This new Netflix series deserves the supercharged hype
Supacell
Netflix
★★★★
The premise of Supacell (Netflix, on-demand) is sold in the first few frames: an evolving new generation of young adults possess superpowers but as the authorities track them down, they are taken and kept under lock and key.
Josh Tedeku as Tazer.Credit:
In the opening scenes, one of these super-people escapes but is cut down quickly, and her bloodied body is dragged past the cells containing her peers in a teaching moment, courtesy of their sinister jailer. (He’s a man in a suit. Plot point: it’s always a man in a suit.)
Of course, Netflix wants to sell you the notion that this is bold and intriguing new narrative ground we’re on, but in truth it’s The Tomorrow People, the 1970s British science-fiction series about teenagers with emerging superpowers, just with added gore and without Dudley Simpson’s funky electronic theme song.
Which is not to imply that it’s not brilliant. More that the genre itself isn’t fresh, even if the execution feels like it is. What is solid here, however, is the stunning cinematography (Sam Heasman and Aaron Reid) and richly textured direction from Rapman, aka Andrew Onwubolu.
In the next few episodes, we meet Michael (Tosin Cole, formerly of Doctor Who), Sabrina (Nadine Mills), Rodney (Calvin Demba, who was wonderful in Life), Tazer (Josh Tedeku) and Andre (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), all of whom live in London’s inner-urban wilderness and are beginning to manifest what we used to quaintly call “superpowers”.
Ghetts as Krazy in Supacell.Credit:
For Sabrina, it is telekinesis, for Rodney super-speed, for Tazer it is invisibility, for Andre super-strength and for Michael, critically, the ability to stretch and bend time like it’s a pot of playdough, meaning sometimes the linear story details are unclear.
But for the most part, it’s a rollicking, fast-paced race through the superhero genre, but seen through the prism of urban culture and institutional disadvantage, and served up with a sort of contemporary flourish. “This ain’t a f---ing comic book, mate, this is real life,” one character quips. “And our lives have been shit.”
There are no Supermen or Wonder Women here. The world of Supacell is a more complex mirror on modern society, not least because for the longest time you’re not entirely sure who are the good guys. Even goodies-versus-baddies itself feels like an old-fashioned notion.
Rapman has filmed the series mostly around south-east London, near Deptford and Lewisham, where he grew up. It makes sense. Rapman knows the landscape well and he uses it deftly in the series.
But when Jonathan Harvey used these concrete public-housing blocks and the alleyways around them as a setting for Beautiful Thing back in the 1990s, the working-class concrete wilderness was ubiquitous. Nowadays, it feels like gentrification has pushed the boundaries back, so the series struggles occasionally to find its grit.
Also, messy superhero stories are not new. Amazon’s The Boys is sold as a DC or Marvel retool with rough-around-the-edges anti-heroes struggling to make sense of their comic-book identities. But Supacell is far more complex. Long before we tackle the big questions, these guys have to get out of their own way.
Eddie Marsan’s Ray, the sinister man in charge of hunting down the “supers”, may be writ large out of the genre playbook, but the skin and bone of the series – awkward but likeable Rodney, misunderstood Tazer and self-doubting Michael – feel like they speak with a compelling truth.
And despite the genuinely surreal comic-book elements, super-speed, super-strength and time-bending, Supacell feels deeply grounded, both in its south-east London setting and in its pantheon of super-powered but unexpectedly authentic characters.