madmat22_de
At first: Excitement! A cool franchise, original cast, Tim Kring - what could possibly go wrong?Well.. a lot.Being an avid fan of "Heros", loving it for the consequent comic panel shooting style, really "close to heart" characters, balanced scripting and its refusal to black/white schemes... I really got my hopes up when "Reborn" hit Amazon Prime.Even though the original suffered notably from the strikes of the writers guild from season 3 on - it never got as bad as Reborn is.Cheap CGI, cliché characters, desperate trying to cling onto the remainders of the original feeling by confining whats left of the old cast into their old roles. Adding see-through conspiracy theory background doesn't help the plot and so don't all the beatings, fist & gun fights. Hardly 5 minutes without someone being beaten, strangled or shot at, for no obvious reason.There are no surprises here, nothing that's capturing your imagination and no "George Takei flashing a NCC-1701 license plate"-moments...Rewatch "Heros 1-3" instead and you're better off by far.
gridoon2018
I went into "Heroes Reborn" expecting a belated cash grab, but what I found was arguably the second best season of the "Heroes" universe as a whole, after season 1 (I also like the first half of season 3). It starts out intriguingly, takes off in the standout 7th and 8th episodes (in which an old favorite returns in a key part), and ends more strongly than any season since the first. It's tightly constructed, with some well-disguised major twists & revelations which are worthy of "Doctor Who" at his best! The special effects are spectacular for TV, and the new characters are generally engaging. The show is notably more female-centric than its "parent"; there are more women, they play more important, stronger (in both senses of the word) roles, and quite a few of them are stunning, to boot (my favorite: Nazneen Contractor - what a woman). The series is self-contained but leaves you wanting more, and I for one would like to see more. *** out of 4.
westsideschl
1. Loaded with borrowed (stolen?) film hooks from other similar films. Super power (what ever that means) human(s) being pursued by evil gov/corporate group headed by, usually, (trending now) female nasty. 2. Cheap graphics & CGI effects, e.g butterfly that looks like a child's cutout; fake fire; paper appearing cut outs of flying people. Lots of shots of the Aurora Borealis as filler. 3. Juvenile dialogue oriented to the under 16 audience to help understand what's going on. 4. 75% of the film is standing around with robotic talking/acting. A lot of it just to prolong/lengthen film as filler to make four discs. The acting (ha!) extras look really fakey amateurish (especially the panic running scenes). And, always found in these films is a scene of cars abandoned with debris strewn about; all look artificially placed by the props people. 5. The science would get a failing grade in a middle school science class. Instant transporting of people with a thought - think about it. Flying, OK, well everyone is doing it in film so it's just second nature now. Add to that the stopping time then moving things around - just Gawd awful writing. Stopping a world wide Earth destroying storm by screaming while holding your arms up? Solar flare causes the Earth's magnetic poles to reverse - sorry, that won't pass middle school science either.
The Dude
I was a MASSIVE fan of Heroes throughout its original run. I thoroughly enjoyed all 4 seasons and was still watching it religiously after 90% of people had jumped ship by the end of Season 4. I picked up & read every little bit of information that would add to the lore & immersion of the Heroes universe & just simply loved the whole concept. So when Reborn was announced I was overwhelmed with excitement, but at the same time I was very, very cautious as to how and if they were going to be able pull it off, as historically reboots are often complete flops. Knowing that Noah (played by the excellent Jack Coleman) was returning gave me at least some peace of mind as he was the anchor of the whole show, but I still went in to the premiere will extremely low expectations. That being said, even with these low expectations, I've come away after 13 episodes feeling HUGELY disappointed, and absolutely LIVID with the finale.The show failed in pretty much every category it could fail in. The writing was awful. The actors were poorly directed. The script was shocking. The pacing was ludicrous. The CGI was absolutely cringeworthy. The character arcs were laughable & character development in itself was virtually non-existent - which resulted in literally no reason to passionately care about any single person unless they were a well developed character from the original series. Every now & then there were glimmers of what made the original series so great, and the June 13th two-parter was simply superb. But on the whole, if Reborn was a standalone series & it didn't rely so heavily on people clinging to nostalgic memories of the original, then I don't think it would've managed to retain even a fraction of the viewership that it ended up holding on to.As much as I absolutely adore the Heroes Universe and the original characters, Reborn has to be the worst high-budget network show I have watched in my life. It is an insult to the original & Tim Kring should frankly feel ashamed of himself.If you're a fan of the original like me then for the love of Sylar stay away from Reborn. It will do nothing but taint your fond memories of the original series.