‘Twisted Metal’ Review: Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz in Peacock’s Fast, Fun Video Game Adaptation

With its rave reviews, three-month window of cultural supremacy and 24 Emmy nominations, HBO’s The Last of Us gave all subsequent game-to-screen translations an exhilarating new freedom. It’s no longer necessary for an adaptation to bear the weight of an entire genre’s credibility. “Greatness” has been achieved and it’s now fully acceptable for a video game adaptation to simply be “decent.”

Huzzah!

Peacock‘s new series based on the venerable and versatile Twisted Metal franchise is — and I mean this generally as a compliment — quite decent. Both as colorful and as deep as a shimmering oil slick on a sweltering stretch of abandoned blacktop, Twisted Metal lacks the budget and ingenuity to consistently live up to the game’s sense of unrelenting mayhem. But its limitations make room for a solid character-based story to develop around stars Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz. 

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The video game, which debuted way back in 1995, was basically a glorified demolition derby, with the flimsiest of narratives connecting the mano a mano — or rota a rota, if you want to modify the Latin — showdowns between different souped-up vehicles against an apocalyptic backdrop.

Series developer Michael Jonathan Smith is using these first 10 episodes (all admirably zippy at a half-hour apiece) to establish the premise, sprinkling enough Easter eggs — some subtle and some egregiously on-the-nose — to keep game fans engaged without giving them what they actually want: The titular Twisted Metal tournament is being set up for a hypothetical second season.

Set 20 years after a computer bug divided the country into cities under martial law on the one hand and an “outside” populated by criminals, desperate survivors and their descendants on the other, Twisted Metal begins as the story of John Doe (Mackie). John, who has no memories of his past or even his real name, is a so-called milkman. In his heavily modified car — license plate “EV3L1N” — he lives on the outside, driving from city to city making deliveries of anything rare and desirable but never being allowed inside the blockaded urban centers. Then Raven (Neve Campbell), mayor of New San Francisco, makes him an offer: If he can do the perilous drive to New Chicago, acquire a package and bring it back in under 10 days, he’ll receive citizenship and a secure place within New San Francisco.

John accepts the deal and soon meets Quiet (Beatriz), a scrappy scavenger on a mission of revenge against sadistic lawman Agent Stone (Thomas Haden Church). Forced into an uncomfortable partnership, they encounter a sadistic Vegas-loving clown named Sweet Tooth (the voice of Will Arnett and body of wrestler Joe Seanoa), as well as various other sadistic denizens of the open road, and experience different communities of castaways — most sadistic and some disreputable but functional.

Occasionally there are elaborate car-based stunts, with DIY artillery to increase the chances of carnage. But just as frequently — and clearly more consciously of the precious budget — the menace stems from banal outposts of the bygone civilization. It’s all amusing, without offering more satirical heft than “Clowns are creepy” or “Religious fundamentalists are creepy” or “The DMV is creepy.”

Would fans of the Twisted Metal brand even want more nuance than that? Early episodes suggest not, especially with Deadpool veterans Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick as executive producers and developers, contributing a presumably familiar surface-level snark. Kitao Sakurai, director of several of my favorite Dave episodes, conveys ample energy, but Twisted Metal quickly becomes wearying, overly proud of its rowdy tone without often doing anything audacious. After the fourth or fifth gory action scene juxtaposed against a poppy early ’00s hit and the fourth or fifth blending of torture and ostensibly witty rejoinders, I was ready to check out.

It’s around the fourth episode, in which Quiet and John Doe encounter a very queer-friendly convoy of survivors and bond amusingly over the only available movie at a multiplex, that Twisted Metal begins to grow up a little — to move beyond its Gleefully Sadistic Sadist of the Week (sorry for the repetition, but this show definitely gets off on its perpetrators of cartoonish violence) and take an actual interest in its characters. A later episode giving Quiet’s backstory doesn’t lack for violence and kink, but it’s grounded in emotional pain. These two episodes (the best in the season and both directed by Maggie Carey) put a welcome emphasis on the show’s two leads rather than exploding cars or exploding heads, benefitting the surrounding installments as well.

Mackie is loose and funny in a way too many of his projects forget he can be, and if John Doe is frequently pleased with his own supposed cleverness far beyond the character’s actual cleverness, I blame the Deadpool DNA. Beatriz thrives in the more dynamic role, covering the wide range between sullen and traumatized and contagiously giddy as she becomes more involved in John’s milkman world. A relationship between the characters, which is initially unconvincing, eventually gives the show the heart it desperately needs, though a sameness to their bickering/bonding cycle eventually sets in.

The cast’s other big names are more like guest stars, with Church delivering effective square-jawed surliness and Campbell coming across as cheery in a way that’s instantly suspicious. Jason Mantzoukas is properly crazed as a debauched preacher, while Chloe Fineman’s one-episode appearance as a woman from John’s past suggests she’s ready for her choice of Saturday Night Live-adjacent vehicles. The blending of Seanoa’s physicality and Arnett’s snark gives the manic Sweet Tooth unexpected depth, despite a backstory lifted wholesale from Jordan Peele’s Nope. Jamie Neumann and Richard Cabral add valuable, almost dramatic, support.

It’s a bit odd for any series to spend a season opening up its world only to set up a seemingly less expansive (if more expensive) second season, but fans will probably be happy. Generally, Twisted Metal is fast and fun and definitely won’t be in the running for any Emmys, much less 24. And that’s OK!