Review: Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ A Sweet Dream
Action, adventure and a wisecracking raven named Matthew to boot, this show is one that I hope that Netflix doesn’t curse with an eternal slumber.
(Vivienne Acheampong as Lucienne, Sanjeev Bhaskar as Cain, Tom Sturridge as Dream, Asim Chaudhry as Abel in The Sandman. | Courtesy of Netflix © 2022)
Dreams and nightmares, strange visions that come to us during our slumber that let us face our fears and indulge our every desire, but what, or who, brings these dreams to us? That question is posed and answered in Netflix’s newest epic “The Sandman.”
The series, based on the graphic novel of the same name, follows a man of many names, “Dream,” or “Lord Morpheus,” as he rules over his kingdom of slumber. After becoming imprisoned for a century and losing his powers, he embarks on a quest for revenge and to regain control of his shattered kingdom while also fighting against a rogue nightmare known as The Corinthian who wants to strike fear and kill humans for his own sadistic reasons.
Main actors, Tom Sturridge and Boyd Holbrook, play their parts excellently as masters of their craft. Sturridge, as the enigmatic “Sandman,” wages a godly war against Holbrook’s “Corinthian” for control of the mortal realm and the safety of humanity.
While the story is a simple tale about good and evil, one needs to pay attention when viewing this show, with captions, too. This program is one that has many plot threads, world shaping events and lots of VFX shots that can put Marvel movies to shame. You can see how much time the artists took with making each piece meticulously crafted to look like it came out of the page of the comic book. Gore, which this show does not skimp on, is strikingly displayed as people explode and demons come out of humans mouths.
The one con of the show is on how slow it is at the beginning.
It is necessary to binge the first two episodes back-to-back due to the first episode being extraordinarily loaded with exposition. Light spoilers, but we literally see our protagonist trapped for a long time and you feel that time moving as long as he does. You feel just as trapped as our protagonist as time ticks by. The episode is gripping, but the time it takes really makes you feel like it could have been condensed into the first half rather than the whole hour.
“The Sandman” is one of the finest shows that Netflix has come out with. The way the show functions as being faithful to the comic while allowing the viewer to dive into the world. Action, adventure and a wisecracking raven named Matthew to boot, this show is one that I hope that Netflix doesn’t curse with an eternal slumber.
9.5 grains of sand out of 10.