I've decided to break this sucker up, reviewing the two-part premiere and then moving on to episode three in a separate review.
Let's just start by screaming: OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY HERE!!! Also, if anyone actually bothers to read this and you are not familiar with the stream, warning for some spoilers as to characterization and future relationships developing between various members of the party. And then let's dive right into my thoughts!
Cons:
While ultimately I am very, very pleased with what I've seen of the show so far, as is tradition I will start off with my personal gripes.
My biggest complaint? Well, the humor, honestly. It's odd, because I think the first couple of scenes of the first episode had a lot of weaknesses that then mostly disappeared from the second half, and from the second episode entirely. The show was front-loaded with so much adult humor that felt to me almost... self-conscious? Like the show was posturing a bit too hard, trying to set its tone so you wouldn't mistake it for a kid's cartoon. And that's all well and good, but for me it felt a bit jarring. In the first ten minutes of the first episode, we get plenty of swearing and the gruesome deaths of the generic opening adventuring party... fine. But we also get Keyleth throwing up directly into someone's mouth, which is disgusting, we get a shot of Scanlan's balls, we get Scanlan peeing directly onto a man's legs... I don't know. Does anyone else think some of this stuff was a little try-hard? For me, the moments of comedy that did work were a lot more subtle and character-driven, and I'll talk about that later.
As far as larger missteps, honestly? Scanlan's intro song was a mistake and shouldn't have been there. I think Scanlan's other musical interludes work really well, they stick out as being tonally inconsistent with the rest of the music in the show but in a good way, they make him shine and they certainly haven't toned Scanlan down to make him more palatable to a general audience, which I am all in favor of. But the one moment that stood out to me was him breaking into a rap to introduce himself during the intro song at the palace. That... was cringey to me and not in the way I think the episode intended. I was wincing while it was happening. I couldn't help but think that a better joke would have been if he'd introduced all the other characters very briefly and then just started bloviating about himself, going on and on and on until someone interrupted him and brought his focus back. Same joke, but without the jarring hip hop moment.
There were one or two more awkward moments in the animation. The dragon looked really cool in some spots, but I think they were using a 3-D model at certain times that didn't gel quite right with the 2-D character animation? I know absolutely nothing about this, but I was picking up some strangeness. Could be a budget thing. It wasn't anywhere near bad, it just was distracting enough to the eye that I thought I'd mention it.
There was also just the stuff that was unpleasant to look at with my eyeballs, like the animation of Keyleth throwing up on like three separate occasions, all this brown sludge everywhere. No thanks. Also, I really liked the stuff with Gilmore and Vax (more on that later) but there was this weird moment right at the start of the scene where he came forward to hug him and Vax just... didn't hug him back at all? It unintentionally read that Vax was uncomfortable with Gilmore touching him, which was not the vibe that the rest of the scene had at all, so I thought it was a weird choice that Vax's hand didn't come up to wrap around Gilmore in that moment. Am I nitpicking? Yes. But it's Shaun Gilmore, what do you want from me?
Let's talk about the supporting characters. It's not necessarily a big issue, as I'm sure we'll be getting more of them later, but Allura and Kima sure didn't have personalities here, did they? It makes sense in a two-part opener that needs to establish seven leads, make sure you know who key side characters are (particularly General Krieg and Sovereign Uriel Tal'Dorei), etc. I'm not going to dock points because Kima and Allura didn't get a bunch of attention, but I just wanted to note that in a show that looks very standard-fantasy-fare but then has a lot more going on underneath the surface, Allura and Kima felt like the most standard-fantasy-fare of all, with nothing much to set them apart.
I want to add one more thing to the "cons" section here before I commence with the gushing, but really it's not so much a complaint as it is a question. There are seven main characters in this sucker. And in this two-part opener, there are several important secondary characters that need to get their due. In order to introduce everyone, you kind of have to strip them down and show a few key aspects of who they are, get the audience on board and help them to tell everyone apart. So there's bound to be some flattening/simplification. I was really impressed overall with how quickly everyone was established: Vax is a bisexual disaster, he's also sneaky and cool-but-not-too-cool. Percy is aloof and superior. Grog is a loveable dumbass but you don't want to get on his bad side. Keyleth is insecure about her magic. Pike is the moral center, the cleric going through a crisis of faith, doubting her relationship with her god.
