Twisted Metal premieres Thursday, July 27 on Peacock.
The long-running rude and crude Twisted Metal game franchise has shifted gears and become a live-action streaming series for Peacock, dialing up its gory gallows humor to 11 for an enjoyably batshit trek through a Mad Max-style dystopian America. It’s crazy, crass, and downright impolite with its surprising amount of heart. It’s a buddy comedy, social commentary, and hilarious blitz all in one.
Though lacking undead hordes, this is the Zombieland TV series we never got back in 2013 (when Amazon had viewers vote on which of the steamer’s 14 pilots would move forward). And it’s not just because the tones match up, it’s because Zombieland and Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick created the series and executive produced this warped Twisted Metal world – which isn’t all that dissimilar from the U.S. wasteland in Zombieland. Cobra Kai’s Michael Jonathan Smith served as showrunner, helping merge the comedy, violence, and warmth into a story that, against many odds, works pretty damn well. Much like Cobra Kai, which, on paper, has no natural right being as great as it is.
Not everything lands in Twisted Metal. A lot is thrown at the screen, and many jokes, both good and less-than, are given their day in court. The overall laugh ratio is high, however, and the pure lunacy of the premise makes for a very compelling journey. Addressing the “Thong Song” element in the room – regarding the clip that was released a month ago, featuring Anthony Mackie’s John Doe battling Sweet Tooth while Sisqo blares in the background – it’s clear that IGN was not a fan. I believe the headline was… well, see for yourself.
Yes, “remarkably bad” is how the scene was labeled. And, to be honest, I wasn’t a big fan either. I didn’t think it was awful but it certainly didn’t bode well for the rest of the show. Having now watched all of Twisted Metal, I’d be hard pressed to find any one scene that could stand on its own and represent this series well. It’s an all-in affair. It’s going to be polarizing simply because it goes extremely far with its goofs and gags and some folks may no longer have a taste for what was funny last decade. Twisted Metal is both engagingly smart and remorselessly dumb. (And speaking to “Thong Song” specifically, the show, much like Yellowjackets, Beef, and The Bear is a time capsule of ’90s tracks. So you’ll hear Cypress Hill, Liz Phair, Andrew WK, and even Aqua’s “Barbie Girl,” more often than not in absurd situations.)
As a non-Twisted Metal game player, the show is fun as hell. Will it work for those who have played the decades-worth of games? Of course, though, Twisted Metal is very much designed to attract and entertain the masses, having fleshed out and created an entire world – a workable sandbox – for its characters, including much deeper backstories. Sweet Tooth isn’t the only aspect of the game to make the jump to Peacock – but he’s kind of the only one that works. It’s almost as if the credo here was “In what world could this psycho clown exist?” Most other instances of game characters coming in feel like a square-peg/round-hole situation, though it’s not so clunky that it took me out of the story. It’s just that the larger lore, the vast and silly badlands backdrop that’s created for the series, is far more interesting and entertaining.
If game fans are going to get an extreme high from seeing Miranda Watts behind the wheel of Twister, then it’s all good. For someone unfamiliar with the franchise players (other than the lasting iconography of Sweet Tooth), it’s just very apparent when a story detour feels less organic because of the game. All that aside, Twisted Metal is way more focused on the jovial job at hand and the wickedly silly cross-country carnage brought about by Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Thomas Haden Church, and – in a joint performance – Samoa Joe and Will Arnett. Wrestling fans who only know avid gamer Samoa Joe through his stoic ring persona are in for a heck of a time as he wonderfully embodies Sweet Tooth. Yes, it’s Arnett’s voice you’ll hear, but the performance is largely Joe’s: He’s the one interacting with the rest of the cast on camera and fully embracing the physicality of Sweet Tooth’s wild mood swings.
Mackie plays a fun-loving dystopian courier (a “Milkman”) who’s named himself John Doe due to not being able to remember his childhood before the world’s collapse. And since we all know Mackie as Sam Wilson – moving from Cap’s sidekick to Cap himself – it’s fantastic to see him play a doofus. John Doe is definitely a hero, and more than capable behind the wheel, but he’s also a flawed bonehead. This not only plays against the persona Mackie has forged in the MCU, but also the Mad Max aesthetic itself. Plus, Twisted Metal effectively weaves in heavier themes of class warfare, racism, and police brutality, making for even more of a subversive swerve. Some of the crucibles that Beatriz’a initially silent car thief Quiet endures are fiercely traumatic, as the storytelling skills of Smith and his crew – as previously evidenced in Cobra Kai – blend several disparate tones into a successful throughline. It’s not seamless, since these styles naturally battle each other, but Twisted Metal still pulls it off.
Having lived his entire life outside of walled-up mega-cities (a little borrowing from Judge Dread/2000 AD, possibly?), John is offered the chance of a lifetime by city boss Raven (guest star Neve Campbell): Complete a pick-up-and-delivery mission and get a comfy spot inside the wall, complete with swanky apartment and soft toilet paper (a rarity on the road, like babies and pizza). On the drive from New San Francisco to New Chicago, John makes a bizarre “frenemy” of lavish Las Vegas showstopper Sweet Tooth (who loves to scream out the thing he’s throwing — “machete!” “woman’s body!”) while also getting mixed up in a fatal feud between Quiet and Thomas Haden Church’s Agent Stone – a former police officer obsessed with using deadly force to clean up the badlands. As notable game character, Stone is great as a roaming antagonist, though it’s mostly due to all the fresh textures and extra (new) backstory provided. Again, the games’ thin characters are given heft here.
Quiet (not her real name), on the other hand, is not from the games. (As far as we know.) And once she starts talking, it’s a blast to hear Beatriz’s voice in a way that differs from her two most prominent roles to date, Brooklyn Nine Nine’s Rosa Diaz and Encanto’s Mirabel. Twisted Metal shines brightest when Beatriz finds alarmingly cool chemistry with Mackie, just embracing some absolute bozo humor with their reluctant, bickering, “will-they/won’t-they” pairing and having them craft common goals from their very different priorities.
Twisted Metal won’t be for everyone. There might even be an inclination to trash it solely because it exists. But if you give into the vulgar lunacy, you’ll find great reward. Out of season 1’s 10 episodes, there are a couple that struggle to click – ones featuring game characters played by Chloe Fineman and Jason Mantzoukas (and they’re great performers, I know!) – though overall the show does a great job of providing us with episodic TV, with encapsulated stories, that doesn’t feel like a stretched-out movie (despite the entire season premiering on the same day). As the jokes fly, there are doozies and duds but the goofy energy present here is always off the charts. You’ll guffaw and groan, though definitely more of the former.
Twisted Metal is absurd and hilarious in exactly the ways you want a dystopian Cannonball Run to be. Yes, it matches the games’ crude humor but, mostly, it springboards from there and creates its own dark and warped wasteland sensibilities. During the back stretch of the season, there’s a little bit of joke fatigue, but the demented tapestry presented here, grown from the seeds of the games and expanded into something workable as an ongoing series, is delightful. Mackie and Beatriz play characters you root for but also love to see get into impossible situations. Meanwhile, Church and Joe/Arnett provide the “order” and “chaos” out on the open road, making for a believable powder keg of violence at all times. This show is so so dumb, as only clever people could achieve.
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