Hello My Movievaures! I hope you are doing well even though many countries are on lock down again (France included). I know these are difficult times for many of us but I hope you’ll find some joy and entertainment thought shows and movies as I’ve been doing lately since we all need to be self isolating again. Anyways, today I’ll be comparing two new releases on Netflix: La Révolution & The Barbarians. I know, you might be surprised by the fact that I’m not writing about The Mandalorian – season 2. Nevertheless, I’ve chosen to do an article at the end of it, as I did for Season 1 (article here) instead of commenting and probably spoiling every episode. This way you will not be spoiled and you’ll have an overall overview of this new season.

With this clarification finished, let’s get into it! La Révolution and The Barbarians were both released in October on Netflix. Even if the main plot and stakes are absolutely not the same, they have many similarities: historical series, foreign countries, dark stories, violence and a lot of disappointment. Yes, you read it well: disappointment. I will not be tender with both shows as they had a lot of potential and it was wasted with bad dialogues, recycled stories and predictable endings. Netflix has a long story of really good shows, but also a lot of crap, and even though The Barbarians was slightly better than La Révolution, they are both, in my sense, in the bad shows category. This is unfortunate as I was hoping to see more non American shows on Netflix; La Révolution being French of course and The Barbarians German.

La Révolution, as its name indicates is based on France’s revolution period around 1789. Nevertheless, it’s not quite an historical show as they chose to reimagine the story with supernatural elements. As usual, no spoilers ahead, I’m not saying anything that is not on the trailer. There is a sickness, that will change France history for ever, opposing commoners and the aristocracy. Even if I’m French, and I quite like the original story, this is not the reason why I didn’t like this show. The problem with La Révolution is that there is no consistency whatsoever. The main storyline around the war that is starting between the poor and the rich is clouded by bad dialogues, uninteresting characters and many plot holes. I’m not saying the actors are bad, but they were clearly not directed well and their characters don’t make us feel anything else other than indifference. The only thing that I liked about this show is the Picture overall. The colours and contrasts were good and even if sometimes the CGI was not realistic, mainly they did a good job. There is actually not much to say about it, other that it is quite disappointed to throw away such a good storyline and historical period of France in such a bad show.

The Barbarians… As I said before, less bad but not good. I’ve heard about this show more than La Révolution. The trailer was promising and lately German shows on Netflix were pretty good (AKA Dark) so I was quite excited to watch it. I started episode 1 in its original language as I hate how the lip sync is done in every show or movie, and I don’t care reading subtitles. Of course, I didn’t needed any for La Révolution as I’m French, but unfortunately I don’t speak German. Anyways, from the first 5 minutes I understood where the story was going and how cliché the show was going to be. They tried to make a mix between Rome and Vikings, but the result was not good. The characters are the same you can find in every show of the same kind: the strong sexy warrior, the heroic leader torn between two worlds, the misunderstood hero and the bad guy strongly attached to his culture and beliefs. I’m not saying the characters are bad, neither the acting, is jus that it is not original at all. I could have written the story myself, from every show of the Roman Empire I watched. The violence is there, the rituals too. I really watched the whole season in one day, without any excitement whatsoever. At least, the dialogues were not as bad as La Révolution.

In short, this new releases are not incredible. I was looking forward to some quality shows and all I had was two uninteresting ones. Fortunately for us, other shows have been released, not only on Netflix (Alguien tiene que morir, The Queen’s gambit) but on other platforms (This is US, The Mandalorian, Supernatural…) too. Anyways, you might disagree with me but either The Barbarians or La Révolution were quite disappointing and we expect more of a brand such as Netflix. Hopefully, they will not get used to such bad quality and clichés.

This is all for today My Movievaures! Let me know your thoughts on both show in the comments down below or on Instagram (the_movievaures). Next week, I will keep the momentum with another foreign TV show, but better this time. See you soon, on The Movievaures and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram for more news and reactions.