The massive success of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in theaters and “The Last of Us” on HBO means one thing is certain: every studio on Earth wants a few more video game adaptations on their schedule. While awful versions of hit games are certainly going to be fast-tracked in the coming months (pending the end of the strike, of course), the truth is that Sony already had a number of productions waiting in the wings after Joel & Ellie exited stage left, including the upcoming “Gran Turismo” in theaters and “Twisted Metal” on Peacock. Oddly enough, “Twisted Metal” is also a post-apocalyptic buddy road movie about an unlikely duo traveling a wasteland of marauders, but the comparisons with “The Last of Us” begin and end there. This is a show that aims for anarchic comedy but can’t manage that admittedly difficult tone and doesn’t have the talent to make it work. Developed by Michael Jonathan Smith, it’s a consistently unfunny bore that only springs to life occasionally through the sheer lunacy of its concept. For the most part, the jokes hit the floor, and the action is so lackluster as to barely qualify. It’s a show that constantly feels like it’s trying so hard to entertain that it failed to develop a voice, style, or personality of its own to get it out of first gear.
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One of the problems could be the relatively shallow nature of the source material. Launched in 1995 on the original PlayStation, the “Twisted Metal” games work from a simple template—get in a car and blow up other cars. They are built around vehicular combat, demolition derbies with guns, missiles, and tricky maneuvers. The success of the “Fast and the Furious” franchise and the brilliance of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” probably made “Twisted Metal” an obvious franchise to adapt, but Smith and his cohorts at Peacock put shockingly little artistic consideration into the actual driving scenes on the show. There’s a decent one in the premiere, and it builds to some stuff late, but this is a show about a legendary driver that features shockingly little actual stunt driving. It’s one of several baffling decisions.
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Anthony Mackie plays lead John Doe, a driver who remembers nothing before being behind the wheel, delivering products across the wasteland between major cities that were walled after the world went boom. He’s the best “milkman” in all the land, which draws the attention of a mysterious woman named Raven (Neve Campbell) with a proposition: deliver a package across the country and he can finally have a safe home in the city. Mackie’s take on John is a variation on the wise-cracking Ryan Reynolds brand of comedy in films like “Deadpool,” something that requires a great deal of charisma to sell a bad joke with a wink and a smile. (You don’t have to know that “Deadpool” writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are executive producers here to guess they were involved.) Bluntly, Mackie has a different skill set than Reynolds. He can be a strong actor with the right material, but he can’t close the deal on the incessant bad jokes given to John. He makes out much better in the back half of the season when he has to get a bit more dramatic, but the early episodes may make viewers want to see him drive into an overpass.
Stephanie Beatriz makes out better as Quiet, a driver that John encounters on the road to nowhere. Quiet has lost her brother Loud (Richard Cabral) to a group of vicious drivers led by the sociopathic Agent Stone (Thomas Haden Church), a mediocre security guard who happened to be in the right place at the right time when the world went to Hell. Church’s take on Stone should be a vicious, almost scary one but this is a show that isn’t willing to take enough risks in terms of tone. Other than a truly disturbing scene later in the season involving a child brutally murdering a dog, “Twisted Metal” is a show that constantly gives lip service to darker ideas than it’s willing to actually weave into its setting or characters. In fact, that’s what makes the aforementioned canine homicide so upsetting—not only is it in poor taste but it feels like it comes from a show that was trying to push buttons that this one never would.
No, what suffices as “edgy” here is staging a flashback to the end of the world to Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” or an action sequence to Hanson’s “MMMBop.” A lot of the edge falls into the giant hands of Sweet Tooth, the character most associated with the “Twisted Metal” universe. A demented clown who drives a souped-up ice cream truck, Sweet Tooth became the face of the series, and he resurfaces here in the physical form of professional wrestler Samoa Joe with the voice of Will Arnett. Sweet Tooth is an absolute lunatic, a giant who kidnaps John and Quiet in the second episode and forces them to watch his one-man show. That episode is numbingly unfunny, but ST does get some shining moments later when he leaves his casino and starts working his way across the country, taking out outposts of authority figures as he goes.
Oddly enough, the actor that makes the greatest impact is the funny Mike Mitchell as Stu, a character who kind of ties all of these oddballs together. Stu starts off working with Agent Stone, crosses paths with John/Quiet, and eventually finds his way into an alliance with Sweet Tooth. There might have even been a better version of this show that wasn’t scared to really center Stu as the lead, a normal guy in a sea of abnormal weirdos. In that version, the writers wouldn’t have been so tied to a protagonist like John who thinks he’s charming but is really just bland. And it could have allowed other supporting players from the series to pop in and out. Instead, we’re stuck in a car with John and Quiet, wondering when this road trip is going to end. [C-]
“Twisted Metal” debuts on Peacock on July 27.