The Boys Review – ★★★★★

Certificate – 18
Showrunner – Eric Kripke
Starring – Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Elisabeth Shue, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell.
Running Time – Each Episode 1 Hour (8 Episode)

The Boys is one of the most popular comic books that aren’t under the Marvel or DC Comics banner and I’m sure this is the first time you’re hearing about this show and the comic.

I didn’t and still don’t know much about the comic, but when the first official trailer was released I was gripped and excited to see this show.

So last week (July 26) Amazon Studios on their Prime streaming service with the help of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg brought the Garth Ennis comic to life and released to the public. Yesterday (July 30), I finished the fantastic first season.

What Is The Boys About?

Well, this is going to be tricky to explain, but let’s give it a go.

When superheroes abuse their superpowers instead of using them for good, The Boys embark on a heroic quest to expose the truth about The Seven and Vought, the conglomerate that covers up their dirty secrets.

Before I continue this review won’t be spoiler review, so read and enjoy.

Is It Any Good?

In the spirit of this show, FUCKING HELL YES!

The Boys is the best piece of entertainment, either TV or film, I’ve seen this year. It’s utterly fantastic.

My biggest worry was that it was just going to be full of bro/laddish humour that’d get boring quickly, sex, drugs just a lot of cliché stuff. Yeah, they have that stuff, but the jokes always work, the social commentary (without being in your face) makes an impact, there plenty of nudity but it’s full-frontal men instead of women.

The weirdness works brilliantly and the music chooses blend with the show.

The writing for the show is incredible, from handling social issues to satirising superheroes (The Seven are the Justice League) and the superhero franchises. As well as the business speak from those in Vought and the quick turn to The Boys themselves.

What the show does well is the balance as we follow two rookies as they grow and become new people. Moriarty’s Starlight as she enters the world of The Seven and Hughie, played by Quaid, becoming one of The Boys.

The cast is phenomenal, everyone does an incredible job.

Shue as Madelyn Stillwell as some brilliant business dialogue and her chemistry with Starr’s Homelander is gripping as you can see they have this fucked up relationship. Speaking of Starr, he steals the show.

Homelander is such a layered character as we see him continue his rise (or descent depending on how you see it) into becoming mentally stronger and dominate. He’s also got into great superhero shape similar to Chris Evans and Henry Cavill.

Plus love the way he moves his cape before sitting.

Meanwhile, the other Seven members show signs of things to come and we see their characters go into a different direction in season two, especially the arcs of McElligott’s Queen Maeve and Crawford’s The Deep.

Shoutout to Crawford who made a character who could have easily been cheesy into something more well deep.

Elsewhere, Fukuhara is superb as The Female for a character who doesn’t speak has so much going on and sympathy in her face and there’s a moment in finale that made me smile and go “yay”.

Her relationship and chemistry with Capon’s Frenchie and it’s beautiful to watch.

The one thing I love is the growth of Hughie and the way the show handles mental health and panic attacks because as someone who does suffer from them they got it pretty spot on.

Finally, Urban is great and his speech about the spice girls is fantastic and the final episode makes you question if he’s a hero and just a dickhead or the villain and a dickhead.

Anything Bad About The Show?

I wish Amazon promoted this show more and get people interested as this show should have the same buzz of anything coming out of Netflix and it could be the same cultural impact as something like Stranger Things.

As for the show itself, I wish I knew more of the time frame the episodes take place because everything moves fast if each episode is a day of the week.

That’s it, that’s my only tiny issue.

Verdict

WATCH THIS FUCKING SHOW!!! It’s the best thing I’ve seen this year.