The Sentinels

"The Sentinels" is a French military cyberpunk imagining of an alternate WWI. It's based on a comic book series I've honestly never heard of but wished I had. I like its premise of a French special forces unit made up of super soldiers drugged up on a serum that leads to often unexpected outcomes.

Sets, costumes, and the atmosphere of smoky, dirty, war-worn cities and battlefields are skillfully done. Cinematography is excellent too, with slow-motion scenes that cut into polished action to help bring things to life. I can't fault the acting and characterizations either. You get a real sense of each character, their motivations, desires, ambitions, and shortcomings.

Where this series could have been better is in aspects of its scripting. At its core this should be a fast-paced action series, but instead it tries too hard to "also" be a drama. The result is the pacing is off; it's broken up all too often by shifts in scenes to accommodate the at times overstated personal drama that ultimately gets in the way.At times the script makes little sense too, for example, why try to turn a thin black woman, who is about to be executed for murder, into a soldier? No athletic male criminals available, who are not presumably dangerous, convicted killers? (DEI pandering perhaps?).

In summary, great premise, lots of promise, but let down by not adhering more closely to the fast paced, frenetic action, that should be at the heart of this series. An okay but at times irrational and frustratingly slow watch.