‘VisionQuest’ Episodes 1 and 2 Review - A Lifeless Marvel Series About Humanity

If Wanda Maximoff, in WandaVision, lived in her "bubble" using her, um, witch magic, then Vision, in VisionQuest, lives in his own "bubble" using, um, the power of his internal Mindspace. Couple goals, yay! There is, of course, a difference between the two "bubbles." Wanda, in her grief, took an entire town hostage, giving the series an opportunity to play with sitcom tropes, complete with a laugh track. In VisionQuest, Vision retreats into his mind to study both human behavior and himself. The latter is accomplished through replays of scenes from previous Marvel shows and movies, which Vision studies intently inside his private movie theater. As for understanding human behavior, an AI agent, F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), gives Vision feedback on his actions outside the Mindspace, where he lives as a normal human working as a waiter. She tells him, for instance, whether he smiled too much or too little and how other humans interpreted his smile. (Vision flashed a wide grin at the bar, prompting a customer to think he was hitting on his wife.) "Gosh, smiles are baffling," Vision confesses. Oh dear, you've barely scratched the surface of the vast iceberg that is the human experience.

Marvel gives its AI agents human bodies in VisionQuest. Apart from Brady's F.R.I.D.A.Y., we have Jonathan Sayer as U and Henry Lewis as D.U.M.-E (get it?), Emily Hampshire as E.D.I.T.H., and James D'Arcy as J.A.R.V.I.S. What's more, we also have James Spader as, drum roll, please, Ultron, whom we last saw as an android with a God complex in 2015. Instead of plotting world domination, though, this Ultron watches TV, orders food online, and passes the time locked up in a room in Vision's mind palace. That doesn't mean he isn't up to some mischief. His actions—leaking Vision's location to a bounty hunter named Paladin (Todd Stashwick)—inadvertently lead to a woman's death in the real world. Ultron insists, however, that whatever he did, he did to rouse Vision from his dull state of passivity. What's a few thousand dead bodies if the adrenaline makes you "feel alive"? Oh, Ultron, you psychotic beauty! Get that snazzy beard over here, will you? Let me stroke it gently before grabbing it firmly and yanking it back and forth and from side to side to knock some sense into you.

Then again, most of the corpses belong to Paladin's men. Paladin, huh? Sounds very Star Wars-y. Anyway, this bounty hunter is hired by a mysterious entity whom the subtitles identify as The Client. (We only get to hear his voice, muffled and filtered through a machine.) Does anybody have any early guesses about who it might be? I'm thinking this character might be played by Mary McDonnell because Wikipedia tells me she's been cast in an undisclosed role. Ooh, mystery! Or it could even be Doctor Doom. Go on, take a wild swing. But I digress. How are the first two episodes of this series? Well, they're... meh. Okay, bearable, fine. The only times I found myself wanting to doze off were when the characters talked to each other for more than a minute straight. The self-serious tone is almost anesthetic. Director Christopher J. Byrne displays little zeal for conjuring either drama or a sense of awe and beauty. The pallid images merely illustrate what's written in the script. Byrne works like an obedient little kid following the franchise's strict rules and guidelines. He dutifully kick-starts the engine, gets the wheels turning, and lets the established lore do the heavy lifting. Byrne might as well be one of the AI agents working for the creator, Terry Matalas, who, in turn, seems to be servicing the demands of Marvel's overlords, the guardians of the franchise. Isn't this how most directors function in this cinematic universe? Aren't they rendered inert and submissive? Perhaps, after finishing up with Vision, Ultron should try making these hired hands feel alive. He'd be doing everybody a great service.

Final Score - [3.5/10]