Here are my thoughts on The Umbrella Academy aka my Umbrella Academy review. It’s a series which will be streaming on the platform starting February 15.

About The Umbrella Academy:

On the same day in 1989, forty-three infants are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. Seven are adopted by a billionaire who creates The Umbrella Academy and prepares his “children” to save the world. Now, the six surviving members reunite upon the news of their father’s passing and must work together to solve a mystery surrounding his death. But the estranged family begins to come apart due to their divergent personalities and abilities, not to mention the imminent threat of a global apocalypse. The Umbrella Academy is based on the comic book series created and written by Gerard Way, illustrated by Gabriel Bá, and published by Dark Horse Comics. The show is produced by Universal Cable Productions for Netflix, with Steve Blackman serving as executive producer and showrunner, and additional EPs Jeff F. King, Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg, Gerard Way, and Gabriel Bá.

Launch Date:  February 15, 2019

Created for Television by: Steve Blackman

Executive Producers: Steve Blackman (Showrunner/EP), Jeff King (EP), Keith Goldberg (EP), Mike Richardson (EP), Gerard Way (Co-EP), Gabriel Bá (Co-EP)

Produced by: Universal Cable Productions for Netflix

Series Stars: Ellen Page, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Colm Feore, Adam Godley, John Magaro, Ashley Madekwe, Kate Walsh

# of episodes: 10 x 1-hour episodes

Filmed in: Toronto, Canada

• Opening the first episode with the classic “Phantom of the Opera” with a twist was a great idea! Loved how its juxtaposed with the introduction of the seven kids who make up the Umbrella Academy.
• The imagery for the entire series is sick. Loved that scene with # 1 standing on the moon when he gets some sad news about their adoptive “father”.
• If there’s any character that needs to be explored and fleshed out even more it would have to be Number 6 aka Ben Hargreeves aka The Horror…

• I’m really enamored with their song selections in this series. The Umbrella Academy dancing to Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” was one for the books. And then there’s the last song for the finale with Gerard Way’s version of Hazy Shade of Winter originally by my all time favorite girl group “The Bangles”

• The violence and gore for this series is just ugh. I like it and they definitely upped the ante on this aspect. Its also through the violence that each member of the Academy dishes out that viewers see how ridiculously powerful these kids/ adults were, something that the source material also does a good job at.
• The visuals they used for the whole series just kept getting better and better. You could really see that Netflix pulled their A-Game to give fans a visual treat in this series.

• The series may have different route in some segments but the overall story is still there. Not spoiling anything but it does involve the end of the world as teased by Number Five aka The Boy.
• Each character was done tremendously well for the series. I have to admit, at first I wasn’t really sold on some of the casting but man oh man, I’m glad I was wrong.

There’s a lot of strong character development for the first season which is also way it gets slow from time to time. But it serves its purpose well like in the case of Klaus who starts the series as an awful junkie and ends up with the best “hail mary” saves in the series. Even Diego’s character goes through some great changes as the story progressed.

There’s a certain duality for Ellen Page’s Vanya Hargreeves too as at times she serves as the series’ plot device and at other times the soul of the team. Very confusing but it helps make the story more engaging and appealing.

Hazel and Cha-Cha are surprisingly incredible characters. Mary J. Blige killed it as Cha-cha and while I liked how they plotted out Hazel’s story, we barely got to see the POV of Cha-Cha. Maybe she’s just a 2D character or maybe they didn’t have time to flesh it out with the time constraints for the story. Oh and yeah, I liked the lovestory for Hazel and Agnes’ budding love story.

I gotta admit, at first I didn’t like the Commission angle but as the story progressed, them and their nefarious plot for the world made a lot of sense with all the time-traveling hijinks that Five has been doing. It also did pad the run time for what’s supposed to be a straightforward story. For that they get a point deducted.

The Luther and Alllison romance was also elevated by that awesome dance sequence. Giving that an up.

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/NetflixANZ/videos/2764062923604641/” width=”500″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]

The Umbrella Academy Series Review – Verdict

This is easily one of the best series for 2018. Netflix needs to go and do more Image Comics stuff.

Special thanks to Netflix PH for the chance to review the series before its release in the streaming platform. The Umbrella Academy is now streaming on Netflix!

Follow me on Twitter at @thefanboyseo for more Umbrella Academy news and updates!