The fifth season of Black Mirror kicks off with an installment that is baseline entertaining and intriguing-but could have been so much more if the interesting parts weren't a bit overshadowed by the overall messaging of the piece.
For a very basic overview, Striking Vipers tells the story of Danny (Anthony Mackie), an approaching-middle-age family man who seems a little bored with his suburban existence. When reunited with bachelorhood buddy Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) in the new Striking Vipers VR video game beat-em-up, however, Danny recaptures some of his younger glory. But is the newfound rekindling simply a friendship resurrection-or perhaps something deeper?
There are some really interesting themes present in this episode. Danny's struggles with his seemingly humdrum existence-and missing the supposed excitement of his 20s-is extremely relatable, and the actual VR tech here is befitting of the Black Mirror name/goals.
The issue with Striking Vipers, however, is that those themes are always subjugated-especially in the endgame-to a more rote examination of the nature of one's sexuality (especially in a virtual context). Nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but I did find it somewhat reductive to have everything here boiled down to "are they gay or straight?" and how do they resolve that conflict in virtual avatars.
So, I give Striking Vipers a solid-but-not-spectacular 7/10 star rating. I was never bored and some themes/scenes really struck a chord, but the overall tone of the piece-especially the ending-disappointed me in the sense that it ended up being all about the examination of sexuality instead of probing other issues in tandem.
For a very basic overview, Striking Vipers tells the story of Danny (Anthony Mackie), an approaching-middle-age family man who seems a little bored with his suburban existence. When reunited with bachelorhood buddy Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) in the new Striking Vipers VR video game beat-em-up, however, Danny recaptures some of his younger glory. But is the newfound rekindling simply a friendship resurrection-or perhaps something deeper?
There are some really interesting themes present in this episode. Danny's struggles with his seemingly humdrum existence-and missing the supposed excitement of his 20s-is extremely relatable, and the actual VR tech here is befitting of the Black Mirror name/goals.
The issue with Striking Vipers, however, is that those themes are always subjugated-especially in the endgame-to a more rote examination of the nature of one's sexuality (especially in a virtual context). Nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but I did find it somewhat reductive to have everything here boiled down to "are they gay or straight?" and how do they resolve that conflict in virtual avatars.
So, I give Striking Vipers a solid-but-not-spectacular 7/10 star rating. I was never bored and some themes/scenes really struck a chord, but the overall tone of the piece-especially the ending-disappointed me in the sense that it ended up being all about the examination of sexuality instead of probing other issues in tandem.