Twilight of the Gods Is Another Typical, Flawed Zack Snyder Affair
Photo Courtesy of Netflix
Zack Snyder is a name that brings up a lot of feelings for a lot of people. Between the cult fandom of The Syder Cut and the critical panning of his Rebel Moon saga, there is a lot to be said about him and his work.
Snyder hasn’t been near an animated project since 2010s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, so Netflix’s Twilight of the Gods is effectively new territory. The tale follows Sigrid (Sylvia Hoeks) as she seeks revenge against the god Thor after she unjustly faces his wrath on her wedding day. She is joined by her almost-husband, Leif (Stuart Martin), as she seeks out a band of warriors to take the god down. Their journey takes them across the span of the Nine Realms, where they are faced with trials of blood and gore alongside revelations about who they truly are and what they stand for.
In true Snyder fashion, the visuals and the action scenes in Twilight of the Gods are the creative strength of the show. While the series is a bit middling in its commitment to being as dark as it tries to assert itself as, the battles that are spread across its eight episodes (all of which were available for review) are nothing to scoff at. The series is Game of Thrones-ian in many senses of the phrase, and the brutality of the gods is no exception here. No one, not even children, are safe from the destruction brought on by the whims of those who look down on them from Asgard, and though that suffering is the driving force of Sigrid and her crew’s mission, there are points where it starts to get repetitive, despite how well directed and animated everything may be. Once the first half of the season is in the rearview, there is not much to be done that can make those fights impactful in a way that will further motivate Sigrid (or anyone else), and the only true threat is the death of any of our main characters.
Twilight of the Gods is yet another victim of the Tiny Season Industrial Complex, and, had the series been picked up with 12 more episodes, there would be a lot more emotional weight and depth to the characters individually and as a group. There are a decent amount of flashbacks and expository fables that attempt to dive into the pasts of multiple individuals, but more often than not, the story moves on from these moments as if they never happened, or they feel rushed and unearned. It is always nice to learn a new part of someone’s backstory, but there can only be so many times someone can say “Let me tell you a story” before you will want to unleash the deepest, longest groan of all time.
This is not to say that every story told within the show is worthless. Episode 6 brings some particularly important context to the forefront of the story and the episode itself is certainly one of the better ones, but it is also the episode that makes you realize that none of the women of the main cast are given the same treatment. We explicitly see what motivates Sigrid on her quest for vengeance, but any part of her life preceding our introduction to her is a cookie-cutter origin story that is primed to be torn apart by the violent catalyst of the series. Hervor (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen) is given an equally lackluster backstory in which she is barely the focus and—in contrast to Sigrid—we are only told about her past, never shown.