The Boys review: superheroes who are mad, bad and downright depraved
Caped crusaders have been causing quite a flap lately. But now the entertainment industry is at last getting around to the obvious question. What if Batman was truly batty, Superman a sociopath in blue-stockings?
The big gimmick in Amazon Prime’s lurid new eight-part comic book adaptation The Boys is that superheroes are mad, bad and, often as not, sexually depraved. Superman – Homelander in this universe – grew up in a laboratory and suffers raging oedipal issues. A rescue mission gone awry concludes with his laser eyes blazing red as the guardian of honour and decency threatens to scorch anyone crossing his path. It’s terrifying.
This free-wheeling, irreverent and often uproarious exploration of the dark side of the superhero myth also has an analogue to super-fast DC favourite The Flash. A-Train is a steroid-addicted narcissist who regards humans as glorified road-kill. He is introduced running at the clip of a speeding bullet and ploughing through an innocent woman on the street.
She is pulverised on the spot even as she holds hands with her boyfriend. The traumatised Hughie (the Hunger Games’ Jack Quaid) is offered an insulating payout by A-Train’s corporate handlers. Hughie rips up the cheque and resolve to take down the superheroes. He finds an unlikely ally in Billy Butcher, a foul-mouthed geezer whose life has been similarly destroyed by the “supes”.
Butcher is played by New Zealand actor Karl Urban. In the original graphic novels he is portrayed as a football hooligan with a heart of gold. Alas, Urban’s attempt at a likely lad doesn’t quite soar like a bird or a plane. We’re left with a character who speaks like Mary Poppins-era Dick Van Dyke channeling Danny Dyer.
One iffy accent cannot stand in the way of truth and justice, however. Joining Hughie and Butcher’s revenge mission are Butcher’s best friend Mother’s Milk (yes it his real name he assures Hughie), assassin “Frenchie” and “The Female”, a scarred survivor of the superheroes’s covert experimentation programme.
There’s a potential friend on the inside too. Sweet small-town superhero Starlight – Annie January to friends – has received a call-up to the Seven, this universe’s version of the Avengers. Yet her idealism withers following a #MeToo assault at her audition. Life with the most famous superhero team on the planet is not, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) realises, what she signed up for.
The Boys is adapted from a controversial comic book by Northern Ireland writer Garth Ennis. As with Ennis’s other big hit, Preacher, the strip fizzles with ideas. But just like Preacher it is diminished by its author’s obsession with juvenile violence. The gore factor is significantly reduced for the screen. Nonetheless it is still frequently over the top. Heads explode, eye-balls fry, a beloved sea-going mammal smashes through a windscreen. You may feel queasy at least once per episode.
It’s a pity producers Eric Kripke, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen (who has an onscreen cameo) didn’t go further in diluting Ennis’s gonzo tendencies. Beyond the yuck factor, The Boys offers an astute commentary on popular culture’s obsession with superheroes. It also features a surprising turn from Simon Pegg, deploying a questionable American accent as Hughie’s father.
As fans of the graphic novels will know this is a meta joke with bells on. The original Hughie was a Glasgow skinhead modelled on Pegg. The actor was so flattered he later wrote an introduction to the comic.
The other big name is Nineties movie star Elisabeth Shue, as the “supes” corporate handler. But she and the rest of the cast are thoroughly eclipsed by Antony Starr’s take on a morally-bankrupt Superman. Homelander is a nightmare vision: a god among mortals with a devil perched on each shoulder. He serves as chilling reminder that, even in comic books, self-appointed heroes and men who wear Lycra to the office, aren’t to be trusted.
