3 Body Problem

3 Body Problem (2024) 

The creators of 3 Body Problem have the tremendous good fortune that the source material is packed with good ideas and piercing thoughts that hold up even in the banalising series version.  However, that’s still no reason to rejoice. Gone are the broad and engaging paradoxes/theories/disputations that were so faithfully preserved in the Chinese version. A few illustrations remain and they added some phrases that are supposed to sound cool but don’t actually say anything. The change of setting from China leads to a slightly strange lack of realism. Whereas authoritarian control of society is understandable under a communist regime, in the Western context the character of a cynical dandy who orders everyone around like an aging James Bond necessarily has a B-movie air about it. And there are more B-movie elements here. Rather than an adaptation of penetrating hard sci-fi, the whole thing comes across as a second-rate show about first contact with a few original ideas, which the series is unable to organically incorporate in any way. The variations on the book’s characters are also very problematic; particularly the catchphrase-spouting nerd played by John Bradley, who is reminiscent of Simon Pegg from Wish, and the horribly overacting Eiza González in the role of a sensitive prophetess of applied physics are extremely annoying. Benedict Wong as a Chinese detective from Manchester at least has a fine delivery, though even his character looks around for trash a bit too obviously. 3 Body Problem generally has the same problem that a number of Netflix projects have. There is a lot of utilitarian consideration for appealing to the broadest range subscribers while to some degree forgetting that in a good adaption, changes reinforce the dramatic/psychological impression of the whole and should fit together both conceptually and logically. In this respect, 3 Body Problem is reminiscent of a series based on muddled excerpts from the work of a slow student who has seen too many disaster movies. (2024-03-25)