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Critic Reviews
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The eight-episode show fantasia of ancient mythology and Americana is gorgeously conceived, vastly imaginative, and ludicrously over the top. It also unfortunately falls sway to the worst, most self-indulgent excesses of prestige television, namely terrible pacing, prodigal violence, and a thuddingly unsubtle score that often feels better suited to a high-budget porn film.
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Many individual scenes are excellent, but the whole thing, based on the half-season Starz made available for review, doesn’t knit together.
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Visually spectacular but initially lumbering series adaptation. [1-14 May 2017, p.18]
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Long on concept and short on momentum, each episode of American Gods (there are eight, the first of which premieres Sunday on Starz) feels like the pilot for still another show and then another.
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They are gods, sure, but initially many are just caricatures of abstract tics and traits. That is either going to be maddening to viewers or, given the right level of entertainment and oddness (which American Gods has in spades), a story worth waiting for.
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American Gods is amazing to look at and often hard to watch. If you're a fan of Gaiman's work, and patient with slow-moving scenes of thinly developed characters speechifying, you may like it. Others might want to proceed with caution.
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American Gods might oscillate between light and shadows, between past and present, but in terms of articulating a comprehensible story, it feels like a lot of smoke and mirrors.
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While the heavily stylized sex and violence can look beautiful, it’s often just as grim and ponderous as the dialogue and pacing. Only late in the fourth episode does the story begin to coalesce, but by that point it’s likely that anyone who wasn’t a fan to begin with will have long since tuned out.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 269 out of 355
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Mixed: 38 out of 355
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Negative: 48 out of 355
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Apr 30, 2017
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Jul 5, 2017
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Apr 30, 2017