Brucie Bonus - TV1 - The Boys

I, by my own admission, have been a little lax in reviewing the past week. I'm not sure why honestly as the next few films are a doddle to watch but in the case of the next one;  Well, nostalgia is a powerful tool and as it's the last of the Z's, might mean that the Z's are whittled down to one in the collection. I'm not spoiling what the next film is, just as I'm not spoiling anything in the following review. It's shiny and new and I managed to catch it on a whim.

THE BOYS (2019 Dev. Eric Kripke)

 I think this is the last thing I saw before I blacked out in my hospital bed...

Why I watched it:

Garth Ennis. To elaborate, Garth was a huge part of my growing up when I was moving into more mature comics. X-Men was just becoming way too complicated to follow, DC seemed to be churning out some big new event every three months and killing off my beloved JLI members for kicks and Image weren't quite the indie powerhouse they were yet, still reeling from art over substance.

Wizard had told me about Garth and I missed the boat with Preacher frustratingly at the time (I have gone back and read through that amazing run.) From then on I vowed not to miss his upcoming Punisher series and from then on I became a fan so when The Boys made its appearance, I was sure to hop on too.

What unfurled was this amazing mix of Garth's over the top action and comedy. Taking shots at beloved parodies of established superheroes, The Boys was an absolute blast to read.

Fast forward and I loved the live adaptation of Preacher when it finally hit home media and I just so happened to earn another free 30-day pass to Amazon Prime so at a trim 8 episodes, I gave it go...

The review:

The Boys does deviate a fair amount from Garth's source material. To be honest though the amount of batshit crazy things he and Darick Robertson came up with, I'm surprised something like this ever got made.

The superhero genre in some people's eyes might be getting a tad long in the tooth, I personally love it. This is the tonic for them. A slam-bang festival of dark humour and gore that lampoons the absurdity of some heroes but also delivers a riveting episode by episode format.

I blasted through the first three episodes in one evening and binged the remaining five the following day. Everyone plays their roles perfectly, it's a fantastic outing by Karl Urban, one of the other main reasons why I wanted to watch this as I'm a fan of his work. He shines as Billy Butcher (slightly dodgy accent aside) and really hits hard when he needs to deliver the emotional moments.

To my surprise however, the real MVP is Antony Starr as Homelander, The Boys' answer to Superman. His performance is exceptional, switching from being wonderfully false one moment to being downright chilling the next. He shines in this role and that's not to downplay the other performances in The Boys but he makes a wonderful antagonist.

 The debate over whether Rocky III was a better movie than Rocky IV had taken an ugly turn...

Adding to the collection?

Oh god yes. I hope they continue the trend of keeping the series at a tight 8 episodes as I rarely drifted when watching this. I can't wait to see what happens in the next series which thankfully has already been greenlit. The bar has been set high with this series and only hope they can continue. A rock-solid 9 out of 10 as it stands.

Much like Sabrina's hit, 'Boys', you'll be looking for a good time with this...

That was terrible, ignore the bad joke but I hope you give it a try, until next time, I remain,

Matt Major