But wait a minute. For those who watched the original campaign, did you catch that last part? Keyleth is insecure, and Pike is the moral center? Um... Keyleth is Vox Machina's moral center, their conscience, the one who is constantly questioning what they're doing and their impact on the world around them. When Pike says that stuff at the beginning where she wonders if they should try doing some good, after they get kicked out of the bar, I found myself narrowing my eyes. Like, hey, isn't that Keyleth's line? Similarly, Keyleth then wonders why the group is even staying together, what their purpose was... I found myself thinking, hey, shouldn't that be Pike's line? Pike is the one who has this convenient metaphor in the form of a godly talisman around her neck, that links her to a god and intermittently helps her in times of need, and lets her down in other key moments. Shouldn't she be the one doubting purpose, while Keyleth is the one trying to steer the group's values?
The reason I bring this up here, when we have so little to go on, is that I would hate for Pike to get Keyleth's trait of "the group's moral center". I think it flattens both Keyleth and Pike in uncomfortable ways. Kiki is so much more than just insecure about her own abilities and her own place in the world. And Pike is so much more than the kind, sweet healer who always wants to do what's best. Again, as I said, this isn't a complaint about what we've seen so far, necessarily, but more of a questioning, a worry about how this is going to manifest as we keep the show going. There's so much setup in these first episodes, and I was bound to notice a few simplifications and shortcuts that didn't quite land for me.
Pros:
Oh boy, you guys. I'm just so entirely thrilled that this show exists, and even if it was FAR less impressive than it turned out to be, I'd still be so happy that it all happened. And let me tell you... I am pretty damn impressed overall!
As I said above, really my least favorite aspects of the show were front-loaded into the first ten minutes. Maybe that doesn't bode well for trying to get new viewers hooked, but for someone like me who was always going to stick around to see everything, it meant that I got to be slightly worried for a few minutes that it wasn't going to click, and then increasingly impressed with everything that happened after. I was smiling through so many moments of this show, and I want to start with the bar fight at the start, because despite my issues with some of the humor and tone setting, discussed above, I also think this bar fight set up one of the coolest aspects of the show for me thus far, and one that is an added element that didn't happen as much during the stream. That being: the character arc of Vox Machina as a collective.
Let me explain. In the stream, this party had years of home games, not to mention the entire Underdark and Slayer's Take arcs to establish their team dynamics. By the time Percy is dropping his backstory lore, Vox Machina are pretty dang ride or die for each other, and we've already seen them working out most of the kinks in their dynamics. Sure, a roll of the dice or pressure during combat can still make for mistakes and chaos, but within the logic of the story, they're in many ways a well-oiled machine leading into the Briarwood arc.
Here, in the animated series, we have something only subtly different, but in my opinion, importantly different. In the first episode, the bar fight shows that these people know each other incredibly well, are going to go hard for one another without a second thought... but also they're not necessarily all on the same page. In that fight, we see examples of suave teamwork. We see Vax making the quip about "giving me a hand," then ducking out of the way without even looking so Grog can take a swing and chop the man's hand off. We have Vax stealing the money and tossing it to Vex. Vex summoning Trinket. All moments that show that this isn't their first rodeo. BUT, we also have... Vex tripping over Pike. Grog "saving" Percy and crushing him under his enemy. These little moments do so much in setting up a character arc for them as a collective. Their fight against Brimscythe was a uniting moment where we got to see them all use their special abilities and contribute to the kill, bringing them into further cohesion, but we're seeing them as a group still working out the kinks in terms of who they are to one another, and how they can best serve the collective. I think that's so important, to have them be an established group of friends and still have some growing to do.
I'm going to try and do a bit of rapid-fire commentary on each of our leads really quick, picking out some favorite details.
Grog: I love that he got to do his rage, that we got Travis Saying The Thing, and that shot of him standing in front of Brimscythe's corpse completely drenched in blood was one of my favorite visual images in this opening story. I also like the little moments with Pike, from saving her during the first dragon encounter by pulling her out of the way, to giving her a lift when they're walking back into the village. They've really established a bond between these two with very little need for words.
Pike: We get to see her saving Scanlan like a bad-ass in episode two, we see her sincere desire to help but also the ways in which she might not always be able to. Her failure to save the boy after Brimscythe destroyed the village was really touching and you could tell how crushed she was to have failed. But she's also such a bad-ass, I loved the "Light him up, Vex" moment in that second fight, the way she and Vex got to do a cool combo hit there with the arrows. Loved seeing her use her holy magic as a shield, a weapon, and a force of healing. Love that she went as rough and rowdy during the bar fight as any of them. Honestly, what I can say most about Pike is that I just love that she's here. Ashley's frequent absence from campaign one makes Pike's presence shine all the brighter for me now. I can't wait to see how they adapt certain Pike moments for the show. Also... oddly charmed by how they're doing the Scanlan/Pike stuff? In the original stream, I'd say Sam's over-insistent pursuit of Pike at the table is perhaps one of the things that holds up less well, just simply because it edges towards a situation where Pike says no and Scanlan keeps hitting on her anyway. Here, we get something slightly toned down from that, where we see Scanlan proudly flirting with everything that moves, but with Pike he catches her as she collapses and blushes when he realizes the intimacy of the moment... there's clearly a bit of a spark there, and I even like the idea that Scanlan feels something for Pike that is at this moment not quite reciprocated. There could be a lot of fun stuff with the two of them moving forward.
