Animal Kingdom: US reviews

New US drama series Animal Kingdom, based on the 2010 Australian film by David Michôd, premieres on the TNT channel shortly.

Starring Ellen Barkin in the role based on Jacki Weaver’s Janine “Smurf” Cody, the early reviews are not exactly encouraging yet.

There’s no word as yet on an Australian broadcast.

Deadline said:
Debuting on June 14 with a two-hour premiere on TNT, Animal Kingdom sadly is one of those adaptations that just doesn’t work. Whereas the 2010 Australian film starring Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton and Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver about a matriarch-run Melbourne crime family was very good, the SoCal-set small-screen series from John Wells and Jonathan Lisco pulls too dramatic many punches and ends up being merely gratuitous……. You have to give Emmy winner Barkin credit for obviously trying to make the best of what she can of the desperately dark and would-be gritty material, but, from what I’ve seen, that just doesn’t add up to much. That fact is, as I say in my video review above, it feels as if on the trip over the Pacific from Australia to California, Animal Kingdom lost all that made the movie so wild and watchable.

Entertainment Weekly said:
The performances are good enough to enliven the antihero familiarity. Beyond Barkin, Scott Speedman is strong as clearheaded Baz, the family’s field general, and Shawn Hatosy is even better as cracked Pope, newly sprung from jail, desperate to regain his high place in Smurf’s sick pocket universe. The true center, for now, is Smurf’s teenage grandson, J (Finn Cole), who tumbles into her underworld at a moment of crisis and struggles to survive all his awful alpha-male uncles. Does J embrace this dehumanizing thrill-ride life? Does he seek something better? His choice is also yours. B.

TV Line said:
Based on a 2010 Australian movie, the now-SoCal-set TNT drama is well-acted, and the pilot (June 14, 9/8c), sharply directed by co-executive producer John Wells (The West Wing). But the moment it introduces the Codys — a family of outlaws headed by Ellen Barkin as a toughie nicknamed (no kidding) Smurf — they work overtime to make it clear that they’re not just badass, they’re bad, period. Middle son Craig (Ben Robson) and kid brother Deran (Jake Weary, A Deadly Adoption) are a–holes on the highway. They’re a–holes in the ocean. They’re a–holes at their own backyard barbecue. Basically, they’re not people with whom you’d spend time if you didn’t have a gun to your head. (And, given the thieves’ fondness for firearms, that’s not outside the realm of possibility…)