I don’t care what anybody else says about Peacock’s John Wick prequel collection The Continental, I’m completely having fun with it thus far. The just-released second episode of the three-episode arc was much more of a deal with, with all the pieces from its trendy struggle scenes set to groovy songs like Funky Nassau to the episode’s theme of “loyalty to the grasp,” all of the John Wick references like no killing on Continental grounds, and the episode’s finest traces like “Love, are you able to dig it?” Katie McGrath can also be critically scary because the Excessive Desk Adjudicator, with a partial masks that obscures her mouth, and it’s nice to get extra backstory for Charon — a mere facet character within the films.
The day earlier than Episode 2 of The Continental hit Peacock, in the meantime, noticed the debut on Netflix of Castlevania: Nocturne — an eight-episode animated vampire saga that was ranked as one of many 5 most-anticipated reveals of September by Rotten Tomatoes customers. The collection, from showrunners Clive Bradley and Kevin Kolde, unfolds in opposition to the backdrop of the French Revolution. Because the peasant class rises as much as confront the aristocracy and struggle inequality, a brand new risk materializes.
These two TV reveals, after all, don’t have anything to do with one another, so why am I placing each of them right here side-by-side? Primarily, as a result of I’d argue that they each stand as recent examples of how pointless critics will be.
Within the case of The Continental, the primary batch of evaluations that got here in had been fairly brutal. Earlier than viewers might take a look at the present for themselves, the present debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a fairly unhealthy 53% critics’ rating (although that’s since risen to “recent” standing, at 64%). John Wick followers like yours really who’d been anticipating the prequel collection now needed to strategy it with alarm. The New York Instances referred to as it “formless and vague.” With out Keanu Reeves, lamented The Ringer, the prequel was in all probability “destined to underwhelm.”
However as soon as followers truly bought round to watching the collection, the third and remaining episode of which arrives this Friday and can characteristic the Winston Scott-led assault on The Continental, a humorous factor occurred: Followers truly preferred what they noticed.
Evaluate that hardly satisfactory 64% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes to the a lot stronger 79% viewers rating — the latter of which, by the best way, is predicated on greater than 250 consumer rankings for the time being (versus the 72 skilled evaluations). “Superior enjoyable!” one viewer of The Continental raves.
“The factor (some) persons are doing mistaken when watching this present is evaluating everythingggggg to the Wick movies. Copying the movies wasn’t the project so there’s no level in docking it factors for not having 20 min lengthy motion sequences or neon lights up the wazoo.”
As for Netflix’s Castlevania: Nocturne, a distinct model of the identical factor occurred. It truly has an ideal 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the time being, which might seemingly make you fairly excited to test it out in case you had been a fan of this franchise, proper? How might you not be — going into it, you’d see that critics already think about it an ideal present.
Solely — followers not solely disagree, a lot of them appear to suppose Castlevania: Nocturne is definitely a large flop. The viewers rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the present, as of this writing, stands at a horrible 55%. The identical present that critics suppose is “extremely paced (with) choreographed battles” and “a compelling addition to the Castlevania animated collection universe” has been met with cries from followers of “Horrendous writing with zero respect for the IP” and “I don’t perceive what number of extra reveals must be given to incompetent writers till studios resolve that they had sufficient. This isn’t Castlevania, that is disrespect.”
I might go on, however you get the concept. Take into account this as one more reminder that magnificence is ceaselessly and all the time within the eye of the beholder, that Bob Dylan was proper when he sang that you simply don’t want a weatherman to know which method the wind blows, and simply because a critic thinks you should stream or skip one thing doesn’t imply you truly ought to.
