Umbrella Academy

100 Movies in 100 Days
Movie 28 Day 28
Umbrella Academy

Time to shake things up. We are living in a time of amazing streaming services and brilliant television. We have amazing miniseries, television series and movies being produced by Hulu, Amazon and Netflix. I decided to mix it up a bit and review a couple of great TV series I've recently come upon because they are just too good not to be talked about. I know it's a movie review blog but these shows are kind of like extended movies. Today, I'm going to take a look at the amazing Netflix series the Umbrella Academy.

To start off, I should let you know I have never read any of the Umbrella Academy comic books. I am a very big fan of the comic book genre, so I figured I would probably like this show as well. Plus my 14 year old nephew told me it was amazing! He said I would be on the edge of my seat until the very last moment. He was 100% correct! This show is action packed and will leave you guessing until the final episode.

The Umbrella Academy  has a unique beginning, it's never explained but you just have to let it go and go with it. One day, in the not-so-distant future, a group of women suddenly became pregnant and had children within minutes. We don't know why but we find out the children born on that day have special abilities. The billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves takes it upon himself to buy / adopt seven of these children and raise them to be superheroes. The show goes back and forth between present-day the future and the past. The timelines get a little confusing, you need to just let it happen and try to follow along. 

The children have a variety of abilities like super strength, space and time travel, mind deception but my personal favorite was Klaus. His ability is seeing and speaking with the dead. He had a difficult time coping with his abilities and turns into a drug addict. He says it's the only way to keep the spirits away is for him to be high. I'm talking very VERY high.  It's a very interesting to watch him spiral in and out of his sobriety trying to make sense of his abilities.

My other favorite character is Vanya, played by Ellen Page. She is the seventh adopted child but she is different from her siblings. She has been raised to believe she is not special. She has no powers or ability and was constantly separated from the other children. Her character is genuine, sweet and so human compared with the other children. Vanya reminds me of a normal child just trying to find her place in the world. The show does a wonderful job showing Vanya dealing with depression, anxiety and trying to fit in with her family.

I will say about halfway through the season of Umbrella Academy it starts to slow down a little bit, stay with the show. There is this weird side story about two assassins coming from the future to kill the children. It get a bit tedious but I promise it picks up in the last two or three episodes. It's an entertaining story with a brilliant soundtrack. The ending, oh my gosh I was totally mind blown so good! So if you have some spare time I highly recommend checking out the Umbrella Academy not only is it interesting and fantastic but it's unique and has a lot of important issues to discuss.