Netflix Review: WARRIOR NUN Isn't All That Heavenly
Live comic book adaptations come in all shapes and sizes, media, and quality. From Watchmen and Netflix’s Daredevil to RED and Daredevil (the movie), we deal with a wide range of quality and subject matter. Warrior Nun comes to us from a comic book made in the 90’s and isn’t as terrible as other comic book adaptations, but there’s a lot to be desired and a lot of mishaps along the way.
For those of you who don’t know, the original Warrior Nun Areala debuted in 1994. This followed Shannon Masters as the Warrior Nun Areala armed with guns, swords, and guns to fight off demons. The current TV show follows a new character, Ava, and her journey in becoming the new Warrior Nun and facing that unwanted responsibility. The show’s overall story and drama aren’t terrible, the ideas are actually pretty interesting and mostly believable within the Warrior Nun world. But often characters make choices out of the blue that wouldn’t make sense for any reason other than to further the plot and create extra drama.
There are also some subplots that really could’ve been taken out. It would’ve been better to focus on the major plot and its characters that are actually interesting instead of focusing on subplots that don’t amount to anything of real consequence. The last thing to address is that the ending can be quite controversial. It isn’t as satisfying as people would want. (This is me being very generous. In my own opinion the ending is terrible.)
The acting can be a little over the top and cheesy at times, but I think that would have been a little better overall. I wish that the show had gone for a slightly lighthearted feeling overall because the show takes itself so seriously that most of the time that it is hard to care about it at all and not think everything is overdramatic and just bonkers. This show is some of the actors’ first major role, and most of them are able to work well with the material. Along with the acting, the visuals stay pretty good throughout. A lot of practical visuals are going on, which is nice, especially in combat. The CG is mostly good too, especially in the creature design, but a few things that were added in post, like lights and other random effects, are not super great. I wish that a bit more money and time was put into those subtle CG parts because they stick out really badly.
One thing to address the story's plot in general is its ratio of men to women. I am all for a cast of really cool women (which just about all of them are). I understand that in the Catholic church that this is how it is organized, and it isn’t the numbers that bother me, it is that the women are so awesome but they still have little to no real authority because the two of the three major men characters hold all of the power. It really may just be my perception or misunderstanding of how things work, but from the narrative point of view, it feels weird to have this group of specialized women feel so subjugated to the few men on screen. It just feels also because the plot is so different and original from the comic that more modern takes on a woman’s place in society would make more sense.
The show is fun to watch for the most part if you are fine jumping headfirst into this insanely written fantasy world. But there are a number of things with the plot points and character design/choices that were very odd and maybe a little too much for viewers to overlook. It is nice that the show stayed away from the ultra sexualization of the characters in the comics and focused very much on the characters’ personal story arcs and plot. If the first two episodes don’t grab you, it’s not gonna get any better, but it will entertain watchers for a bit while waiting for The Umbrella Academy Season 2 to come out.
