Review of Inhumans

Inhumans (2017)
7/10
Great as Pilot, not that great for cinema
5 September 2017
Let me preface this by addressing some of the negative reviews, a lot of which seem to come from people who went into IMAX expecting a movie. Inhumans are not a movie, it is a pilot episode for a TV show (and both Marvel and IMAX theaters promoted it as such, if you still expected a movie despite that, that is your problem).

With this being a pilot for a TV show, some expectation adjustment is in order. You cannot expect a fully resolved story (you only saw a quarter), which I have seen certain reviewers holding against the episode. You also cannot expect Marvel-ous CGI, because obvious budgetary restraints. However, when CGi is used (Lockjaw/Medusa, mainly), it looks pretty good.

Now, to some actual reviewing.

As one can expect from a Pilot episode, the story presents all major characters of the "Royal Family" of Atillan and does some amazing world building. The setpieces and filming locations are beautiful.

As someone who has not read the comic books, but is somewhat familiar with some the characters and their powers, I think the pilot episodes do them justice. Anson Mount, given extreme limitations on range of expressions, was great as effectively mute Black Bolt. He shows extreme restraint when faced with danger, as a single word can obliterate everything in from of him, and a single involuntary grunt can send a squad car flying several dozen meters away. Serinda Swan as Medusa was also very good, playing a caring wife and queen. As I mentioned above, when she is using her prehensile hair, the CGI is pretty solid. When not, it deviates from her comic book version and just behave like regular long hair (probably to save budget). Iwan Rheon as Maximus is very much Ramsey Snow from GoT, but much more charismatic and somewhat less psychotic. Gorgon looks like he will be a very fun character to follow. I am still a bit on the fence regarding Karnak, whose powers are not really explained very well (I guess he sees probabilities and short term outcomes of choices, but the CGI of him visualizing things is pretty good).

I am certainly looking forward to seeing the rest of the show, as I was intrigued by most of the characters and the basic premise of the story, and I hope the CGI quality will not dip. However, I personally did not really notice any major benefit from seeing this in IMAX over watching a high quality version on TV/online. So unless you really cannot wait, I would suggest waiting until the 26th when it starts airing.
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