Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon is lower league, and knows it. Often it uses this fact to its advantage, because it means it can get away with things that would otherwise be unacceptable. You swallow it in Bay City (the fight with the naked Dichen Lachman clones!). Unlike Morgan’s original idea, the ending is more sensitive, making Kovacs nicer than he should be, but it doesn’t matter that much. The very decent work in terms of special effects is sometimes disrupted by senselessly incomplete shots that they could have easily looked out. In terms of acting, Kinnaman carries the entire show. Ryker’s guise is more charismatic than Kovacs original one, and so it’s good that he doesn’t take it off for the entire series. The action is pretty decent and the atmosphere on Earth of the future is really fine. I’m quite interested if we will be treated to another season and which guise he will assume next time, if there will be a next time. (10/03/2018)

A great hero, weaker visual effects (so on the level of Game of Thrones) and a story that slightly deviates from the book, especially in the second half, thanks to all the neon and drugs. Kinnaman is awesome. A promising start. (06/02/2018)

A feeble follow-up to the first season. The overcomplicated story and an even less charismatic package in which it's wrapped are spoiled by the obvious economizing on the production design. the pasteboard scenery and cheap special effects in Harlan’s world are just laughable compared to Blade Runner’s Earth. There’s less nudity and unfortunately less Dichen Lachman too. The action is chaotic and hard to follow. The only convincing and intelligible character is Poe. It’s watchable, but rather a missed opportunity. (06/03/2020)