‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ is a bloody, brilliant fantasy romp

This review is based on the first six episodes of “The Legend of Vox Machina” which were made available to the press by Amazon Prime Video in advance of the series premiere on Jan. 28

From the moment its Kickstarter closed at $11.3 million, “The Legend of Vox Machina” had two key challenges going into its first season. Its first two episodes had to tell an original narrative that could satisfy existing fans while introducing the cast of characters to a brand new audience. Then, its remaining episodes had to successfully adapt and condense upwards of 50 hours of narrative – originally told via live-streamed games of “Dungeons & Dragons” – without sacrificing the incredible quality of the storytelling.

“The Legend of Vox Machina” falls slightly short on the former front. The first two episodes, each running roughly 22 minutes, have so much to do that it simply doesn’t have enough time to make it all work. Their breakneck pacing makes certain plot points seem artificial and contrived. Toward the end of the second episode though, “The Legend of Vox Machina” becomes absolutely must-watch television as it slows down enough to fully embrace all of the high fantasy hijinks, brutal combat, gruesome horror and personal narratives of its source material.

Narratively, this series follows a group of seven misfit adventurers – known professionally as Vox Machina – as they journey across the fantasy world of Exandria in search of fame, fortune and revenge. The first two episodes introduce the crew and see them investigate a mysterious creature that has been obliterating villages across the Emon countryside with the promise of a great reward. This is mainly where the pacing issues mentioned earlier come into play. Introducing the characters, there’s a bit of emotional whiplash moving from a chest-pounding bar fight into emotional, character-driven moments of self-doubt in no longer than two minutes.

But toward the end of the second episode, the show moves into its main story arc which focuses on the members of Vox Machina helping their teammate Percival DeRollo (Taliesin Jaffe) with his quest for revenge against Lord Silas and Lady Delilah Briarwood (Matthew Mercer and Grey Griffin) – two of the sexiest, most irredeemably evil villains that have ever graced my television.

As the show progresses, all the characters start to come into their own as well. The absolute standouts though are the half-giant Grog Strongjaw (Travis Willingham) and the diminutive gnome Pike Trickfoot (Ashley Johnson). Grog is a towering figure with a massive battle-axe and an inversely matched intellect, while Pike is a pint-sized cleric who calls on holy power to fight. Despite their physical differences, they share a touching friendship that’s wonderful to see play out with little actions like Grog putting Pike on his shoulders as they walk or Pike comforting Grog when he’s confused by the concept of house arrest.

Outside of the brief initial pacing issues though, “The Legend of Vox Machina” is a tremendous treat. The animation is gorgeous and decadent. The characters come to life with style, panache and genuine emotion on the screen with all sorts of little touches that show a love for the characters and their relationships. Whether it’s actually showing Vax’s daggers magically teleport back to his hands after he throws them or Grog putting Pike up on his shoulders as they escape some trouble, there are all sorts of nice touches that show a genuine love for the source material the animators were working from. That said, there are a rare few iffy-looking monsters that don’t quite mesh with the rest of the animation. It’s certainly not enough to ruin a scene, but it’s enough to distract from it.

Speaking of monsters though, the fight scenes are tremendous. Character movement and camera angles flow well together. Bloody chunks of people and monsters fly as they’re ripped apart by other people or monsters. Plus there are nice nods to the dice-based gameplay of D&D when the characters actually screw up or have something go wrong in a battle. For instance, Vex tripping over Pike or Percy’s gun failing to go off.

The voice acting is tremendous as well, drawing not only on the nerdy-ass voice actors who created Critical Role and Vox Machina in the first place but also on wonderful additions like David Tennant, Khary Payton and Indira Varma. Of special note though are Grey Griffin and Matt Mercer who bring the Briarwoods to life as an evil power couple deeply in love. Sunil Malhotra also deserves a mention for absolutely slaying his role as the fabulous, flirtatious shopkeep Shaun Gilmore.

Fans of the series will notice a few changes to the original Briarwood arc from Campaign One of “Critical Role.” Most of these changes seem to be born of necessity and work in the context of the show. After all, there are single episodes of “Critical Role” from the Briarwood arc that run longer than the entire animated series. There are a couple of new characters, the order of a few events is different, but nothing too earthshaking. The big change is that the series removes a character from the original show, Tiberius Stormwind, skipping several original arcs in doing so. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. This choice was announced when the Kickstarter campaign for “The Legend of Vox Machina” went live. But it also makes sense due to the character’s almost non-role in the original arc, due to Tiberius’ actor and “Critical Role” parting ways over six years ago.

Ultimately, I’ve only seen the first half of the show. In those six episodes though, “The Legend of Vox Machina” has been a mostly stupendous watch. As a whole, the show is an audiovisual treat with tons of love for the characters and source material. There are a few flaws, the biggest being that the initial episodes try to do too much too quickly and suffer for it. That said, most issues completely fade away in the back four. I absolutely can’t wait to see the rest of what “The Legend of Vox Machina” has to offer.

If I had to rate it now: 9/10

“The first three episodes of “The Legend of Vox Machina” are now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.