Review : "the Sandman"

Neil Gaiman's 1989 take on the Sandman, was one of the first comic books I paid attention to that was not costumed superheroes fighting. It was darker and more surreal, which is what the Netflix adaption managed to capture the tone of. How true where they to the comics themselves, well that is another matter. The teleplay was adapted by Neil Gaiman, along with Allan Heinberg and David Goyer and a rotating room of writers handling the other 9 episodes, which speaks to the often hit or miss storytelling that plagues the show overall.  This results in the last four episodes to having the consistent momentum that powered the first few episodes that hooked me in at first even where things like gender flipping John Constantine was in play. Sure, Johanna is in the comics and the Victorian version of the character is shown, this version is used in place of the more popular male one in the modern timeline.  Like most comic book adaptation's if things had kept closer to the books, they would have been better as the further from the comics it drifted the worst it got as well. 

The shows strongest point was the casting of Tom Sturridge as Morpheus, which captured his look as well as generally feeling like the character.  The Corinthian was also well portrayed by Boyd Holbrook. Aside from that the only casting risk that worked was Gwendoline Christie's role as Lucifer. DC's take on this character was popular in the Television depiction, but Christie's performance was more in line with the comic books. But this did not work as well with the changes to John Constantine, who has already seen two previous incarnations brough to the screen. The most unfortunate mistake made was the casting of Death, which only worked in wardrobe but not on any other level, as the acting lacked the characters' charisma, and since this was one of the series most iconic characters. This might have been why they were only featured in one episode I do like John Cameron Mitchell as an actor since Hedwig is one of my favorite movies, I am not sure his role was all that needed. 

There were portions of episodes and themes from the comics that came across nicely such as Morpheus' 100-year friend and his trip to hell. Then there was character development too focused on character that were not part of the endless, which could have been edited down to make room for the more important comic in fact as the series progresses, we break away from the focus being on Morpheus and moves into trying to make you sympathize with characters who never show their worth to the story as a whole. Desire and Fiddler's Green. The series does allow them enough time to work in multiple stories from the comics, which readers will readily recognize, and people going in cold won't know either way what is accurate or not. There were engaging and entertaining episodes, but the show loses its momentum and focus as it progresses and uses magic to bandage the plot holes. You are going to read a lot from fans on social media who cannot find faults in the show, because they have waited so long to see this brought to life that they will watch this through rose colored glass and nostalgia will trump objectivity, when this take what we can get from Hollywood kind of thinking is what made this show suffer in the first place.