'Jupiter’s Legacy': Mark Millar's Tired CW-Esque Melodrama Botches Its Superhero Landing [Review]

Serial over-exaggerating hype man, screenwriter, comics author, and “Jupiter’s Legacy,” creator/exec producer Mark Millar says he wanted his new superhero Netflix series to feel like “Star Wars” in 1977. Like, “a whole new universe, a lot of characters, that’s beholden to nothing else. And it can reap the benefits of where these other [Marvel & ‘Star Wars’] franchises have taken us. We want to start where others have drawn the line.”

Millar’s brash hyperbole is not out-of-character, he’s a consummate showman inflating his own myth with bluster, but the thing is, he’s damn talented at creating interesting worlds. The proof is in original works like “Kick-Ass,” “Wanted,” and “Kingsman.” (We also shouldn’t forget Millar is the writer behind the highly influential, politically-charged Marvel comics story that inspired “Captain America: Civil War.”)

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Now, four years after Netflix purchased the rights to Millarworld (Millar’s catalog of original creations), audiences are finally receiving the first taste of what all that money and those lofty aspirations have purchased. And perhaps not unexpectedly, it appears that Millar’s mouth and ego are writing checks that his imagination can’t cash. Netflix may want to revisit the terms of the deal and perhaps spent more time thinking about what makes Marvel and “Star Wars” special because while the series isn’t awful per se, it’s also nowhere in the league of the franchises of Millar’s ambitions. “Jupiter’s Legacy” is often corny, and one can’t help but feel some serious “CW with a budget” tones — complete with over-the-top melodrama, questionable acting, and middling VFX — when watching the first season.

For the uninitiated, “Jupiter’s Legacy” follows a large cast of super-beings that formed the Union of Justice back in the 1930s after mysteriously gaining powerful abilities. Operating in multiple timelines, one following the lead-up to the Union of Justice gaining their abilities and forming a super-team, the series also takes place in the present and follows these superheroes (well past their prime) and their children, born into superherodom, trying to find their own place in the world outside of their famous familial footsteps. So, an off-brand “Justice League” trying to use “realistic” superheroes to tackle modern issues? That deconstruction of superhero myths sounds awfully familiar. (Looking at you, “The Boys,” “Umbrella Academy,” “Invincible,” “Watchmen,” etc.) And timing is one of “Jupiter’s Legacy’s” biggest problems — it exists in an era where other shows are doing what this aspires to, but the competition is far better in nearly every way.

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Even in a world without those superior series, “Jupiter’s Legacy” would still be held back by its casting. Josh Duhamel, Leslie Bibb, Ben Daniels, and Co. aren’t necessarily terrible in their roles — a better description might be “serviceable” — but the show desperately needed less “network drama good looks” casting and more “significant dramatic heavy-hitters” to raise the aforementioned melodrama higher than the uninspired material on the page. The worst offenders are Duhamel and Elena Kampouris, who play The Utopian and his daughter, Chloe, respectively, and routinely go well beyond the line of good dramatic acting and into caricature in nearly every episode, some of which rely completely on their performances.

To compound the acting issues, there’s also a fake sheen to everything, from the bad old-age makeup, to the laughably subpar superhero special effects, to the cosplay-esque costumes. Blame seems to fall on the showrunner, Steven S. DeKnight, who also directed the pilot episode (and set the tone for the rest of the series). It’s especially disappointing because DeKnight has proven himself very capable of hitting dramatic highs with superhero storytelling in the not-so-distant past thanks to Netflix’sDaredevil.”

With all of these glaring issues, it’s difficult to emotionally invest in many of the attempts at adult themes and political undertones “Jupiter’s Legacy” offers up. The joyless, early-’00s superhero film vibe is simply too much to overcome, and the result is just a soap opera-y mess. The series strives to address the large political and philosophical divide between the younger and older generations, which is admirable enough, but Utopian’s children, Brandon (Andrew Horton) and Chloe (Kampouris) are too unbearably broody to empathize with. And, ultimately, when the big philosophic question of a superhero show is “To kill or not to kill?” without any complexity to that notion, what survives is something that feels painfully superficial.

In a day and age where superhero storytelling is constantly pushing the boundaries and blurring the lines of television and films via Marvel Studios and aforementioned shows like “The Boys” or “The Umbrella Academy,” “Jupiter’s Legacy” is decidedly dated and nearly obsolete. This series might have felt revolutionary nearly a decade ago (when the comic series was originally published), but today it just treads on tired and well-worn territory.

Worse, that “whole new universe that’s beholden to nothing else” boasts that Millar believes he has singularly created, feels awfully cliché, and, ironically, heavily deferential to universes that have come before. After only eight episodes, the show and the “new” universe Netflix has given us feels pretty spent, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for the upcoming Millarworld content as a whole. [C-]

“Jupiter’s Legacy” is available on Netflix now.