There are no
shortage of art history experts in an outrage about this Starz Originals
television series, specifically the complete and utter disregard for accuracy
and truth in creating a series about the famous Renaissance painter and inventor.
The fact is, this series shares as much in common with reality as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter did with
the life of our sixteenth president. While writer David S. Goyer added some
realism to the fantasy of Batman, he seems to have implemented a little bit of
fantasy into the life of Leonardo Da Vinci.
Tom Riley stars
as the enigmatically brilliant Da Vinci, an artist and inventor with a serious
case of attention deficit disorder. He has unimaginable energy that seems to
stem from a mind which never ceases to work, only slowing when he takes to
smoking opiates for relief. Not unlike Sherlock Holmes, he is also gifted with
physical aptitude not expected for a scholar or drug addict. This allows scenes
of swashbuckling action on top of the imagery created to allow us to see Da
Vinci’s mind at work. Add in an excessive of nubile bodies seeming to take a
cue from “Spartacus,” another successfully indulgent Starz Originals, and “Da
Vinci’s Demons” has plenty of guilty-pleasure spectacle.
I found the
first season of Da Vinci’s Demons fairly engaging, despite the obvious way the
series seems to have been concocted nearly as a Frankenstein of past successes.
With the writer of the successful Dark Knight trilogy, a period series looking
to capture a bit of the success from series such as “Game of Thrones” and many
imitators, and the excessiveness of “Spartacus,” this series looks like a
sure-thing. But I’m pretty sure they thought the same thing about
“Flash-Forward” as a copycat of “Lost,” and any other number of carefully
constructed failures. Only time will tell if this show will continue among the
mass of other period action/fantasy films.
The Blu-ray
release of the first season includes all eight episodes and an assortment of
special features on three discs. There are audio commentaries with
writer/creator Goyer and actors Tom Riley, Laura Haddock, Blake Ritson, David
Schofield and Tom Bateman. There are also four featurettes on the third disc,
mostly dealing with the period aspects and how Da Vinci’s life was adapted.
There are also deleted scenes and a second-screen promo.
Entertainment Value:
8/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 7/10
Historical
Significance: 6/10
Disc Features: 7/10
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