Heroes Reborn: Dark Matters (2015) User Reviews

Obscure importance

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 8/10 · 23 March 2016]

These are the events leading up to, and shortly after, the attack in Odessa, Texas, 2014. Claire Bennet made it OK to come out. Countless Evos have revealed themselves since. Not everyone takes it well. Gradually, the tensions increase and spread. Through this, the audience are shown how things got as bad as they are in the main show. The socio-political climate, I mean, not the... overall quality. I don't think that can be adequately explained. Seriously. The disappointment... I'm getting off-topic.

This is not an ensemble piece. That helps it focus. In general, this is all tight, with fast storytelling, and engaging. It's about three people... the two Frady (cat?) siblings, and her college room-mate. Quentin(Zebrowski, a tendency to obsess, comic relief, only tolerable in very small quantities, which is the case here, unlike...anyway) is seeing her off, and starts to worry as she becomes an increasingly open activist. Phoebe(Paul, likable, we immediately empathize with her and want her to be safe) starts to see some discrimination as the world's perspective worsens gradually. She can create and control darkness, although the first time we're shown this, it just looks like her shadow is faster than her, making her an opposite Lucky Luke. We see her ability, and hers and our understanding of it, grow. And Aly(Onieogou, deeply cares about them) is there for her as much as she can be, on and off campus alike.

The use of imagery, words and the like that is derived from/similar to real life political issues is back with a vengeance, rarely makes sense anymore, and is now completely shameless. Best case scenario, it's "only" distracting and pulls you out of it. Westboro Baptist Church(representing supposedly common bigotry, rather than them being a fringe group using that for getting attention), Truthers(but here about something that's true), Illuminati(but about a single event, not peerless subtle guiding over centuries), Anonymous(...OK, that one kinda works, although the identity is barely hidden, especially to the viewers), news coverage/in-office public servants responding to actual terrorist attacks(yup, they went all the way there), etc.

Every found footage fiction has to justify certain things, and this fares well, and is a great mini. This comes to 43 minutes without commercials. The varying length of the 6 episodes helps them pace the plot, and convey it in the size of chunks that best fits. The concept of filler material doesn't even enter into it. Why is all of this being filmed, and by whom? The three of them, to catalog the personal development – they didn't expect things to get as big as they do, at which point, it's documenting those world-changing events. Who is editing it, and how are we seeing it? You'll find out by the end of this. Does it break the format? Almost never, and it's forgivable when it does. And are the necessarily off-screen events too plentiful, involved, ill-explained or overly exposited about? No, they're summarized well or easily deduced.

Ultimately, I implore you, watch either this or Heroes Reborn, and I'd go with this any day of the week. Make up in your own head what happens afterwards: trust me, you'll almost definitely come up with something better than the producers did. Honestly, your frustration with expectations this set will grow exponentially through your viewing of that. A large part of it is where it goes with the narrative, powers and characters established here.

I recommend this to any fan of drama and sci-fi. This contains a lot of disturbing content and some moderate-to-strong language. 8/10

Heroes Reborn, Promising start.

[snarkyphilo · 9/10 · 13 September 2015]

This is a series of mini-episodes that form a cohesive narrative in the span of one normal episode of the main show. It centres primarily on a brother, Quinten (Henry Zebrowski) and sister, Phoebe (Aislinn Paul), one of which is an Evo (the name of those with super powers) and their progression of experiences with that reality, interspersed with shots from the hacker anarchist Micah and Noah Bennett declaring their (from the original series) and clips of Evos declaring their powers.

This was done in a found footage style for the most part (it appears to have gone off the beaten path style-wise here and there), told from both the brother and the sister's point of view at first before centring mainly on the brother.

There is an excellent flow within the plot, where you see the first innocence and wonder of the reality of having a super power, then the repercussions of having that power within a less then accepting society with increasing tensions between the two types of humans, falling in a neat domino effect that joins these two isolated characters into possibly the main stream of the Heroes Reborn plot.

