[7.0/10] Nine episodes in, and Gargoyles’s ability to create new villains is in question. Xanatos is the chessmaster. Demona is the turncoat. They’re both quality fixtures in the enemy department. But beyond that, we’ve only seen The Pack and a few random armored goons and bikers.
Granted, when your first five episodes are part of a series, it’s no sin to spend most of your time on major antagonists. Still, to maintain an episodic show, you need more bad guys for the heroes to fight than two. So here we get MacBeth, a combination of Van Helsing and a Bond villain who’s an experienced Gargoyle hunter and he is...pretty boring.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s elements of him that are interesting. Is he supposed to be the historical MacBeth or at least the real character from Shakespeare’s play? What exactly is his history with Demona to where he claims to have named her and his personal base has a stained glass window where she’s prominently featured. How did he become so adept at fighting gargoyles over the years?
“Enter MacBeth”, sadly, doesn’t answer any of these questions. Charitably, you could say the purpose is to create intrigue. Who is this grizzled-yet-suave old warrior who knows Goliath’s secrets and is capable of going toe-to-toe with him? But in practice, even the voice of Jonathan Rhys-Davies doesn’t lend the character the gravitas to create intrigue. Instead, he’s just a generic guy with a bunch of weapons who has one long fight with Goliath before escaping. There’s no there there, so far at least, and it makes this one a big whoosh of a character introduction.
It doesn’t help that the fighting is pretty dull. The fight scenes are cut together without any sense of geography, and the characters seem overly-expressive in combat in a way that weakens immersion. The best thing you can say about this outing’s middling visuals is that the animators use shadow and light effectively at times, lending more cred to Gargoyles claiming the title of Disney’s Batman: The Animated Series.
All that said, I actually appreciated the B-story here, with Broadway and Hudson listening to Elisa and finding a new home for the Gargoyles now that Xanatos’s release is imminent. Goliath’s resistance to abandoning the last vestige of the world he knew is understandable. But his friends’ point, however trite, that home is wherever the six of them are, is a heartening one.
Overall, “Enter MacBeth” plays as more generic than the average Gargoyles episode, with an inauspicious start for the show’s “new player.” But hopefully this is mere table-setting for the series to capitalize on MacBeth’s potential in better outings down the line.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-06-23T20:26:56Z
[7.0/10] Nine episodes in, and Gargoyles’s ability to create new villains is in question. Xanatos is the chessmaster. Demona is the turncoat. They’re both quality fixtures in the enemy department. But beyond that, we’ve only seen The Pack and a few random armored goons and bikers.
Granted, when your first five episodes are part of a series, it’s no sin to spend most of your time on major antagonists. Still, to maintain an episodic show, you need more bad guys for the heroes to fight than two. So here we get MacBeth, a combination of Van Helsing and a Bond villain who’s an experienced Gargoyle hunter and he is...pretty boring.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s elements of him that are interesting. Is he supposed to be the historical MacBeth or at least the real character from Shakespeare’s play? What exactly is his history with Demona to where he claims to have named her and his personal base has a stained glass window where she’s prominently featured. How did he become so adept at fighting gargoyles over the years?
“Enter MacBeth”, sadly, doesn’t answer any of these questions. Charitably, you could say the purpose is to create intrigue. Who is this grizzled-yet-suave old warrior who knows Goliath’s secrets and is capable of going toe-to-toe with him? But in practice, even the voice of Jonathan Rhys-Davies doesn’t lend the character the gravitas to create intrigue. Instead, he’s just a generic guy with a bunch of weapons who has one long fight with Goliath before escaping. There’s no there there, so far at least, and it makes this one a big whoosh of a character introduction.
It doesn’t help that the fighting is pretty dull. The fight scenes are cut together without any sense of geography, and the characters seem overly-expressive in combat in a way that weakens immersion. The best thing you can say about this outing’s middling visuals is that the animators use shadow and light effectively at times, lending more cred to Gargoyles claiming the title of Disney’s Batman: The Animated Series.
All that said, I actually appreciated the B-story here, with Broadway and Hudson listening to Elisa and finding a new home for the Gargoyles now that Xanatos’s release is imminent. Goliath’s resistance to abandoning the last vestige of the world he knew is understandable. But his friends’ point, however trite, that home is wherever the six of them are, is a heartening one.
Overall, “Enter MacBeth” plays as more generic than the average Gargoyles episode, with an inauspicious start for the show’s “new player.” But hopefully this is mere table-setting for the series to capitalize on MacBeth’s potential in better outings down the line.