While the original La Femme Nikita was iconic, stylish, visceral and character driven, the current Nikita franchise seems only to work as a venue to sell clothes, hot bodies, interior design, guns and fancy cars. The producers seem to have neglected perfume and food.
The show doesn't explore anything in any meaningful manner. The plots are cartoon-ish, the characters' motivations are shallow and flat. The whole product appears insubstantial and humorless at the acting, writing, and directorial levels.
Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita was an exceptionally memorable character. Nikita works at the level of another deeply inspiring heroine, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Lisbeth Salander. They are powerful characters because of their heroic journeys to discover how to be a good human being against all odds. Their journeys are epic because they surgically expose every layer of moral and social ambiguity they encounter.
The previous La Femme Nikita TV series managed to be stylish, sexy, character driven, and addressed, at its heart, the ambiguities of choices. Though some of the episodes seemed haphazardly thrown together, others were brilliant. Style was abundantly displayed but it supported the substance, not usurped it.
What this Nikita franchise does is it sells make-up for the dysfunctional world. It displays merchandise on the props of stylized social horrors and standard issue plot lines. Depth and truthful acting is replaced by a fast-paced sales catalog of clichés and modeling poses.
The show doesn't explore anything in any meaningful manner. The plots are cartoon-ish, the characters' motivations are shallow and flat. The whole product appears insubstantial and humorless at the acting, writing, and directorial levels.
Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita was an exceptionally memorable character. Nikita works at the level of another deeply inspiring heroine, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Lisbeth Salander. They are powerful characters because of their heroic journeys to discover how to be a good human being against all odds. Their journeys are epic because they surgically expose every layer of moral and social ambiguity they encounter.
The previous La Femme Nikita TV series managed to be stylish, sexy, character driven, and addressed, at its heart, the ambiguities of choices. Though some of the episodes seemed haphazardly thrown together, others were brilliant. Style was abundantly displayed but it supported the substance, not usurped it.
What this Nikita franchise does is it sells make-up for the dysfunctional world. It displays merchandise on the props of stylized social horrors and standard issue plot lines. Depth and truthful acting is replaced by a fast-paced sales catalog of clichés and modeling poses.