Squid Game is entertaining, it is engaging, and has some good themes here and there about human nature and the value we place on human life. Unfortunately, the show is ruined by issues with its pace, its over the top caricatures, its fumbled messaging, and its inability to wrap up a sub-plot.
My introduction to this show was rather good, people down on their luck convince themselves toSquid Game is entertaining, it is engaging, and has some good themes here and there about human nature and the value we place on human life. Unfortunately, the show is ruined by issues with its pace, its over the top caricatures, its fumbled messaging, and its inability to wrap up a sub-plot.
My introduction to this show was rather good, people down on their luck convince themselves to gamble away their lives for the ultimate payout because that potential outcome is better than what their real lives could ever produce. It is an interesting, albeit unoriginal, concept that can hook you in for those first hours. The games are life or death, there's high stakes for everyone involved, and the character development begins to provide context for why they have ended up in this situation and lead to some very nice and touching moments throughout the moments.
Then the showrunners decided to stretch out the run time with lots of useless dialogue for buildups that did not payout at all. I do not want to ruin it here so I'll just say that some character relationships are superior to others. Then they decided to give us a terrible bathroom scene with one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen which completely shifts the attitude of the series, only to jarringly rip you back to where it was before by throwing in a strobe light "battle scene" that was poorly shot to say the least. Cinematography was all over the place.
When it comes to the stereotypical American fat-cats, this show made me laugh, both in a good way, and a bit of a cringey bad way. They managed to find some of the worst American actors ever to blurt out obvious nonsense that will make anybody in North America cringe. I will give them credit too though because if there were any activities bored billionaires would take part in, well this show definitely hit the nail on the head unfortunately.
Its political messaging is a bit of a failure to me. This was obviously meant to be a "capitalism bad" "equality good" type of theme, but it helps if the director knew anything about capitalism and did not conflate it with corruption or crony corporatism. If anything, this seemed like more of an indictment or satirical take on communism seeing as deviating from the norm (equality) can prove to be deadly in this context, and the ultimate goal of the game is for one person to attain all of the consolidated wealth from their fellow contestants that started out on equal footing. Corruption within a system such as Capitalism is what has lead to the wealth inequality here, not the ability to have financial mobility in a free/mixed economy. Bit of a failed attempt there, but I appreciated the corruption themes nonetheless.
I have seen quite a few complaints about the "over the top" violence, and I can safely say that this is just par for the course when it comes to R-rated or Unrated Korean productions, so I am not really sure where this became a surprise?
My biggest issue with this show and reason for the massive deduction is that it is entirely predictable. There was a small unexpected twist at the end that, in my mind, makes absolutely no sense considering character motives/choices, but everything else in this show was easily predictable. Also, the over-arching plot is not very original, way too reminiscent of The Hunger Games and other titles in the survival/arena genre.
+ Good concept
+ Shock value
+ Some great character moments
+ Some good themes (gambling & self-consumption)
+ Arena & game design sets were brilliant
- Some awful characters
- Way too many cliches
- Over the top caricatures
- Hampered by pacing issues
- Big missed opportunity with sub plot
- Unoriginal plot
- Fumbled political themes
- Character motivations all over the place
- Drawn out finale
All in all, not bad if you're a fan of the genre, or Korean-produced thrillers. For most people though, this seems to be another victim of an over-hyped Netflix series, one that pushed my expectations way up into the air, only to land flat on its tentacles with disappointment.… Expand
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