Scanlan: I've got to say, I'm so pleased they haven't sanded down Scanlan to be more palatable to a new audience. Scanlan is bawdy and ridiculous and over the top, and when I watched the stream, I remember writing him off early on as "oh, he's the comic relief." I thought Sam was very funny, but to me it didn't seem like he had the same heart and connection as most of the other players. Which, of course, is what made it so fucking powerful when Scanlan's development really took off. I can see how it could hit just as hard in animated form, and I'm excited to see that come to life. With the exception of the rapping moment I mentioned earlier, I loved all of Scanlan's musical moments, especially that first one when he's seducing the barkeep's daughter. So funny, so Sam Riegel. But of course what works about Scanlan is that he's all bluster, and that really is who he is, the libertine and bawdy jokester of the group... but he's also the guy who sees devastation in front of him and quietly announces to the group that they're going to kill a dragon. I loved him plucking at his lute strings as Vax looks down stricken at the dead body of a child. That quiet chill of determination, even though you can still hear his fear underneath. Masterful bit of voice acting from Sam in that moment.
Vex: I love the way Vex is being classified as a bit of the de facto team leader in these early episodes! There's a bit of tension with Scanlan over who's going to give the orders/come up with ideas, but ultimately Vex is rational and intelligent, and everyone falls in line with her automatically. It makes so much sense for her character. I'll always be pleased whenever I see twin characters that aren't carbon copies of each other, or comedically diametrically opposed. Vex and Vax are quite similar, but they have their own shit going on, and you can see the ways in which everyone defers to Vex even without drawing too much attention to it. I particularly love the moment when Vex is talking about her dragon-spidey-sense picking up something weird when talking to the council, and Vax and Percy both pretty immediately say they should give up the whole job, all based on Vex's bad feelings and discomfort. Yes, I love it on the level of "Vax and Percy are the two people in this world who love Vex the most", but I also love it on the level of her intuition being respected. Vex is a favorite of mine, and in the fandom it has been oft-noted that she has less "main character" time during the campaign than some of the others. So slotting her into this role works extremely well for me. It all comes to a head when she has the idea of how to get Brimscythe in the final fight, and that idea is to play to everyone's strengths: let Scanlan do a trick, use Percy's gun and Keyleth's magic and Vax's dexterity and Grog's brute strength. Vex-as-leader, Vex-as-strategist, is really working for me, and I hope we see it develop more as we go on.
Percy: Obviously I'll be talking much more about Percy in my episode three review, but I was so impressed by how in this opening story, they captured the... essence of early-campaign Percival. One of the reasons that the Briarwood arc slaps So Hard is that Taliesin spent the earliest parts of the stream in the back seat. He was the snobby sophisticate, always looking down his nose at the others, he had some funny one-liners, but he was quiet. So when this dude comes forward with "SYLAS" and "your soul is forfeit" etc., it fucking owns. In these first two episodes, I really felt that vibe from Percy. He had some funny lines, I loved the "fulcrum/fuck room" joke, I loved his obvious glee at the prospect of respectability, but appropriately he felt slightly more one-note than some of the others. He's going to have his chance to shine this season, and I love that these first episodes play his characterization close to the chest. (The moment when he, or rather Scanlan's illusion, called Vax "peasant" was a highlight of the whole show for me so far... fucking stellar stuff, this is the type of comedy that works for me.)
Keyleth: As I said above, I'm the most worried that Keyleth's characterization is going to be flattened from what Marisha gave us on the stream. That said, Marisha is killing it with this performance, imbuing Keyleth with so much of that tender naiveté mixed with intense power that we love about her. The moment when she uses her considerable magical ability to call lightning on a blue dragon with lightning powers was the perfect synthesis of her insecurity. She's so strong, she's so good at magic, but she breaks under pressure and she often does the wrong thing at the wrong time, when she's trying to help. Of course, then she turns around and saves them all from being crushed to death in a rocks fall, everyone dies moment, proving that she can come through when it counts, and when she's not overthinking things. I loved the small hints of Vax/Keyleth, there's such a soft sweetness to his obvious regard for her, and I'm going to die seeing it all play out over again.
