Altered Carbon reactions: Netflix's latest sci-fi series starring Joel Kinnaman ambitious but flawed, find reviews

The streaming service is looking to Blade Runner's traditions in hope of its next big hit

Netflix is hoping to have found its next big hit. A new Stranger Things.

Albeit with a far darker, edgier twist. Altered Carbon adapts Richard Morgan's 2002 cyberpunk novel of the same name, set in a future in which our consciousness is stored in something called "stacks", storage discs attached to the back of the neck.

A person's body, then, becomes utterly disposable - "a sleeve" - with minds transferred from flesh vessel to flesh vessel. That is, if you've got the cash, with only the rich really able to attain such immortality.

The story centres around Takeshi Kovacs, a mercenary whose consciousness is sent to a virtual jail, only to be resurrected 250 years later in a different body (Joel Kinnaman). He's given a simple choice: remain behind bars or help uncover who murdered the previous body of Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), one of the wealthiest men in the galaxy.

Critics have been fairly mixed on the series so far: lauding its Blade Runner-esque visuals and pulpy, entertaining storyline, but admitting those thrills come with their own set of flaws. You can check out some of the reactions below.

The Guardian - Benjamin Lee - 3/5

This is a Netflix show you shouldn’t binge on your phone: it demands a bigger screen so you can appreciate the neon-lit Blade Runner-esque noirish excess of the city that’s been created. One of the problems with small screen sci-fi in recent years is that as an audience, we’re spoiled by what cinema can offer us and the understandably more modest visuals often pale in comparison.

While Altered Carbon might not be on par with, say, last year’s Blade Runner 2049, it’s an impressive step up from what we’re usually offered.

AV Club - Alex McLevy - B-

But despite its failings, Altered Carbon remains fleet and diverting entertainment, a textbook example of how the binge model helps to mask a show’s shortcomings during the viewing.

It doesn’t hold up to close inspection, but all the flash makes for a fun and engaging spectacle, a TV show with blockbuster-level quality not unlike Game Of Thrones in its ability to create eye-popping excitement. Plus, the curlicues of plot complications and whiz-bang technology shoring each other up help ensure there’s almost always something fun happening onscreen.

The Telegraph - Ed Power - 4/5

To say Altered Carbon is indebted to Ridley Scott’s original “cyberpunk” masterpiece is a bit like suggesting Oasis may have listened to the occasional Beatles record. The dialogue is hard-bitten, the trench coats long and flapping, the cityscapes baroque and smoggy.

There are even flying police cars – a Blade Runner nudge so blatant it’s a wonder you don’t spill tea all over your lap simply by watching.

The New York Times - Mike Hale

Altered Carbon has some interesting ideas about the wages of immortality, such as the possibility of endless torture. But the resources and technology of the future it depicts appear to be devoted primarily to the pursuit of sexual gratification and exploitation, in milieus that recall 1970s Times Square and contemporary Las Vegas.

As a narrative device, this provides a convenient rationale for routine (and numbing) nakedness, the way medieval fantasy provides the same cover for Game of Thrones.

The Hollywood Reporter - Tim Goodman

Altered Carbon is very clearly Netflix's colossus. Based on Richard K. Morgan's 2002 cyberpunk sci-fi novel of the same name, Altered Carbon is a complicated, intriguing, ultraviolent, sex-filled and compelling blast, a visual delight that periodically gets tripped up with its writing but never enough to detour the experience.

Altered Carbon is flawed, but it's also fantastic. This is binge-ready sci-fi for the masses.

Altered Carbon is streaming on Netflix now.

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