The Umbrella Academy|| As Dysfunctional As It Gets.
For months on end, I listened to my friend talk so much about this Tv series. The rambling got worse when the final season of the Tv series came out in August this year. “Wongi, you should really watch this series “ was the only sentence this friend was consistent with. After all said and done, I decided to give the series a chance and if I'm being honest, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows from the start.
The first episode of the first season felt like a lullaby on a calm and cold night as it constantly sent me to sleep each time I tried watching it. Initially, I thought I was just too tired on the first day and so I tried seeing it some other time when I was more alert and again, I slept. Along the line, I resorted to seeing the movie whenever I felt like taking a nap and it always worked until it did not anymore.
About The Movie
One day in 1989, women around the world who were not pregnant at the start of the day gave birth to children. This strange phenomenon piqued the interest of a billionaire industrialist, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, who went ahead to adopt seven of them. He creates the umbrella academy where he trains “his children” to better harness their powers in order to serve and save the world.
Along the line, Sir Reginald Hargreeves dies, leading to the reunionof his children who had gone their separate ways. In a bid to solve the mystery surrounding the death of their father, they find out that the imminent end of the world is fast approaching and they have to work together to save the world. This is not an easy task as they are a dysfunctional family of superheroes who barely get along with each other. Nonetheless, they try their best to put aside their differences in order to save the world. The question however is, do they?
The Umbrella Academy is a four season series with ten episodes each in the first three seasons and six episodes in the last season. The first season of this series was released on the 15th of February, 2019 and the last season on the 8th of August, 2024. The main genre of the series would be action but sub genres include science fantasy, comedy drama and superheroes.
Season One.
In season one, we were introduced to all the characters and their superpowers during their reunion after their father’s death at the umbrella academy. Here, the siblings try to solve the mystery behind their father’s strange death while still trying to counter the effect of a looming apocalypse.
Season Two
After managing to escape the first apocalypse, the siblings are scattered around different years in the same timeline where they all attempt to create different lives for themselves. Little do they know that yet another apocalypse is looming and as usual, they have to fight against it in order to save the world. They search for Sir Reginald to guide them on how to stop the second apocalypse but he rebukes them and denies ever adopting such “Incompetent” superheroes. Once again, the siblings are faced with the challenge of saving the world on their own while still attempting to return to their original timeline.
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Season Three
At this point, the siblings are tired of apocalypses and of saving the world, but this doesn't mean that there isn't yet another apocalypse sitting pretty and waiting for them. In this new timeline, Sir Hargreeves adopts another set of superheroes and names his academy ‘The Sparrow Academy”. The sparrows seem to be better trained and tougher than the Umbrellas. This naturally causes hatred between the two parties but eventually, the two academies come together in a bid to stop the very vicious apocalypse.
Season Four
The person that discovered the atoms that give powers is revealed in the final season. On the flip side, a group of people have come together in order to eradicate the umbrella academy, in a bid to return to their original timelines. They named the process of eradicating the umbrella academy ‘ the cleanse’ .There is a whole back and forth as the Umbrellas fight to save the world or at least their lives.
Characters.
Colm Feore as Sir Reginald Hargreeves:
He is the industrialist billionaire who adopts the kids with superpowers and attempts to teach them how to reach their full potential.
Tom Hooper:
He goes by the name Luther and the number “One”. Luther was the first of the adopted children and his super power is super strength.
David Castaneda:
He goes by the name Diego and the number two. His special ability is throwing knives. Whenever Diego throws a knife he never misses, irrespective of the distance.
Emmy Raver-Lampma:
She goes by the name Allison and the number three. Her special ability is making people do whatever she wants them to do. However, she has to start the sentence with “I heard a rumour…”
Robert Sheeman:
He goes by the name Klaus and the number four. Klaus was one of my favourite characters because of how free and nonchalant he was. His special ability is dealing with ghosts.
Aiden Gallagher:
He was addressed as number Five all through the movies. Number Five's special ability is time travelling.
Justin H. Min:
He goes by the name Ben and the number Six. Unfortunately, Ben dies as a kid but his special ability was controlling his inner tentacles.
Elliot Page:
Vanga turn Viktor goes by the number Seven. She happened to be the most powerful of the Umbrellas as she could turn her emotions into energy and could wipe out an entire fleet of people with just her thoughts.
My Opinion.
I think the first two to three episodes of this series felt dull for me because of the lack of adequate action. Along the line, all I wanted to do was just watch the series because of how entertaining and engaging it got.
Irrespective of their differences or how many times the Umbrellas called themselves ‘dysfunctional’, I like how they still always came together to try and save the world as a family.
All of the characters were striking in their own way as they all fit into their roles as a glove would into a hand. However, one character that particularly awed me was number five. He is the sibling who could time travel and during one of his time travel sojourns, he was stuck in time for forty-fives years. He eventually returned to his original timeline but he was stuck in the body of his younger self.
Technically, he became the oldest and wisest of the siblings because of this incident. However, it always got so interesting whenever he was dishing out instructions, advice and threats to people who were older looking than he was. For a teeneger at the time of the movie production, I would say he killed his role.
Recommendation
The umbrella academy was a really interesting watch even though it took some time for me to get used to it. Do I regret watching the series? Definitely not. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. I am certain that anyone who watches this series would find something intriguing about it because it was a fine mixture of different genres.
Here is a sneakpeak of Five in action
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Love🤍
I watched this as escapist entertainment. I didn't see any overarching theme or message. Some familiar stuff, like bad fathers are bad for kids. Or, don't mess with mother nature because mother nature will mess with you and win in the end. I can go on and on, but overall, it was just a way to pass time at the end of a busy day when my mind didn't want to do any work at all.
However, I did keep going back, so obviously whatever formula the film makers used, worked. It's certainly geared toward a young audience, a very young audience. That's not me, but still, it held my attention, somewhat.
Good review. Helped me recall some of the action (to which I didn't pay a lot of attention when I watched this).
This is it! One thing I noticed was that the ending of each episode was triggering. I just wanted to find out what was next!
But like you said, It was a pretty good watch:)
Thank you so much for your support✨
se ve buena y entretenida, buen post!
looks good and entertaining, good post!
Thank you dear.
The Sir Reginald makes me to remember one politician that wanted to marry 300 orphan to produce children....and according him, he's going to do that to alleviate the orphans from poverty 😅.
This movie sounds nice. But you don't do series before 😅
There was a politician that said this? In this world?😂
Yes. Yes. I never used to like series but recently, the series I've come across have been good. I'm even seeing another series currently.
When last did you watch a movie🌚?
Sure!!!! A senator in the north. Trust northerners😅
That's a good change on you.
I've been doing movie every week. It's just that I use almost a year to complete a series 😅
😂😂
It happens sometimes. Especially with the long and boring series.