Vax: Vax was probably the character I was the most afraid they'd get wrong. He's the rogue, he's cool, and he needs to be cool, we need to see him suavely bantering with the asshole in the bar, we need to see him run through a rock slide and jump on a dragon and cut it open, we need to see him wink at Gilmore and give as good as he gets... but we also need to see him be a fucking doofus and disaster. Drinking ale in the middle of a bar fight, getting so distracted flirting with Gilmore that he forgets important dragon facts until Percy reminds him (another highlight of the episodes for me). And he also needs to be sweet and gentle with kids, giving a silver piece to a little boy, calling out for Pike and begging for help as he watches that boy die. He needs to be all of those things, and in my opinion, these opening episodes nailed that for him. If campaign one as a whole has a main character, it's Vax'ildan, just in terms of the fate-touched thing, and if we get to see the whole arc of his character play out in animated form, he's going to be the one who makes me cry my eyes out. The fact that they seemed to get him so right from the jump has me BEYOND thrilled for what's next.
Taking a break from talking story, I want to dive into some technical aspects.
The music is so far really, really working for me. Scanlan's songs are a joy, but the soundtrack as a whole sets an amazing tone. Appropriately epic but not too extreme, it captures the somewhat frantic energy of the battle sequences, highlights the bad-ass moments and also emphasizes the flubs where our characters make mistakes or are in real peril. I can't wait to hear more of what the music can do for the story moving forward.
The voice acting. Just... obviously I knew they were going to knock it out of the park, but I was surprised by how not distracted I was by the cast doing these voices! I wasn't hearing Sam and Marisha and Liam etc., I really was hearing Scanlan and Keyleth and all the rest. Some favorite line deliveries include Liam's plea to Pike to save the dying kid, Scanlan's line about killing a dragon, Percy's "we hid and it flew away" moment, Pike telling Keyleth that they're all alive because of her, Vax's "finesse" moment with the lockpicking, and so many more. To extend it out, obviously we'll get to Matt Mercer's meatiest role of the season come next episode, but it was a delight to hear him out and about in the world. It was a lovely Where's Waldo both in terms of background character design, and Matt's voice. And the fact that he gets to be Trinket is SO thrilling to me!!
David Tennant was fantastic as Krieg. The fact that after the prologue, the first line of actual dialogue in the whole show is world-famous actor David Tennant yelling "fuck!" just put a big smile on my face. They let him be Scottish, and over the top and dramatic, and evil and sinister and funny and just... yeah. I loved it. Kima and Allura didn't have a ton to do yet, as I mentioned, but I think both of their voices sound great. Uriel had a couple of fun moments, I loved when he hired Vox Machina mostly because he liked the bear. He's got a certain irreverence to him while still maintaining the gravitas of a ruler.
And Gilmore! Man, I loved the performance of Gilmore, I loved the whole scene with Pike as a third wheel constantly rolling her eyes at the flirting... I think the voice acting and the writing of this scene really highlighted the vibe between Vax and Gilmore so much. It's playful flirting, but you can tell there's a charge of real affection between them, too. The Easter eggs were fun, Gilmore's disappointed squeak when he saw how little they were going to pay him, Pike appearing to remind them of her continued presence... I loved it all. I hope we get to see him a ton in the Chroma Conclave arc, but this was a fantastic intro for his character.
The animation... yeah, I mean, I know nothing about the art of animation, but I think the show looks pretty dang cool. It has this very '80s cartoon vibe, I love that it's 2D animated for the most part, I think the character designs really work... I remember seeing promo materials and being a little uncertain about some of the designs, but it's already really grown on me. I especially love Percy and Keyleth, they look so right to me. And the twins. And really everyone. The fight sequences are pretty impressive, with all sorts of creativity and movement, you can tell they had something of a decent budget to work with, especially when you're talking about a TV show originally crowdfunded and based on a fucking D&D livestream... honestly, sometimes I can't believe any of this actually happened in real life, that I'm sitting here having seen a Critical Role animated series... god, life is strange and sometimes wonderful.
Ahem. I've talked on probably long enough, although I'm sure I'll think of more I want to say after I've posted this. I wrote the bulk of this review before I'd seen episode three, but I have seen it now and I had to hold off on adding a lot more of my thoughts so I can save it for a separate review. Which will hopefully be less rambling than this one, but no promises. Let's just say that after watching these first two episodes, I was reasonably pleased with what I'd seen. The simple fact of this show's existence means I would have probably loved it even if it had been rather rough around the edges, and in fact I feel like the first two episodes were broadly pretty strong. Without preexisting love for the characters and story, I'm not sure I would have been over the top hyped for it or anything, but I probably would have had a decent time.
And then I saw episode three, and...
Hold onto your hats, everyone.
My rating for the two-part opener of The Legend of Vox Machina is...
8/10
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