- Network: Prime Video
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 26, 2021
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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Invincible will have you sucked in by the end of the first episode with great action set pieces, but will really hook you in with the human elements. Rest assured, this is so much more than just another superhero cartoon. No, this is humor, mystery, drama, romance and science fiction, all rolled up into one absolutely addictive treat.
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If you can hang with its shifts, you’ll find a show that is working at high speed to try to embody multiple elements on the superhero cynicism scale, sometimes all at once. Funny, exciting, and emotionally smart—seriously, Sandra Oh is killing it here.
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From its slick animation to its excellent voice cast, it's a winner from top to bottom. And just when you think you know exactly which direction it's going to explore, it pulls the rug out from under you in a truly exciting way. The long-running comic series couldn't have been made into a better serialized format, and if the rest of the show is just as interesting as this one, Amazon has quite the hit on its hands.
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Invincible recaptures what our current glut of superhero fiction largely loses sight of: the pleasure that superheroes must feel when wielding their powers. Not the sacred satisfaction of helping the downtrodden, but the id-centered thrills of soaring through the sky and inflicting hurt on those deemed deserving. The series consistently makes smart use of music and sound to sweep you up in the bodily sensations of its heroes.
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“Invincible” finds the right balance: acknowledging what a life-changing experience this is for Mark, including typical hero’s-journey scenes (crash landings that really reverberate, grueling training sessions that raise questions regarding what kind of lessons Nathan is teaching his son, and scenes where Mark befriends other teens who also boast similar abilities), and moving the story along so that it also focuses on other characters.
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Spry, hourlong animated series that somehow manages to be both snarky and earnest within the same breath. ... What both anchors and keeps “Invincible” compelling is its cast, packed to the brim with talent.
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While too early to tell exactly how it will stack up as a season, let alone a series, in an era where lots of “ambitious” TV can feel all too predictable, “Invincible” should keep viewers on their toes — for the right reasons.
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While you can’t describe “Invincible” as gritty, it does feel like the right kind of animated super-show for an era marked by Zack Snyder’s dark-hued “Justice League” reconstruction and Amazon’s own, ultra-pathological take on the genre, “The Boys.” It’s as clean-looking as any program we grew up with, but has the dirtier stuff we secretly wanted.
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This superhero show may play it a bit safer than The Boys, which won't help it stand out in the current landscape of superhero content, but for now, it works and should satisfy fans of the comic, even if it doesn't reinvent the wheel.
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There’s a chance that “Invincible” could get lost in the shadow of two massive super-titans like that headline-grabbing pair ["Zack Snyder’s Justice League" and "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"]. The truth is that it’s in many ways the most inventive and interesting of the three projects, something that truly seeks to use the many clichés of the superhero genre in a fresh new way.
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Amazon already has a searing satire about out-of-control superheroes, "The Boys," which has quickly become its signature series. "Invincible," an animated show with basically the same broad outline, thus feels a tad redundant, though the opening episodes, produced very much for adults, yield some of the same visceral thrills.
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While Amazon is billing this as an “adult” animated series, that’s only in the sense that there’s ample gore and profanity. The designs (modeled on Walker’s art from the comics) and most of the characterization and plotting feel more suited to an all-ages show — a very good one, at that — but then someone’s head will burst onscreen. ... Still, it’s fun, and Yeun, Simmons, and Oh make for a strong central ensemble.
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For now, it's found a neat balancing act that makes for a refreshing new take on superhero revisionism.
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The series has a palpable “more of an eight-hour movie” thing going on, and the potential of that model is that it will all coalesce in the end into this glorious, big, transfixing story. But the pitfall is that it makes these opening episodes a little weaker; there are so many characters happening here, so many story threads to put in place, that it’s hard to know what to invest in as a viewer.
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Some of its characters are unapologetic parodies (the Batman facsimile “Darkwing”, for example), and you could easily go through picking out elements or story ideas that have cropped up in Watchmen, or The Incredibles, or Sky High, or Misfits. But there are still some good bones to its premise, and just enough subversiveness to let you ignore the fact this is a story you’ve seen a hundred times before.
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The voice cast is the easiest thing to praise about Invincible, which features J.K. Simmons as the gruff and irascible Omni-Man, Sandra Oh as Mark’s mom Debbie and Mark Hamill, Seth Rogen, Gillian Jacobs, Andrew Rannells, Zazie Beetz, Walton Goggins and Jason Mantzoukas in supporting roles. But their spirited turns can’t make up for the series’ fatally sluggish pacing — the result of stretching out what feels like a half-hour’s worth of material into 45 bloated minutes.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 99 out of 113
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Mixed: 7 out of 113
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Negative: 7 out of 113
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Mar 31, 2021Fantastic start to what looks like an amazing animated TV show. And not to mention the great voice performances.
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Apr 11, 2021Just love this show. Robert Kirkman never disappoints. I was a little surprised with the timeline shift from the comics.
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Apr 10, 2021