The Penguin

A gritty, character-driven mob tale that stands on its own, "The Penguin" expands Matt Reeves' Gotham City with stellar performances and a thoughtful exploration of social inequality as fuel for criminality.

Both [The Penguin & Agatha All Along] are superbly made; in terms of production and performance and smartly written scenes, they are nigh well unimpeachable.

The characters played by Mr. Farrell and Ms. Milioti are not just entertaining adversaries. They are dynamic, dramatic and emotional complements to each other. As are the performances. .... That tactic [callous cruelty and casual brutality], combined with the convolutions and convulsions of a nonstop thriller, also makes "The Penguin" epic television.

A masterful examination of criminality, the show is twisted, disturbing and deeply enthralling.

“The Penguin” exerts an unusually confident grip. It’s a velvety, acidic reminder of how so many underworld tropes can be revived, and made exciting, with the right collaborators working as one, and the right actors taking the job seriously without treating it like holy writ or solemnity bordering on bloody sanctimony.

With suitably noirish direction and cinematography, a doomsday score from Mick Giacchino and outstanding performances by Farrell and the entire cast, “The Penguin” makes for gripping, engrossing television.

Thanks to an outright phenomenal lead performance by Colin Farrell as the iconic villain, it proves as engrossing and exciting as a Batman-adjacent show could hope to be.

The Penguin delivers a version of this character like nothing Batman fans have seen.

As significant as the star power of Farrell might be (not to mention the fact that he plays the titular role), I’d like to report a robbery: Cristin Milioti steals the show out from underneath him as Sofia Falcone, alleged serial killer and confirmed mob badass.

The Penguin is a fairly straightforward yet involving mobster story powered by Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti’s terrific performances.

Eight lurid and viscerally exciting episodes. .... Farrell immerses himself in this role with a steely absorption reminiscent of De Niro. [7 - 27 Oct 2024, p.6]

The Penguin introduces a brand new template into an exhausted genre, and Farrell and Milioti burn up the screen. This could be one of the strangest, sharpest, most original thrillers you’ll see all year.

Fans of the DC characters might choose to view this eight-episode spin-off as the origin story of the Penguin and his journey from mobster to monster. Others can watch it simply as a dark, gritty, gripping crime drama, the enjoyment of which requires no knowledge of Batman lore. It works as both.

The Penguin is compelling because of the very different but equally riveting performances of Ferrell and Milioti.

“The Penguin” stays interesting thanks largely to a litany of episode-ending cliffhangers and its female characters, Cobb adversary and former Arkham Asylum patient Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti, stealing many scenes) and Cobb’s mother, Francis (Deirdre O’Connell, “One Dollar”), who gives off Livia Soprano vibes.

He [Farrell] gives an endlessly compelling performance, well matched by his co-stars—particularly O’Connell, Milioti, and an underused Carmen Ejogo as Oz’s sorta girlfriend. They all richly inhabit the show’s well-articulated version of Gotham, a morass of tribes and cultures scrambling to survive amid the entropy of all things.

Lauren LeFranc’s take on the Gentleman of Crime soars, or rather waddles, past its competitors in eight short episodes, crafting a gangland epic from its comic-book origins that, if it doesn’t surpass, at least matches the sensibilities of its inspirations.

LeFranc’s unsentimental sidelining of Batman allows The Penguin to thrive in his absence, revealing new textures of a Gotham we might have thought we already knew everything about.

A spin-off that makes this return to Gotham feel both necessary and earned, with excellent performances from Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti.

“The Penguin” doesn’t overplay its hand enough to go broke, mind you, but it does undercut itself slightly with just a few too many meandering moments. Still, in terms of superhero-centric franchise TV, it’s arguably among some of the best viewers have been offered to date.

Director Craig Zobel has done a fine enough job of recreating the basic look of The Batman, all grainy sunlight and amber streetlights, but the show itself is so disinterested in anything to do with its source material that the connection feels largely academic. (There’s little of the brooding, noir-esque sensibility that lent the film its unique identity amongst the Bat-flicks; Oz’s troubles aren’t half as operatic as Bruce Wayne’s.) Farrell and Milioti remain compelling, but if—as the show promises—The Penguin is on the rise, we can’t quite grasp that trajectory just yet.

There is a fine line between grisly storytelling that is compelling and plots so depressing (and sometimes boring) you want to turn off the TV. "Penguin" jumps back and forth over the line for the eight-episode season. Still, it's hard to keep your eyes off Farrell. He is committed to the role, to say the least. He might make you worried if you don't watch.

Overall, "The Penguin" doesn't reinvent the genre by any means, but it manages to grow beyond most comic book TV adaptations with a dark, violent, and grim portrayal that never aims to please everyone.

Though The Penguin accomplishes its goal of telling a Batman story without Batman, viewers may be left wondering around the fifth or sixth episode of this eight-part series, "Wait, why am I watching a show about the Penguin again?"

There’s no reason this needs to be eight episodes. The good would have been more concentrated, more powerful, in fewer. The diversions could have been eliminated. Farrell plays Oz like a dumber, more desperate Tony Soprano. That’s better in small doses. Only when Milioti’s Sofia is mixed into the equation does “The Penguin” really soar.

It’s a series that is still finding its legs and could never surpass The Sopranos, though there are no better acts to attempt to follow.

Even if it largely succeeds on its own terms, “The Penguin” could’ve benefited from a little more romance and variation, rather than a relentless and gloomy dose of reality.