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- HBO
- Apr 14, 2024
- HBO
- Apr 14, 2024
Season Episodes
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 33 Critic Reviews
80
82% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
15% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 33 Critic Reviews
80
82% Positive
27 Reviews
27 Reviews
15% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Come for the stunt, to marvel at the versatility of Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr inhabiting multiple extravagant roles, recalling Peter Sellers' tour de force in Dr. Strangelove. Stay to get immersed in the suspenseful saga of an unnamed half-Vietnamese, half-French antihero. [22 Apr - 12 May 2024, p.4]
The Captain holds it all together, in a remarkable turn by Xuande, as our lead tries to pinpoint his own identity among the disparate pieces of the parts he’s forced to play.
But even when The Sympathizer falls apart, the show’s failures are almost as fun as the triumphs — they have meat to them. They’re the result of someone making a choice. The series is at its best when Park’s visuals and narrative devices clearly articulate everything going on under the story’s hood. It’s rare an essay prompt feels this fun.
There's an intoxicating messiness to the seven-part series, but the nihilistic worldview makes it all coalesce into a coherent character study by its close, using that cynicism to get under its unknowable lead's skin with surprisingly affecting results.
The show, though frequently poignant and entertaining, is pulled in too many directions to establish any real sense of his [the Captain's] interior life.
Overly complicated, overly stylized and often boring, Park and co-creator Don McKellar can't coalesce the series' shifting timelines, disparate characters, cartoonish costuming and moral ambiguity into a story that pulls you in. It's a whole lot of stuff shoved in your face with very little resonance to show.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
7.0
75% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
25% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
7.0
75% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
25% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
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