The first four episodes of Love, Death & Robots Volume 4 feel like a blur. Everything happens so quickly that you respond with indifference. We see a band performance, we watch aliens taking revenge on humans, we follow a grieving woman who wants revenge, and a group of survivors come together to defeat the 400 Boys, who are...giants or gods? Does it matter? Absolutely not. Most stories in this anthology feel disposable. Their runtime is around 5–15 minutes, but your memory of them is even shorter. Love, Death & Robots is like Prime Video's Secret Level. Both projects have Tim Miller in common. I don't know what Miller is trying to achieve through these shows. If he wants to push the boundaries of storytelling, shouldn't he create a story first? Whenever violence erupts in any episode of Volume 4, we see images of blood flowing from severed heads, broken bones, wounded skin, and other smashed body parts. In an episode titled How Zeke Got Religion, a Nazi monster serves as an excuse for gory slaughter. Love, Death & Robots, like Secret Level, is given the tag of "adult animation," but such sequences look like the clumsy creations of a teenager. Within a few seconds, I mentally checked out. I think Netflix understood that I was not showing any interest in Love, Death & Robots, which is why it asked me thrice whether I was still watching the show. I was forced to click on "Continue Watching" due to professional commitment.
Every episode here is made by a different animation studio. Blur Studio is behind Can't Stop, Buck created Close Encounters of the Mini Kind, AGBO worked on The Other Large Thing, Luma Pictures rendered Golgotha, and so on. Hence, you can probably say that Love, Death & Robots is like a convention for animation studios. Everybody comes together to show off their distinct style so that a big executive/artist/director can hire the company of their choice by seeing their work. These anthologies are like résumés; they say that animation is a creative medium and that, according to your cinematic vision, you can select any one of the studios that have worked on Love, Death & Robots. However, not every episode is a bore. The Other Large Thing and For He Can Creep, with their "catty shenanigans," are diverting enough. But it's Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners that emerges as the best episode of Volume 4. Like a breath of fresh air, it (temporarily) removes the stink of creative bankruptcy from the show. A toaster feels bad for the bread that has to go inside its owner's mouth. A CCTV camera comments that its owner is dumb for having 1234 as a password. Then there is a smart toilet that proves to be the funniest part of this episode. If anyone deserves an award at this convention, it's the people who made this short: Aaron Sims Creative, John Scalzi, and Patrick Osborne.
Final Score- [2.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times