‘Twisted Metal’ milks the PlayStation game to offer up a vehicle for Anthony Mackie

Review by Brian Lowry, CNN

(CNN) — With 2023 having already produced one great post-apocalyptic series based on a video game (a.k.a. “The Last of Us”), a second was probably too much to ask. “Twisted Metal” – a Peacock series spun out of the PlayStation game – manages to start with a rush of zany energy courtesy of the writers behind “Deadpool,” before hitting potholes as it becomes too over-the-top to justify the ride.

Anthony Mackie appears to be having a lot of fun playing John Doe, the nameless “milkman” tasked with delivering material between walled cities in a society upended by a technological crash, driving the lawless highways with only his car (who he talks to regularly) as company.

Yet John’s life changes in two ways – first, when the leader of New San Francisco (Neve Campbell) offers him a chance to stay there permanently, finding a true home in exchange for making a run to acquire a package in New Chicago; and when he picks up Quiet (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Encanto’s” Stephanie Beatriz), who is out for revenge having lost her brother.

The two bicker and eventually bond over the course of their travels, while encountering an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including an insane clown named Sweet Tooth (voiced by Will Arnett, and physically portrayed by pro wrestler Joel Seanoa) and a near-equally crazed lawman (Thomas Haden Church) whose minions were responsible for the death of Quiet’s brother.

Mackie and Beatriz are consistently better than the material – they share one very funny scene involving a children’s ball pit – which really begins to veer off the road when the pair make it to Las Vegas and encounter Arnett’s emotionally needy if murderous clown. (In this case, what happens in Vegas really should stay there.)

Adapted by Michael Jonathan Smith (“Cobra Kai”) working with “Deadpool’s” Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the 10 half-hour episodes lean into that film franchise’s comedic, hard-R-rated sensibility. It’s the kind of world where John gets enthusiastic about new wiper blades, mostly because they’re swell for removing blood from the windshield.

“Do you ever stop talking?” someone asks his motor-mouthed character.

“Twisted Metal” does seek to flesh out its rather slim road-warrior premise with flashbacks puttying in the pasts of key (and not so key) players, including glimpses of what happened when everything went to hell.

Mackie’s mere presence in a streaming series before suiting up for Marvel’s next “Captain America” sequel is probably a win for Peacock, but the road between New San Francisco and New Chicago ought to be paved with a bit more than that. And while his milkman might deliver the goods, “Twisted Metal,” by the time it rolls across the first-season finish line, ultimately doesn’t.

“Twisted Metal” premieres July 27 on Peacock.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.