One of the most high-profile collections of animated shorts has returned for a fourth volume. Love, Death & Robots has brought us some unforgettable animated shorts in the past, but unfortunately this season is disappointingly average, with the majority of episodes being entirely forgettable… even the good ones.
As with any anthology, what you want is variety. There’s no use having a bunch of shorts created by different studios if they’re all going to leverage similar narratives and animation styles. I’ll kick off by giving credit where it’s due – this season has put together a good assortment of unique shorts that highlight new stories and different genres. It’s just a shame that the shorts they’ve compiled are mostly mediocre and all forgettable. There’s a couple of standouts, which we’ll get into, but even they can’t hold a candle to the greatest shorts from seasons past. When this season ended, it genuinely had me questioning how this was the best collection of shorts available. Every other season so far has had notable entries that are near 10/10s, including The Witness in season one, Pop Squad in season two and Jibaro in season three. If I gave anything close to a 10/10 to one of these shorts, I’d straight-up be lying as I doubt I’ll remember any of these beyond this week.
Let’s start with the best of the bunch – Spider Rose, How Zeke Got Religion and The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur make the best impression. Not only is Spider Rose gorgeous, but it’s tense, gripping and emotionally impactful. It introduces a rich, thriving world and does a lot of worthwhile visual storytelling. How Zeke Got Religion goes from a war epic to a supernatural horror and it highlights a meaningful character arc along the way. The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur is a little lighter on the story, but it introduces an intriguing concept and nails the action-packed fun. I mean, how can you hate dinosaurs in space? These shorts are great, entertaining me right through, but they fall short of being able to rave about them as must-sees. Unfortunately this is where the majority of my praises end in regards to this season. The rest of the shorts have a range of issues holding them back, whether it be a weak story or ending right where it gets good, but they’re all coincidentally narrative-related problems.
Sitting somewhere in the middle are Close Encounters of the Mini Kind, The Other Large Thing and For He Can Creep. The first of these is the second “mini” story in the series, and it’s decent. It’s one of those shorts that prioritises a quirky concept and a huge dose of crude humour over story. It’s a bit of fun so I don’t hold much against it, but it does lack impact. The Other Large Thing is a classic case of fumbling the bag. It starts off on a high with a great concept and comedy galore, but right when it starts to get fantastic it abruptly ends. The jarring role to credits did nothing but hurt this short as it feels entirely incomplete. The last of these three benefits from having the voice talents of Dan Stevens but can’t deliver a narrative that’s any better than average. It’s a little-more horror-esque, but doesn’t capitalise on its genre.
At the bottom of the bunch lies 400 Boys, Golgotha and Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners. The former benefits from fun, stylised animation, but the central conflict is weak, the characters are a bore and the whole thing makes for a strange journey to focus on. Next up, Golgotha is perplexing to say the least. It’s a live action short with a hint of CG animation, but it’s completely void of any sense of story, tone and purpose. It’s weird, it’s random and it’s terrible, to put it simply. I was waiting for the revelatory hook that would make it make sense, but it never came. The latter is another “just for fun” type short, but it remains entirely pointless. It’s just high-profile comedians rattling off one-liners as common household appliances. I feel like it exists for the sole purpose of being able to list a bunch of comedy stars in the season’s cast list, and so does the season no favours.
You may notice that I only spoke about nine of the ten shorts. That’s because Can’t Stop is the absolute worst thing to ever be included in this series. Calling it a short would be a stretch – it’s basically a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan’s wet dream come to life. The entire clip is of a RHCP live performance where they sing “Can’t Stop“, with everyone in the band and crowd animated as marionettes. That’s literally all it is. If you’ve been dying to see Flea animated as a marionette then this is right up your alley, but it has absolutely no place in this series.
The big, consistent highlight of the season has to be the animation. Each short has utilised its own style, whether that be more of a realistic 3D animation or a hand-drawn look, and turned each frame into an artwork. One of the joys of this series has always been being able to marvel at the animation, and thankfully we can still do that in this season despite its narrative woes. As each short passes by there’s one consistency present in most of them – that being the heavy focus on gore and bloody violence. With time the series has become less “adult” in terms of including nudity, so they’ve offset that by going heavier on the violence. I for one welcome the stylised violence as every flash of red is damn stunning.
In the end, Love, Death & Robots may not have come out swinging with its best run of animated shorts, but it’s not terrible. There are some great shorts in here to balance out the awful ones, it’s just that even the ones at the top end are forgettable. While there’s no mind-blowing entry, the exploration of sci-fi and horror makes for some fun experiences and the animation itself is always a treat. Regardless of your taste in animation, there’s bound to be something in here you’ll resonate with. Plus they’re all “short”, so you can smash them out in a sitting.
6/10
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