“Dark Matter” review: a new version of the multiverse

Over the past three years, Hollywood has finally seemed to have discovered the potential of the multiverse. Therefore, he began to explore it from several sides at once. From superhero movies that used (or are trying to use) this concept as a solution to their crisis, to more complex versions of physical reality such as ConstellationThe premiere took place on Apple TV+. The truth is that the vision of multiplicity of existences, is becoming increasingly necessary for understanding modern science fiction. Also from Apple TV+, Dark matter seems to sum up this modern obsession in a series that explores the idea of ​​options through a common thread.

The life of a man who must face multiple versions of himself in an action-packed thriller that becomes increasingly twisted. And this happens as the stage of time fragments around him. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of the production, which adapts Blake Crouch’s book of the same name, is the idea that parallel universes can be dangerous. One particular one that is becoming increasingly threatening, putting forward the premise that the multiverse could become a battleground for the future.

The series also manages to combine several science fiction elements that work well in a delicate balance. On the one hand, there is the idea of ​​an identity that persists—or at least survives—across multiple dimensions. On the other hand, how can it be used as a weapon in the midst of a battle for a place in reality. Everything merges into a story that becomes increasingly dense, forcing the heroes to fight for their lives in the most surreal conditions. Most of the time against sinister versions of themselves. Which makes the series a complex script that sometimes fails to cover everything it offers, although it tries.

A fresh take on science fiction

Jason (Joel Edgerton) is a peaceful physics professor who enters the second half of his life a little disillusioned. For this investigator, married to Danielle (Jennifer Connelly), life is only half of what it has to offer. The plot, which the author of the source material himself encapsulates, provides the basis for the careful telling of his story. It makes us clear that life consists of choices and that each of them is a world in itself.

It’s a risk that separates the story from pure science fiction and moves it closer to the possibility that all decisions in life are necessarily the beginning of many other worlds. The quantum problem that the series proposes is philosophical, although its protagonist tries to impart some shades of hard science. But the bottom line is that for Jason, what he experienced could have been better. At least that’s what he believes until he’s kidnapped and practically thrown into another existence.

Another Look at the Multiverse

The plot turns the chaos of the first parts of the book into a fast thriller with fantastic overtones. So in the series it takes Jason relatively little time to understand what is happening to him. But when it does—and offers an explanation to the audience—the script moves faster to embrace the real conflict of the production. Namely: that a version of him has found a way to track him down and is now usurping what is truly his. Therefore, he must fight against himself to find a way to return to his world and regain what he has lost.

Telling such a complex story takes time and subtlety. AND Dark matter This is there, at least in the first two chapters, where questions are asked about what defines us and what causes a series of decisions to transform our reality. But when Jason discovers that his nemesis is just the beginning of an open door to the multiverse, the series loses some clarity in its goals. What becomes more noticeable asThe gap between the world—and the life Jason is trying to cling to—becomes increasingly difficult to understand.

Good story no matter what

TO Dark matter It takes time and storytelling effort to tell this complex scenario. And when this happens, although the essence of the book is original enough to depart from such premises, it is obvious that it can be compared with others. From the mini-series Signal from Netflix (which is also about escapism) to Constellationin which Noomi Rapace had to face several versions of herself and her daughter. The truth is that the twist on the connections between alternate realities is not as original as the series tries to make it out to be.

At all, Dark matter maintains the tension with a clever plot and a thoughtful idea of ​​good and evil expressed through alternate realities. Perhaps in another time the production would have seemed like an oddity among science fiction, establishing parallels between a sense of the present and identity. But against the backdrop of the exploitation of the current multiverse, this is a completely different story. Perhaps the worst thing that can be said about the series.