Netflix’s 3 Body Problem review: A solid debut that could go further

In his 2008 science fiction novel The three body problem, Cixin Liu created a fascinating world where cutting-edge particle physics, virtual reality gaming, and Chinese history played a crucial role in shaping humanity’s response to an imminent planet-wide threat. He also seemed unfilmable. The depth of the book’s insights into cultural memory and the complexity of its central mystery made The three body problem Feel like a story that could only work on the page.

That hasn’t stopped streamers from trying, and last year, Tencent premiered its own live-action episodic version of Liu’s book. Netflix spent a fortune putting 3 Body problem in the hands of executive producers David Benioff, DB Weiss and Alexander Woo. Its adaptation is simpler and more diverse than the book in a way that makes it a very different type of story. It is often good, and very occasionally excellent, and serves as a crash course introduction to the basic ideas key to understanding the broader concepts that inform Liu’s later books.

But rather than confront the sophistication of the book, Netflix’s top priority with 3 Body problem He seems to be selling it like the next one. game of Thrones (Last series of Benioff and Weiss). And while it’s easy to understand why the streamer might want that, it’s hard not to see the show as a flashy but stripped-down version of the source material.

3 Body problem It involves a constellation of distinct narratives spanning multiple decades and generations. But at its core, the show is a compelling thriller about how the sins of humanity’s past come to shape its future. In a world where the scientific community has been rocked by an alarming wave of mysterious suicides, private intelligence officer Clarence Shi (Benedict Wong) and a group of researchers are drawn into a race to save the planet from destruction.

As a former MI5 and Scotland Yard agent, Clarence is no stranger to dark plots. But he is far out of reach in the worlds of theoretical physics and cutting-edge materials engineering. Meanwhile, scientist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) is also navigating uncharted waters as she struggles to make sense of what is happening to her colleagues and why many particle accelerator experiments are going wrong. The panic of the present pushes Jin to reconnect with her four best friends from college, and the dynamics of the reunited “Oxford Five” come closer to revealing a threat that will end the world.

Given the structural complexity of Liu’s books, it’s no surprise that Netflix’s 3 body is simplified in a much more linear way that makes it feel like Lost-Mystery style within a mystery that you are solving with Clarence. But it’s actually in 3 Body problemIn the main group of characters you can see more clearly the steps that Benioff, Weiss and Woo took to rework Liu’s ideas for a more global audience.

Before the book’s story in modern-day China really begins, Liu spends quite a bit of time on the past to give you a better understanding of the Cultural Revolution, the Maoist movement to purge society of capitalists and intellectuals. It is the Party’s reversal of these horrible policies – rather than embracing academia and scientific research – that puts China on the path to becoming a global superpower. And as the book moves toward the present, that historical context helps understand why a sudden and sustained increase in unexplained scientist suicides would lead the government to deploy counterterrorism agents to investigate.

In it In the novel, much of the initial mystery is rooted in the fact that its characters, such as former detective Shi Qiang (often referred to as “Da Shi”) and nanomaterials specialist Wang Miao, are solving it in isolation. Netflix’s answer to Da Shi, Clarence, is now British and has a softer, more contemplative presence than his cantankerous literary counterpart. The show also splits Wang’s character into the Oxford Five, an ethnically diverse group of friends consisting of Jin, research assistant Saul (Jovan Adepo), nanotechnology expert Auggie (Eiza González), physics professor Will (Alex Sharp) and sandwich magnate Jack (Juan Bradley).

Have the characters fumble in the dark on their way to solving the puzzle. three bodies It was one of many ways Liu reflected, at a microscopic level, the book’s broader ideas about the power of collaborative efforts versus the control that comes from individual decision-making. But because the show’s Oxford Five are all friends (and ex-lovers in some cases) who quickly begin to work together, the relationships drive the plot more than its existential puzzle. These changes bring a new level of interpersonal drama to the Netflix show that is not present in the book, especially for Auggie, who is haunted by visions of a glowing countdown that seems to be burned into her retinas. Dividing Wang into five distinct characters emphasizes the idea that it is possible to analyze complicated problems from a wide range of unique perspectives.

But because the Oxford Five are based on a single character and spend a lot of time talking to each other about theories about what’s happening, scenes focused on them often cause the show to take a moment to explain points of the story. It plots in ways that feel clumsy and inorganic. . This is less the case when 3 Body problem shifts its focus to the past and focuses on the life of Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng), a promising young astrophysicist whose entire world is turned upside down by the onset of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Like in the book, 3 Body problem really begins with Ye and how the personal decisions he makes, all informed by his experiences as a survivor of the Revolution, have an incalculable impact on the future on a global scale.

In both the book and the Netflix adaptation, Ye’s story is powerful and contextualizes the present in important ways. But the program is less willing to dwell on it. Rather than considering the political and personal effects of the Revolution, the series commits to being a thoughtful but easily digestible chronicle of the world preparing for war. An older version of Ye (Rosalind Chao) remains as 3 Body problem watch events unfold with conscious solemnity.

Meanwhile, the show invests in the messy lives of the Oxford Five and their flirtations with a piece of futuristic technology that immerses its wearer in an unimaginable world of puzzles, mathematics and role-playing games. The headset also gives the show a way to step outside the confines of the detective genre and into an otherworldly space that has the recognizable markers of science fiction, such as planets with multiple suns. Cleverly, 3 Body problem balances some of that predictability by placing many of its most imaginative and impossible pieces in the game where the strange combination of Netflix’s Signature Visual Look and an excessive amount of shiny visual effects. And it actually works as an advantage rather than a disadvantage here because of how unsettling it’s supposed to feel to play.

There are at least some truly impressive action sequences spread unevenly throughout 3 Body problemThe first season. But despite their terrifying beauty, they’re not enough to stop the show from feeling like Netflix’s proper attempt at distilling a literary masterpiece into eight hours of television. 3 Body problemThe first season serves as a solid introduction to this world, but by the end, it becomes clear that these episodes are really just laying the groundwork for an even larger and deeply complicated narrative. With the right plan, taking advantage of the wildness of Liu’s latest books could definitely take 3 Body problem to their next level in future seasons. But that will all depend on whether the program takes off.

3 Body problem It also stars Sea Shimooka, Marlo Kelly, Saamer Usmani and Eve Ridley. The series is now streaming on Netflix.