Ubisoft are a videogame publisher that I don’t hold in particularly high regard. Despite being one of the biggest names in the business, I despise their practices and the way they’ve managed to homogenise every single franchise they own into the same basic gameplay formula. The only franchise that they own that seems to have any personality left is Blood Dragon, and ironically that’s never had a standalone release, instead being parodic riffs of existing games in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Trials of the Blood Dragon.
But now Blood Dragon has expanded beyond the confines of video games and has a Netflix animated series to call its own. One that features appearances from multiple iconic U soft characters and properties, whilst crucially being its own thing.
In the far future of 1992, the Eden Corporation has taken control of the former United States of America, and governs its people with heavy military presence and saturating their brains with propaganda.
Dolph Laserhawk (Nathaniel Curtis) is a fugitive super soldier who when betrayed and left for dead by his partner Alex Taylor (Boris Hiestand) is inducted into an elite squad consisting of Bullfrog Assassin (Balak), Jade (Courtney Mae-Briggs), Pey’j (Glenn Wrage), and led by Warden Sarah Fisher (Caroline Ford). The fate of the world hangs in the balance and together they must take down Alex, and cripple Eden to see a brighter future.
Captain Laserhawk is pure dumb fun. A parody of cyberpunk, anime, and eighties action movies, this ‘Blood Dragon Remix’ as the subtitle denotes is just short of insane. Honestly what sold me on the whole concept was seeing Rayman (David Menkin) be a cocaine addicted and hedonistic mouthpiece for a fascist regime. Like who thought of this?! A genius, that’s who!
But now Blood Dragon has expanded beyond the confines of video games and has a Netflix animated series to call its own. One that features appearances from multiple iconic U soft characters and properties, whilst crucially being its own thing.
In the far future of 1992, the Eden Corporation has taken control of the former United States of America, and governs its people with heavy military presence and saturating their brains with propaganda.
Dolph Laserhawk (Nathaniel Curtis) is a fugitive super soldier who when betrayed and left for dead by his partner Alex Taylor (Boris Hiestand) is inducted into an elite squad consisting of Bullfrog Assassin (Balak), Jade (Courtney Mae-Briggs), Pey’j (Glenn Wrage), and led by Warden Sarah Fisher (Caroline Ford). The fate of the world hangs in the balance and together they must take down Alex, and cripple Eden to see a brighter future.
Captain Laserhawk is pure dumb fun. A parody of cyberpunk, anime, and eighties action movies, this ‘Blood Dragon Remix’ as the subtitle denotes is just short of insane. Honestly what sold me on the whole concept was seeing Rayman (David Menkin) be a cocaine addicted and hedonistic mouthpiece for a fascist regime. Like who thought of this?! A genius, that’s who!
The show did manage to have a surprising number of twists that caught me off guard throughout its six-episode run. The setup seems like the usual revenge story affair but come the end of the second episode all bets were off as the writers did just about anything they could to keep the show off kilter. The fourth and fifth episodes do tend to drag a little as they are primarily concerned with setting up the explosive finale, but they still keep things fresh with plenty of visual tricks.
Whilst Captain Laserhawk is an anime through and through, it does try to experiment as much as possible with different visual stylings. It draws on its video-game origins a lot by presenting sequences in a variety of retro game stylings such as 2D shoot-em-ups and top-down stealth sections.
But the show also dabbles with animating over live action sequences which gives the show a distinct feel amongst its peers.
Captain Laserhawk is a brief blast to watch, and I would recommend it for people looking for an adult cartoon, particularly those who are familiar with Ubisoft’s catalogue of work. It all just meshes together so well when it really shouldn’t, but that’s the charm of the Blood Dragon property that Ubisoft manage to nail every single time.
Personally, I’m quite looking forward to the inevitable season two.
Whilst Captain Laserhawk is an anime through and through, it does try to experiment as much as possible with different visual stylings. It draws on its video-game origins a lot by presenting sequences in a variety of retro game stylings such as 2D shoot-em-ups and top-down stealth sections.
But the show also dabbles with animating over live action sequences which gives the show a distinct feel amongst its peers.
Captain Laserhawk is a brief blast to watch, and I would recommend it for people looking for an adult cartoon, particularly those who are familiar with Ubisoft’s catalogue of work. It all just meshes together so well when it really shouldn’t, but that’s the charm of the Blood Dragon property that Ubisoft manage to nail every single time.
Personally, I’m quite looking forward to the inevitable season two.