Review: As video game adaptations go, HBO's 'The Last of Us' is in a league of its own
and dozens of other notable series have imagined a world ravaged by plague, mutations genetic and otherwise, and more doomsday horrors that remind us how lucky we are to have made it this far into a pandemic without eating one another.The entertainment experts at The Times select the TV shows we’re most looking forward to this year.
But “The Last of Us,” which premieres Sunday with a 90-minute episode, is a prestige drama based on a prestige video game, with quality distinctions that place this story in a league of its own. That’s not to say that ghoulish fight scenes are a bad thing, or that this version of “The Last of Us” is a gentle story. The living undergo a gruesome transformation when bitten by the infected and pulverizing the undead is a gory pastime.
Still, permeating the writing, production and performances are an underlying beauty and grace that make navigating the grim realities of this decaying world a little less horrific, be it a sunbeam through a dirty window illuminating the delicate design of faded wallpaper or a nuanced, silent moment between lovers. There’s tenderness in this hellscape, and the meaningful relationships between characters make us care about them from the first few moments of the show.
Like the 2013 game on which it’s based, the television adaptation is such a gripping tale of survival because it makes ample room for savagery and love, desperation and selflessness. Pedro Pascal knocks it out of the park as grizzled survivor Joel, a loving single father who loses everything in the first few days of the 2003 outbreak. Twenty years later, he’s an empty husk of a man with killer instincts and sharpshooter skills. He’s thrown together with teenager Ellie , a smart-mouthed orphan who may hold the key to a cure.
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