Reviews for the long-awaited live-action adaptation of The Sandman have arrived, and critics have come to the overall consensus that the show is largely successful. The series, which launched on Netflix today (August 5, 2022), brings to life the legendary DC Comics series by Neil Gaiman, which originally ran from 1989 through 1996. The story follows the immortal entity Dream (Tom Sturridge), who was captured in a ritual during World War I and released into the modern day, at which point he sets off to restore his kingdom of Dreaming. He is one of a set of seven immortal siblings known as the Endless who embody metaphysical concepts, which also includes Destiny, Desire (Mason Alexander Park), Despair (Donna Preston), Destruction, Delirium, and Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste).
The Sandman season 1 also includes Boyd Holbrook as the escaped nightmare the Corinthian, Vivienne Acheampong as the supernatural librarian Lucienne, Patton Oswalt as Dream's companion Matthew the Raven, David Thewlis as John Dee, and Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar. There are also oodles of other characters in the ensemble, including the mortals affected by the activities of these entities, a horde of serial killers attending a convention, and a voice cameo appearance by Mark Hamill as a goofy janitor named Mervyn Pumpkinhead. This season comprises 10 episodes, with directing duties split between Mike Barker, Jamie Childs, Mairzee Almas, Andrés Baiz, Louise Hopper, and Revenge director Coralie Fargeat.
Netflix frequently doesn't allow reviews of their properties to be released before the day of release, but now that The Sandman has premiered, critics from various outlets have flocked to share their thoughts on the series. While they disagree on the extent to which the series is a successful adaptation of the source material, as well as the effectiveness of Sturridge's lead performance, they tend to agree that some or all of the show is worth watching. While there is clearly still space for a definitive adaptation of the material, it certainly seems that the Netflix show has found its way toward justifying its existence, especially in the latter five episodes. Read selected quotes from various critics below:
Alexander Harrison, Screen Rant:
Those who stick it out will be rewarded with a stronger back half, but the show has yet to express a clear perspective on the work it's adapting, and a potential season 2 would benefit from some of the formal and creative risk-taking that made Gaiman's original work so special in the first place.
Sam Barsanti, AV Club:
This is damning with faint praise, but Netflix’s The Sandman, like Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, is one of those “this is as close as anyone could’ve hoped for” adaptations. It follows the comic closely and hits all of the good stuff from the comic, so it is at least a pretty good version of that story—because, again, that story on its own is good. But the transition to live-action doesn’t really reveal anything new about Morpheus or his siblings or their shifting perspectives on the lives of mortals or why we should watch, not read, this all unfold.
Hoai-Tran Bui, SlashFilm:
It was a comic where the possibilities felt endless, something like, well, a dream. The Netflix series feels like those moments when you wake from a dream and everything is a little dimmer, hazier, and everyone is dressed like Final Fantasy characters for some reason.
Amelia Emberwing, IGN:
An adaptation’s job is to honor the source material while introducing new fans to something they’ll hopefully love and I don’t know how welcoming the series is to those new viewers when it comes to how quickly Dream’s saga shifts from one story to the next. In that one, very specific sense, the show may not do its job, which infuriatingly keeps me from giving it a 10/10 score despite the fact that, outside of that one very minor quibble, The Sandman is a masterpiece. It’s beautiful, rich, lush, and magnificent and everything fans have been waiting for when it comes to Dream, his siblings, and their adventures.
Inkoo Kang, Washington Post:
The overall results are so shaggy and uneven, with characters and incidents from the comics that add little to the story on screen, that the reasons to adapt “The Sandman” never exceed the reasons not to have done so.
Richard Newby, Empire:
With its attention to the source material, its impressive cast, and the kind of expansive world-building that surely demands more seasons, The Sandman is what dreams are made of.
David Opie, Digital Spy:
Within minutes, you'll be screaming "Hang it in the Louvre" at your screen, only to then be greeted with something even more beautiful until your voice is left hoarse by episode two. But you'll want to keep binging anyway, because The Sandman has a canny knack of ending each episode with something that pulls you back in for more, even if some of those earlier instalments do feel more standalone.
Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone:
Parts of the series work very well, particularly whenever Dream is not the central figure of those parts.
Robert Brian Taylor, Collider:
Even if the rest of the series didn't work, Netflix's The Sandman would be worth it for these two hours, with the sixth episode in particular emotionally resonating at the impressive level the comic was often able to reach. Other episodes vary a bit more in quality but never dip below a line where you would start to question the whole.
Glen Weldon, NPR:
Relax. They nailed it. Yeah, it took forever, and a slew of assorted aborted attempts, but the Netflix adaptation of the landmark comic book series just... works.
So far, the review aggregation service Rotten Tomatoes has gathered 33 different reviews for The Sandman season 1, which have landed the series at 88%. While they will certainly be adding more reviews over the coming weeks, which will alter the score, if it manages to stay in its current range, it will be Certified Fresh before too long. As it stands, this score is considerably better than Netflix's recent live-action revamp of the classic anime Cowboy Bebop (which got 46%) and their 2017 live-action film Death Note (37%).
It seems highly unlikely that the score for The Sandman will dip low enough to hit either of those numbers. This spells very good news for the future of the series. Cowboy Bebop was canceled after one season, and Death Note failed to get its promised follow-up, but The Sandman likely won't suffer a similar fate, which means it probably can continue adapting the vast amount of material in the original comics that has still been left untouched.
Source: Various (see above)