The successive evolution of experience combined with the film style, and the brother especially, who is particularly interesting in his well-rounded personality with a strong sense of family attachment and fortitude but yet still remains a believably regular dude, makes for a peaking of expectations for the main show in the hopes it will maintain the promise of Dark Matters. This was also a good choice for the primary focus, as he presents the relatable figure to the likely target audience of the show.

It was a nice return

[hazanozturan · 9/10 · 23 August 2015]

When a TV show like heroes that you really loved once upon a time, then somehow messed things up decide to return, you don't know what to expect. Dark Matters clears things up for that confusion in a good way. When Heroes Reborn announced the official synopsis, we got the idea about the story, yet we doesn't know how they were gonna link that Heroes-hater world to the original story. That connection became clear with Dark Matters. It's found-footage type of series so you also feel connected to the characters because of this realistic background. It's a new story, but we have the necessary references to the old series and the new one. As Heroes Reborn is not ready yet, it's hard to be so sure but it may be essential to watch before Heroes Reborn comes cause it gives us a background story for one new important character.

Seriously? Found Footage?

[peterfaure · 4/10 · 19 September 2015]

I really wish I could give it a higher score, the story and the characters are not bad.....

But the whole found footage format? No sorry, it looks lame, amateurish and just plain stupid.

It's a gimmick that occasionally works, mainly because of media hype, but really it's just an excuse for poor, cheap photography.

Sorry, interesting story but the way it's "filmed" (sarcasm) makes it unwatchable. If I wanted to watch shows that are about as well filmed as a family's home video I would make them myself, from TV producers I expect much, much higher standards.

Once again, too bad, another story with potential wasted to either save money or focus on a dumb gimmick, which is all found footage movies/shows really are. Don't watch this garbage, it will just encourage TV producers to make even more of these atrocious found footage movies/shows.

Note to the makers: Bad photography is bad photography, grow up and learn how to use a camera or don't waste our time with this gimmicky garbage.

On par with paranormal activity

[typedeaf-1 · 4/10 · 9 October 2015]

The two main actors, the brother and the sister, are horribly bad at over acting. It is like watching any camera shaker movie: Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, etc. And yes, like those movies, most of the footage is from the point of view of a shaky amateur camera. You are supposed to believe that people just leave the camera on while the world is blowing up around them.

The plot isn't half bad, but the acting and cinematography are horrible. I hate to say it, but the siblings just aren't camera friendly either. Maybe the modern trend is to have actors that look 'like us normal ugly people', but really who wants to watch ugly people? Sorry.

Luckily, from what people have told me, the first two real episodes are nothing like this episode. If it weren't for the excellent special effects, I would have seriously questioned if this episode was even official.

Hopefully the next time we have to see these actors, they will have taken some acting classes on how not to over act. The girl that plays the dorm mate isn't that bad an actress. Too bad she didn't have more lines.

Only for the biggest fans of HR

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 25 March 2017]

"Heroes Reborn: Dark Matters" is a 6-part mini series from 2015 and the title already gives away that this is of course a little spin-off to the series "Heroes Reborn" and that one is actually based on the series "Heroes", so it is a bit of a never-ending story apparently. As for this one here, I found it really mediocre eventually. There is a touch of supernatural elements and the heroes here are not really liked by everybody, so as always when minorities are discriminated against (or believe they are discriminated against), drastic events are the consequence. Terrorism is one of these and it is a crucial part in the second half of this brief series. It is also the story of a guy trying to prove his sister (one of these "heroes") is actually not a criminal. The episode range from 5 minutes to 11.5 minutes and the entire thing is roughly 43 minutes long, so you can easily watch it in one sitting. I would only recommend it though to the biggest fans of "Heroes Reborn". The good thing here is that characters from the latter are also in the center of this one here and they did not include random other actors or characters as protagonists as it is often the case in these mini-series. But the acting and script are rarely above mediocre level and I have to give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.