Cast: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, Moisés Arias, Xelia Mendes-Jones, and Walton Goggins
Creator: Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Director: Jonathan Nolan
Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video
Language: English (with subtitles)
Runtime: 8 episodes, around 1 hour each.
Fallout Review: What’s It About
Amazon and other studios have set their eyes on the video game industry, an industry that is bigger than all other entertainment industries combined, as their following source material and one of those sources brings Fallout to the screen, a legendary franchise that deals with a post-apocalyptic world and the things that humanity will do to survive in it, as we follow several characters all with their own missions and motivations. Still, the world may need help to achieve them.
Fallout Review: Script Analysis
Fallout is one of the most respected franchises ever in the world of video games; it has received, at the moment, four numbered sequels and many more spin-offs, all of them in or close to the RPG genre, a genre that focuses a lot on storytelling, which makes it the perfect target for a TV adaptation, as the lore and the worldbuilding of the franchise has already been built, and it is to some extent quite deep. Wagner and Dworet have made the right call because this first season of Fallout shines by bringing the world to life.
Fallout takes inspiration from many post-apocalyptic fictions, including stories like the Mad Max franchise and even stories like The Postman, and mixes them all together with its own ingredients, a bit of Americana, and retro-futurism, by setting the start of the apocalypse in an alternate world where the 1950s was already in the future. The showrunners and Jonathan Nolan, who directs the first episode of the season, manage to build the world and add tiny bits of lore here and there in each conversation, making the show quite entertaining to watch.
There is more than lore and worldbuilding in Fallout, though, as the show has also managed to get the right tone, which feels like a mix between the seriousness of Westworld and the quirkiness of something like Severance. The result of this mixture feels just right and in line with all the craziness in the games. The characters are also quite solid, and some are even quite deep. Regarding the leading trio of characters, Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul, the script does a fantastic job constructing a character arc for each.
However, as the series draws to a close, the Westworld influence is too significant to resist in the worst possible way. Westworld never managed to reach the heights of its first season again and instead dwelled deeper into convoluted storylines and plot twists that sadly never found a resolution. The second half of Fallout feels like that, which could lead to something unique in the future, but right now, it leaves us with many questions and almost no answers.
Fallout Review: Star Performance
Fallout is a fortunate show because it has managed to gather quite a bit of talent in its casting choices, and Ella Purnell has effectively, finally found her foot by portraying two unforgettable characters back to back, both characters having video game origins, Lucy for Fallout and Jinx for League of Legends, in the Arcane TV series. Here, as Lucy, Purnell brings her innate dynamism, which she showed in Yellowjackets, and takes Lucy on quite a ride. By the end of the season, Lucy is different from where her journey started, which is what it needed to be.
Walton Goggins, a brilliant character actor who has been working in several great shows and movies for quite a while, steals the show entirely. Goggins’s brilliance can be seen in shows like Justified and in movies like Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Here in Fallout, the actor basically plays two characters, the same person, in two very different situations, and his performance is brilliant on both occasions. The heavy makeup that transforms him into The Ghoul is undoubtedly solid and takes his performance to the next level.
Fallout Review: What Doesn’t Work
Jonathan Nolan directs the first three episodes of the show, and he sets the mood, tone, and look for the rest of the series; he and the rest of the directors who work in this season do a fantastic job, but overall, the quality of the direction is quite inconsistent at times. The crew certainly took its time creating the big moments and big set pieces, but the more mundane moments of the series feel a bit of a disappointment, as they look and feel like a cheaper TV series. Expecting a high level of quality for each episode is too much, but recently, Ripley on Netflix managed to achieve this.
In general, the production is quite amazing, and the show is expensive. As you can see on the screen, the sets, costumes, and production design are all good. Sometimes, some environments feel too small for what they are meant to be, and thus, the immersion breaks a little, but the huge budget maintains the illusion as much as possible.
Fallout Review: Last Words
Fallout might be the best adaptation of a video game to the screen so far; it is undoubtedly a lot better than The Last of Us on HBO because at least Fallout understands the core ideas of its world and brings it to life. In contrast, The Last of Us focused a bit too much in making the characters feel deep, even when they weren’t. The production design and visual effects are all top-notch. Still, the storytelling meanders a bit too much towards the end, making me nervous for future seasons, as it would be a crime to repeat the mistakes Westworld made in its second and third seasons.
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