It pains me to say it, but for the first time, James Gunn’s newest project ‘Creature Commandos’ is not very good. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty bad.
With the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy under his belt, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and the upcoming Superman I was really starting to feel like Gunn could do no wrong. But alas, even God faltered when he created Lucifer and Elon Musk.
Creature Commandos seems exactly like the type of thing he excels at, so much so that people started to give him shit because he was apparently too cozy in his own lane. In their defense, a story about a ragtag group of outcasts banding together to fight a greater threat is no sliced bread. But that cozy zone made it feel like this series was already a hit, before it even premiered. Well, I got a little ahead of myself.
Seems Gunn also thought the formula was tired because Creature Commandos shakes things up to a debilitating degree. Being a series instead of a film, maybe he thought this Dirty Dozen pastiche was primed for a reworking. But in doing so, nearly everything has been handicapped and the show is a headache to watch.
The broader story of Creature Commandos is that of Rick Flagg Sr., the father of Joel Kinnaman’s late Rick Flagg, working under Amanda Waller (once again) to put together a team of monsters deemed Task Force M, as they go to a foreign country to protect a princess as the evil Circe and her goonsquad of incels try to kill the princess, putting the US access to the country’s oil in jeopardy.
Maybe a little convoluted, but with 8 episodes surely they’d have time to flesh it out… right?
Well, that’s exactly where the problem comes in. That’s the “broader” story, but every episode of the show is focused on one character in the team, giving them in depth flashbacks to paint their characterization more colorfully. It feels like the show is split in two, both halves dedicated to completely different stories and themes, rarely ever bleeding into each other.
Additionally, there’s Frankenstein. A character not on the official Task Force M team, wandering across the series, trying to track down the Bride to hopefully & finally be with her in marriage. Another little ripple that dedicates nothing to the broader story and shreds the screen time into smaller fractions.
From what I can tell thus far, Creature Commandos is supposed to be a little bit political espionage, a little bit monster B movie, a little bit situational comedy, a little bit action anime, a little bit drama, a little bit romance, a little bit serialized, and a little bit episodic. And it feels like the show has desperately tried to share the screen time with each of these equally, leaving it feeling like it is both all of these and none of these.
The themes and tones are constantly clashing with each other, the story feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, allegiances and goals are constantly shifting on a dime, detours and shortcuts are taken constantly, and the pacing suffers for it all the more.
‘Creature Commandos’ has already been renewed for a second season, so I hope that Gunn finds a bit more of an identity there. Maybe if most of the characters survive we’ll see a sharp and deliberate downtick in flashbacks and they can find a story to stick with that we can be engrossed in and not constantly pulled out of.
