If you’re a certain breed of individual, entertainment can often take priority over many things when it comes to television and film. If it’s entertaining, people will often stick with it over things that are educational, impactful, or even hyped up. There’s just a limit to where folks will stay with something if it isn’t something they’re enjoying on an entertaining level. I am such an individual. I need something to be entertaining for me to stay with it.
Twisted Metal, the latest effort by Sony Pictures Entertainment and PlayStation Productions, has a tremendously entertaining cast bolstered by a script with enormous potential. Over the course of ten episodes, there were only two times I found myself frustrated whereas most of the time I found the show living up to its promise to give fans a healthy dose of lore, Easter eggs, and carnage. They certainly delivered on all of the above.
For a show about cars, there was an enormous amount of combat outside of the car. Over the course of the show, it featured fewer than five total car fights that I remember whereas every other episode had some massive brawl. While the choreography for these events was absolutely worth the time, the show wasn’t called Twisted Bodies. Even with that minor complaint, I would still highly recommend watching it to anyone involved.
Set in the modern era, Twisted Metal sees people of all varieties trying to survive after an apocalypse took place in the early 2000s and changed humanity forever. Some citizens enjoy the safety of walled-off cities with tons of security while others are forced to fight for their very way of survival. Murder is a common way to solve your problems and most cars are outfitted with weaponry that was previously only seen in military and law enforcement settings, some even contain missiles.
Anthony Mackie plays John Doe, a milkman by trade. Milkmen deliver packages to and from the walled-off cities. Milkmen often don’t live very long as their packages are often sought after by people with few if any, resources. Mackie’s car, Ev3l1n, is his pride and joy and has often come between him and a few relationships. Mackie places Ev3l1n before anyone else and this has proven to be life-saving, but his newest delivery introduces him to someone who may challenge her place in his life.
Co-star Stephanie Beatriz plays Quiet. Quiet and her brother, Loud, were caught by Officer Stone, played by Thomas Haden Church, who gave them a pistol loaded with a single bullet and gave them a choice. He told them that one of them could kill themselves or they could both die. While Quiet thought they were both going to choose death, her brother had other plans and surprised her when he grabbed the gun and ended his own life. Extremely angry at Officer Stone and his car Outlaw for doing this to her only family, Quiet has resolved to track him down to the ends of the earth for revenge, but running into John Doe provides deep complications of its own.
Then there’s Sweet Tooth, played physically by Samoa Joe and voice acted by Will Arnett. I have to be honest, this was my favorite character in the show, and not for the reasons one might suspect. The director and editor did an amazing job synching up Arnett’s audio with Joe’s movements. Even the subtle expressions were nailed during the editing process and I cannot imagine it was easy. Sweet Tooth was incredibly animated when he spoke and the editors had a lot to adjust if they wanted to get everything done right and they crushed it. The character was also one of the most entertaining parts of the show and he never got old. I’m sure plenty of fans of the game were thrilled with the way he turned out.
Beyond the actors, the show had one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a while. Given that their audience was likely born in the early 80s and loved 90s music, it was the logical choice for a background soundtrack, but they went one step further and decided to make the film’s soundtrack diegetic by doing something similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, with John Doe having a couple of CDs with music on it and he often put on a new song before engaging in car combat.
The Easter eggs within the show also helped provide an overall setting for the show. Many of the game’s levels and level designs were subtly included in the show. There were also obvious eggs like when Doe turns on his windshield wipers only for an original copy of the game to get moved by the blades across the windshield. The attention to detail and level of inclusion for those eggs was one of the more carefully discussed and diagrammed aspects of the show.
In terms of the actual script and its execution, the show’s writers did well keeping it moving from episode to episode. There were only two points in the entire script where I found myself frustrated beyond belief, and they were toward the end of the show. Fortunately, one of them was over pretty quickly, so it felt like the writers were aware of the fact that these moments were grating and opted not to force them upon viewers.
This isn’t a show that will be winning any major awards, but it deserves a second season. If nothing else, I genuinely hope they give us a follow-up film to touch on the loose ends and cliffhangers. It was witty, human, and as true to the source material as one could get while still focusing on everything else. Sony Pictures Entertainment has done a good job with many of their shows and movies, Twisted Metal is another notch on their belt. ‘
BSO Rating: 8.0
Kane Webb is an entertainment journalist for @BSO and @TheMarvelReport. He also writes about the USC Trojans for @AthlonSports and has been featured on @FanSided, @Scout, @Rivals, the Bakersfield Californian, Wisconsin State Journal, and much more. You can follow him on Twitter: @FightOnTwist