[Critique] Is Reality Z on Netflix worth a look?

The zombies on Netflix have become commonplace. The platform continues to add titles of the genre to its catalog, but success is not always there. This time, the Reed Hasting firm is banking on a Brazilian adaptation of the Charlie Brooker series (Black mirror), Dead set, to enrich its offer. Reality Z plunges us into the heart of a zombie apocalypse, where reality TV candidates find themselves locked away from the outside world. As chaos reigns in the Brazilian city, the film set for Olympo becomes the Eldorado of all the survivors. Thanks to its state-of-the-art security system, the house turns out to be the only refuge in town. A merciless war then begins to survive in a world where each represents a danger to the other. If on paper Reality Z has everything to please, its execution is not free from defects. In the first episode, the situation quickly degenerates and the spectators are carried away in a often unreadable stream of action. From the first minutes the real stake of this intrigue, the candidates who are not aware of what is going on outside, is defused to give way to a flood of bloody and frankly gore fights. Sometimes all the same, the series surprises us with its ambitious but uneven realization. Some scenes are worth a look.

Rather than focusing on the theme of confinement, the series Netflix prefers to embark on an awkward satire of a picture society. We won’t have enough fingers on our hands to count the number of successive shots on the screen. From the silly candidate who cries every time her cellmate lets go of flatulence, to the quiet character who delivers some philosophical reflections over the conversation, via the playboy who takes himself for lucky Luke, Reality Z does not miss an opportunity to disappoint us. If the starting postulate was interesting enough, the series falters in the course of its narrative. The first three episodes are painstaking, but the situation seems to get better in the fourth. When the series tries to introduce political reflection to its narrative, the sky seems to clear up. In a country marked by a heavy social divide, the story seems to be imbued with a new message. It is ultimately no longer the fight against ghouls that interests us, but the social struggle that is engaged. But then again, the series lacks subtlety and the result is not up to our expectations. There remains the desire to know the end reserved for the characters, who are for some endearing. Besides casting side, the clique is doing pretty well despite the poverty of the script and the insanity of the replicas. The main character played by Ana Hartmann is endearing, as is that of João Pedro Zappa. The Brazilian actor was praised by critics for his performance in the film by Fellipe Barbosa, Gabriel and the Mountain. But ultimately what is missing Reality Z, it’s the talent of Charlie brooker to portray a society. We therefore prefer to embark on the viewing of Dead set, in just five episodes. For Reality Z, we don’t know yet if the adventure will continue. Netflix has not yet given information on a potential renewal or not.

–