Netflix has asked critics not to reveal any spoilers about The Umbrella Academy, but unfortunately for the streaming service, it’s already dreadfully easy to see the show’s every twist coming episodes in advance. That’s a problem the size of gargantuan astronaut Luther (Tom Hopper), the leader of the Umbrella Academy, a school for gifted youngsters run by Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore). An eccentric billionaire father figure in a dapper suit and monocle, Hargreeves adopted, in the late 1980s, a diverse group of kids who possess extraordinary powers—well, all do with the exception of Vanya (Ellen Page), a violinist whose ordinary nature makes her the black sheep of the clan. Not that her outcast status matters much, since most of the members of the Umbrella Academy can’t stand each other’s company.
Regardless of how much they dislike being together, these weirdo superheroes are by and large a likeable enough bunch, which partially offsets the fact that their saga feels like it’s been crafted from strands of superior works’ DNA.
Adapted by Steve Blackman from the Dark Horse Comics series created by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba, The Umbrella Academy is like a hybrid of Marvel’s X-Men, Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, Dark, Doom Patrol (soon to be its own DC Universe web show) and The Incredibles, marked by a combination of uncanny conflict and familial bickering, and scored to a cheeky collection of classic rock and pop hits. There’s time travel, romance, past traumas and sibling squabbling galore throughout its initial 10-episode run (premiering Feb. 8). Yet for all its personality and panache, it’s hard not to feel like the core demographic it’s courting—comic book, superhero, and fantasy fans—will be the ones most apt to view it as reheated leftovers.
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The Umbrella Academy opens on Oct. 1, 1989, when 43 women suddenly become pregnant and then give birth. Sensing that this is a cosmic occurrence, Hargreeves collects a handful of those tykes and trains them to harness their immense abilities. There’s Luther, the team’s enormously powerful boy scout; Diego (David Castaneda), a surly knife-throwing wannabe cop who wears a Robin mask and leather get-up; Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), a movie star with the power of persuasion (all it takes is a suggestive whisper); Klaus (Robert Sheehan), a junkie who uses drugs to cope with his capacity to commune with the dead; the unnamed Five (Aidan Gallagher), an arrogant time-traveler; and Vanya, who as previously mentioned, is an average girl who feels left out around these unique beings. They’re a motley multicultural family, raised to be do-gooders in a stately brownstone mansion by the domineering Hargreeves, their robot mother Grace (Jordan Claire Robbins), and Hargreeves’ anthropomorphic chimpanzee butler Pogo (Adam Godley).
There’s immense friction between these dysfunctional folks, as becomes immediately clear when, as adults, they’re reluctantly reunited—save for Five, who disappeared decades earlier—by the death of Hargreeves, whose suspicious demise instigates an investigation. Luther suspects that one of his brothers or sisters did the dirty deed, which naturally rankles everyone else. Complicating matters further, Vanya has recently written a bitter tell-all book about her upbringing that no one else OKed, and Five decides to use this funereal occasion to reappear via a time-space portal, out of which he emerges as an old man in a 13-year-old’s body. Apparently, Five has been stuck in the future for the past 45 years—and he’s come back to inform them that the world ends in eight days, and he has no idea how to stop it.
That’s just the beginning of an overstuffed tale also involving a pair of blue-suited assassins called Cha Cha (Mary J. Blige) and Hazel (Cameron Britton), a perky blonde mastermind known as The Handler (Kate Walsh), a detective (Ashley Madekwe) with ties to Diego, and a normal guy named Leonard Peabody (John Magaro) who meets, and falls for, Vanya, convincing her he’s the only one who sees that’s she’s “special.”
The Umbrella Academy provides intermittent flashbacks to flesh out its characters’ tormented histories, all while staging action-oriented sequences to songs like They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and Heart’s “Barracuda”—as well as many other subpar cover versions of well-known tunes. The intention is to energize the material with crackling brashness, and to be sure, the series boasts significant visual flair, replete with lots of shadowy locales illuminated by blooming lights, and a plethora of phony business logos that help lend its universe some idiosyncratic attitude. Still, as with Klaus, embodied by Sheehan with flailing smartass flamboyance, there’s a constant sense of the show trying too hard to make cool what, in the final tally, often comes across as old hat.
Many of Sheehan’s castmates play their roles relatively straight, bringing modest humanity to a sprawling story trading in apocalyptic stakes. Hopper, Raver-Lampman, and Castaneda are colorful without being ridiculous, and ably shoulder the proceedings’ more outlandish turns. Young Gallagher, tasked with acting like an elder amidst adult compatriots, pulls off his part with skill; he’s the most charismatic figure involved. Nominal headliner Page, on the other hand, takes understatement a bit too far, exuding a blandness that undercuts sympathy for Vanya’s dull plight. And Blige is mainly wasted in a secondary role that never develops beyond two dimensions, and is far less interesting than that of her partner Hazel, imbued with humorous heart by Mindhunter alum Britton.
The Umbrella Academy is a well-constructed machine, insofar as it manages to capably balance its various elements, doling out tantalizing clues and ominous insinuations while keeping its pace brisk and characters distinctive. The big bombshells lying in wait, however, are of a painfully predictable variety. Even if you aren’t well-schooled in the X-Men’s “Dark Phoenix” storyline—which will again be rehashed this summer in Fox’s Dark Phoenix film—it takes little effort or insight to decipher exactly who’s good, who’s bad, who’s really dead, what nefarious forces threaten to bring about the end of days, and how the heroes will stave off annihilating destruction. No spoilers required.
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