Kaleidoscope review: a generic heist story but a fascinating experiment

On the surface, kaleidoscope It’s a simple, albeit generic, robbery story. It has all the beats you’d expect: a vengeful backstory, a convoluted process of finding a team and coming up with a plan, and the satisfaction of watching that plan unfold.since then kaleidoscope‘s story spans about 25 years, and you get a lot of them all over the course of eight episodes. But that’s not what makes the show interesting. kaleidoscope It’s also an attempt to convey the kind of drama most viewers are familiar with, but it’s designed so that the episodes can be watched in any order. , kaleidoscope There is much to be desired.

The series focuses on Leo (Giancarlo Esposito), a career criminal and mastermind behind a scheme to steal $7 billion in bonds from a seemingly mysterious vault in New York City. To that end, he assembles his team of seven experts (meaning that the bounty will be split evenly among his $1 billion each) to steal money as part of a long-running revenge plan. The show covers such a long span that we get to meet Leo and the rest of the crew. This includes everyone from an enthusiastic safecracker (Jai Courtney) to a chemist (Rosalyn Elvey) who loves to experiment with new concoctions. — at various points in their lives.

But how you approach that story is largely up to you. There are certain episodes meant to be watched as a finale that cover the actual events of the robbery.I chronologically started looking at Leo as an up-and-coming jewel thief, and then as he got older in prison. closed it the next day PreviousThen I dove into the finale.

The order in which you watch the episodes does not change how the story unfolds. There are no interactive elements here. However, the order changes how we perceive each episode. I started chronologically so I already understood the history between Leo and Roger (Rufus Sewell). If I had watched it backwards, their backstory would have been a big reveal. The heist itself is central, with all the other stories revolving around it, giving you all the details you need so you can understand why certain events matter when you just got down.

The problem is kaleidoscope not the structure. It’s in the show itself. It’s very uneven. There are some fun action-packed heist moments. Especially the finale is a highlight. And I really enjoyed the ridiculously intricate schemes that included not only weird high-tech gadgets but also low-tech solutions like real bees (seeing how they are used is my favorite may be part of the But the storyline is packed with clichés, and none of the big reveals felt like a shock, at least in the order I’ve seen them. And while criminal gangs are often attractive gangs, they suffer from monotonous dialogue and, in some cases, some of the worst anti-aging makeup I’ve seen. It’s so bad to have trouble emote with your face.)

There are other elements that I feel are not particularly well thought out. For example, each episode is named after a color and the story is somehow related to it. The “Violet” episodes are related to specific jewellery, and the “Pink” episodes are related to childhood treasures. A good idea, but I often feel that the relationship between color and theme is tenuous and unimportant. On the technical side, Netflix’s insistence on automatically playing the next episode was a bit of an annoyance when I was trying to plan my own particular journey through this story.

I wish the show itself was more thrilling, kaleidoscope Works as a proof of concept. And it’s especially interesting that Netflix continues to experiment with non-linear, interactive storytelling away from the “choose your own adventure” style. Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Live-action video games like immortality (This is available on mobile only through the Netflix app). kaleidoscope is not the future of television, but it hints at future directions.

kaleidoscope Currently streaming on Netflix.