English Dub Review: Blade Runner: Black Lotus “The Persistence of Memory”

0verview

In her quest for revenge, Elle breaks into the home of her next target and is forced to take a hostage; Chief Grant calls in reinforcements.

Our Take

Here’s the problem with Adult Swim attempting to do anything serious in adult animation drama. The network, at least, is five years behind the ball of where other networks, usually Netflix, are in terms of the refined areas of a series to truly make a mark. Blade Runner: Black Lotus carries on a franchise that, while legendary, is typically box office fodder. Ridley Scott created worlds that looked YEARS ahead of whatever time in which the film had been released, and while from a backgrounds standpoint Black Lotus gets a pass, I can’t get past the ugly looking 3DCG character models being used for the series. Everytime a fight scene breaks out, I can’t help but think this looks like a PS3 action game crossed with Barbie toys, and I end up laughing as a result.

That’s not to say the show isn’t strong in other areas, mostly in the voice acting department. Jessica Henwick (“Elle”) and Josh Duhamel (“Marlowe”) play off of each other rather well and make for a great dialogue. Unfortunately, in an animated series, the visual production of the show is just as important as anything else. While some Adult Swim franchises have made a nice living looking bad, they look bad on purpose, it’s the DNA of Adult Swim animation. For Blade Runner: Black Lotus, looking past the plasti-cky models is going to be a challenge, and unlike it’s feature-film brethren, probably won’t be one of those series that ages well when it finally makes it’s bow on HBO MAX sometime in the next 10 years.