuff goes way too fast, it makes the massive scope feels smaller. Also some of the middle episodes feels like an unnecessary side missions. But it's a normal price to pay when you comprising such a huge mythology into sizable bites!

Needless to say, I finish this in one sitting.

I knew going in that this was going to be pretty good so I figured I'd watch a couple of episodes before bed. Next thing I know, it's 3am and I'm finally at the end. I did NOT expect it to be as good as it was, obviously!

The animation is awesome and suits the tone of the story perfectly; it has blood and gore and violence and sex and gore and more gore! What more can you ask for?

Oh yeah, you can ask for a good cast. Well...that's not this cast. This cast is INCREDIBLE. Sylvia Hoeks does a fantastic job as Sylvia, our main lead, as does Stuart Martin as Leif - Sylvia's lover and almost-husband but for the interruption of Pilou Asbæk's Thor (he does an awesome job as a slightly-unhinged Lord of Storms here). Joining them on Sigrid's quest for vengeance over the murders of her entire family are Birgitte Hjort Sørensen as Hervor - Sigrid's shield-sister, the iconic Rahul Kohli as Leif's thrall Egill, the goddess that is Jamie Clayton as The Seid-Kona - a witch-woman, and Peter Stormare as Ulfr - The Seid-Kona's wolf-hide-dressed pet (for lack of a better word). They're soon joined by Andvari (Kristofer Hivju) - a dwarf smith - and eventually by Thyra (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) - a human archer loyal to the Vanir. All this aided by Loki (Paterson Joseph) for his own ends, of course. Then there's the supporting cast, including the likes of John Noble, Corey Stoll, Lauren Cohan, Tove Lo, Jessica Henwick, and Jamie Chung...

The story itself is great, too. Wedding Interruptus + Family Murdered = vengeance quest with a slight Ragnarok feel due to the attempted deicide of Thor, and they do a decent job of making us care about these characters in the relatively limited time they have, what with having all the violence and gore and sex sprinkled throughout.

I REALLY hope we get a second season of this, now!

We enter a take on Norse mythology that is visually inspired by comicbook art, alluding to Zack Snyder's adaptation of Watchmen. There is no pretense: this is an adult animated series, with sexuality and gore being handed together in the same package. The animation, by Stone Quarry and Xilam, is truly a feast for the eyes.

This is yet another series where the Aesir are portrayed as evil, which is amusing given its release after the God of War Norse Cycle and Black Myth Wukong. I suppose this could be seen as a "goðlauss " type of story, but at least there is enough nuance to this.

Overall a strong recommendation.