When Volume 2 for LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS was announced, I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. The first volume had wondrous visuals of varying types and stories that spanned between nightmare-inducing space trips and all-knowing yogurt. The trailers for Volume 2 looked very sleek and the variety in genres was enticing. However, most of these seemed like scenes cut out of full-length movies or TV shows that lead with action and thrills but never fully define or question morals, problems, or depths of character.
Before I get into any story issues and praises, let’s talk about the visuals. Everything here looks as good or better than Volume 1, which makes sense. Volume 1 used a bit more style over fidelity compared to Volume 2, but you’ll still get a visual feast out of each episode. Everyone will have their particular tastes, but the stand-out episodes visually for me were Ice, Life Hutch, and All Through The House. All three were brilliantly beautiful and really took me into the world through style, intense graphical prowess, and smart cinematography.
Now, let’s talk about the stories. Because each of them was so different, I’m going to do a mini-review of each:
Automated Customer Service
This is a pretty comedic look at how bad customer service feels when it is run by a computer. However, it is fairly long for just one gag. The surprises and violence are pretty funny, but it just went on for too long and went a bit too far to be reasonable, even in this made-up world. Lastly, it didn’t say much else than, “computers suck at customer service,” which is something we all know and already agree with.
7/10
Ice
As mentioned above, the visual style of this short is amazing. The thick black outlines, the sleek motion, and exaggerated proportions look great and connect with the story. I loved the setup of two brothers, one being better than the other because of some enhancements. And by the end, it was about to continue this story of jealousy, envy, or and self-doubt, but it just stopped. I understand that they don’t have an entire movie-length run time to explain everything, but Ice was longer than The Witness and Zima Blue which had a lot of depth and discovery in its characters.
8/10
Pop Squad
Here is where morality and science fiction start to really clash. I was amazed by the premise and situation of our main character, truly gripping. But like I mentioned above and the same problem with Ice, there was too much time spent on fluff and cool visual moments than story and human exploration. There was a lot of potential for great struggle on-screen, but things got a bit muddled and didn’t pay off very well.
7/10
Snow In The Desert
Not every episode of LD+R needs to labor over questions of humanity, but story structure and clear world-building are pretty necessary. I’m not talking about exposition dumps, I’m talking about consistency and basic continuity. Snow, our main character, has a unique and complex past, physical form, and skills. That’s all great and we don’t need a back story. But, the variety of aliens, the reasons people are killed, the problem with the sun, and more act as a laundry list of sci-fi tropes that virtually lead to nothing while all trying to be something. There are hints at a great intellectual exploration of immortality and what defines a person, but the surface is again scratched and it is just tacked on to have the appearance of depth. Things look impressive and there are a lot of cool ideas floating around, but they never amount to anything of real importance. Also, way too much deus-ex machina.
7/10
The Tall Grass
This story leaned on imagination, mystery, and feelings. That’s great. I loved seeing the older time period and the initial steps into the unknown. But the rest of the episode was just a giant chase scene. No explanation, no risky plot twists, nothing. There was some room for cool reveals and concepts, but it was all spent on action.
4/10
All Through The House
I won’t be subtle, this was my favorite. The visuals were pristine, stylized, and wondrous. The subversion of expectations and results was fantastic. I do wish there was a bit more reaction and connection to alluded the character (trying to stay away from spoilers) from the main characters after the main plot point, but it was good enough. Go watch it, it is amazing and I can’t think of any reason that anyone wouldn’t enjoy it.
9/10
Life Hutch
I legitimately could not tell at times if it was an actual video of Michael B. Jordan or a 3D model, this episode’s visuals were insane. The actual story was much more a physical struggle and test of willpower by Jordan than anything else, and that’s fine. I like that this story was a simple look at an unfortunate situation and how the character used physical force along with cunning to beat his foe.
8/10
The Drowned Giant
The concept here is very intriguing. Dealing with a giant and how it affects a man’s mental views on the world and how other people deal with it. This could stand as a metaphor for how people react to the unknown: first with wonder, then understanding, then boredom, then normalize, then exploit. The giant could be a representation of how humans treat their own bodies over time. A lot of other metaphors could be pulled from this, but I found the messaging to be too vague to be impactful or meaningful. Also, the actual story leads to nowhere really, it was just a long existential monologue.
6/10
After averaging it out, we have a 7. This volume isn’t disappointing. But I would recommend setting expectations, because there is some good stuff here, just not a lot of really great stuff. As for the number of episodes, only eight compared to the eighteen from Volume 1 is really surprising. We will be getting a Volume 3, but I’m guessing it will be just as short as this volume. It is possible that Vol. 2 and 3 were supposed to be in the same volume/season but only some of them were released because of the pandemic slowing things production. Overall, LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS Volume 2 was a lot shorter and felt more emotionally/psychologically empty, but there were some good highlights and it still worth checking out if you’re a fan of sci-fi and/or short films.
