There’s something to be said about a comic book or novel that others deemed unfilmable. One of my favorite novels/series of all time is His Dark Materials. The trilogy consists of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. The series has a lot of things involving alternate dimensions and supernatural elements that make it tricky to adapt to film. The results have been decidedly mixed between the 2007 flop The Golden Compass and 2019’s His Dark Materials series. Up until Peter Jackson took the helm of The Lord Of The Rings movies, no one thought there would be any possible way to make that series good. Jackson made a masterpiece of movies though and will be cemented as someone who brought a wonderful story to life on film.
Never in my life would I have thought any studio would have pulled off making The Sandman.
The Sandman, based on Neil Gaiman’s comic book series and created by Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg, tells the story of the Lord of Dreams Morpheus (Tom Sturridge). He is imprisoned by the wizard Magus (Charlie Dance) and steals his possessions. Upon his release, Dream begins to retrieve his stuff in order to restore his power over the dream realm. Challenges and unexpected foes meet him along the way leading to a showdown for the fate of humanity in the balance. The Sandman is ten episodes and is currently streaming on Netflix. There’s no word just yet on season two but if I was a betting man, I’d say season two would be a strong possibility.
Some of this stuff is vaguely familiar, however for the most part I will be focusing on the series without trying to compare how it lives up to the comics.
It has been a very long time since I’ve read The Sandman comics.
From the start, the first thing viewers see is how visually beautiful the show is. The special effects, set pieces, and overall design are flawless. I was absolutely blown away by how beautiful and well-made The Sandman is so props to the technical department for all their hard work to make this a stunning achievement visually. The sound and music also deserve praise.
One of the main reasons why The Sandman is visually stunning is that we as the audience can feel Gaiman’s fingerprints all over this. The series feels like a love letter to this comic and I love that Gaiman was involved in bringing this to life. It felt a little like when George R.R. Martin was more involved in making Game Of Thrones and he helped bring the series to life. Gaiman similarly exercised some flex when it came to the direction of the show.
The Sandman is an embarrassment of great performances, starting with Sturridge. He captures Morpheus so well and he looks just like him in the comic. The casting was virtually perfect across the board. Props for sure go to the performances of characters Lucienne (Vivienne Acheampong) who assists Morpheus when he’s imprisoned, Lucifer Morningstar (Gwendolyn Christie) the ruler of Hell, and John Dee (David Thewlis) who wants to expose why the truth is the only way to know someone and threatens the world.
From a casting perspective, the performances are all strong and there feels like a strong emphasis on finding great performers instead of flashy names.
It’s really hard to pick out a performance I didn’t like, the cast is that good.
There are a lot of philosophical talks and big overarching themes for The Sandman and one central theme this season focuses on is why dreams are necessary for the world. I really loved these discussions among characters and how dreams ultimately help the world as a whole even though they can be destructive as well. We see both dreams and nightmares run out of control but we also see the possibilities of what dreams can do in the right hands. I really liked these discussions throughout the course of the first season.
The Sandman has a clear differentiating point between the first half story and the second half story. The big thing unfortunately I found with The Sandman is that I cared so much more about the first half story as opposed to the second half. I really enjoyed getting to know a lot of the characters in the first half, only for most of them to be abandoned or be more of an afterthought in the second half. There’s a clear difference in tone and stakes and I just wasn’t as invested in the second half story. Because of this, I lost some steam and generally struggled with how I felt about the second half of the series. It’s not to say I didn’t like it but rather it was a very abrupt and sudden change of pace that was jarring.
With so much mythology and characters to get through, The Sandman might be something that requires multiple viewings in order to get everything straight. Moreover, not every character sticks around for multiple episodes of the season. Some just have one main episode or a few. Dream and a handful of others are the only ones that are in it for the entire season. It almost became distracting with so many characters to keep track of even if they didn’t matter for the course of the entire season. One example of this that I was frustrated by is the lack of time we spent with Morpheus’ siblings’ Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), Desire (Mason Alexander Park), and Despair (Donna Preston). We aren’t even introduced to the other sibling Destiny at all this season.
Despite the second half of the season, this is a strong recommendation due to the strong performances, amazing visuals, and great themes.
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I was blown away by how much I liked The Sandman but I can’t deny that the second half sort of lost me a little. I did like how the season ended as it sets up a compelling and challenging next season. Netflix would be foolish to not renew this for another season however weirder things have happened. I’m again better on a second season renewal coming soon though. There are still a lot of great stories to tell.
Score: 8/10
