VisionQuest Series Review:

One of Marvel's most profound lines about the beauty of grief comes from the synthezoid Vision (Paul Bettany) in WandaVision. When Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) is distraught by the death of her brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Vision helps her understand her grief by telling her, "What is grief if not love persevering?" Wanda and Vision's arcs have always been driven by endless grief. In WandaVision and subsequently in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wanda realised how her unmitigated human anger, combined with her witch magic, can be dangerous and can make people isolate her, which goes against her very grain of wanting to be accepted. But in VisionQuest, we see a Vision with plenty of support and a lot of grief, still trying to understand what it means to be human. The series is a great exploration of what it means to be human, but it sometimes turns a blind eye to its actual story.

Creator: Terry Matalas

Cast: Paul Bettany, James Spader, Ruaridh Mollica, Emily Hampshire

At the end of WandaVision, when the Vision we knew from Avengers: Age of Ultron liberates the subservient White Vision to gain sentient thought, White Vision flies away, seeking the human within him. The human nature of the Vision we knew came from the Mind Stone. But this new Vision has all the memories, grief, and the inbuilt AIs of the Vision we knew, only lacking the human nature. Creator Terry Matalas uses this aspect to the fullest in VisionQuest. Vision's identity crisis arises not only from a lack of human nature, but also from confusion caused by an abundance of inputs. He tries to emulate his predecessor; he tries to listen to every AI within his code, even the psychopathic Ultron (James Spader). Like humans, Vision is people-pleasing, exhausted by constant failures, and prone to physical and mental dangers, including adamantium bullets and hacks. Matalas is careful to shape Vision's approach to solving his identity crisis by balancing his android-like understanding with human-like questions. Vision's delayed understanding of emotions leads viewers to introspect on their own nature, albeit in a heartfelt manner. Matalas understands and executes the first step of recreating and differentiating a familiar character, grounding him in being human and pointing him to an unexplored territory.

Paul Bettany hits all the right beats in portraying every part of Vision's journey. While executing every part of his superhero powers, he executes the vulnerable nature of his identity crisis with finesse.

Accompanying Bettany on his path to solve his identity crisis is his "son" Thomas Shepherd/Tommy Maximoff (Ruaridh Mollica). Like Vision, Tommy also suffers from an abundance of identities. But unlike Vision, Tommy's multiple identities pull him apart rather than build him up. The characterisation of Tommy can put Mollica in danger of portraying him as another stock character with mental disorders. But Mollica accepts every part of his character and finds the right moments, small or big, to stamp every part strongly into the viewer's mind.

But it is James Spader who stands out with his performance as Ultron. With Spader, Matalas has an actor who fully understands his prosaic dialogue delivery, driven by an iconic voice. The writer calls up an array of emotions that can crack Ultron's psychopathic enamel. But Spader transcends every point in his arc in an almost invisible manner, resulting in the actor not having to sacrifice that fundamental layer of Ultron's psychopathy. In VisionQuest, Spader is a hypnotist who makes audiences forget every other character in the scene.

But every layer of thematic writing and performance is undermined by the loss of focus on the story. While VisionQuest holds tight to its thematic layer, it loses the mystery element. As he tries to understand himself, Vision also tries to solve the mystery of another trying to gain control of his source code and physical self. The series sets up this plotline as a procedural but fails to connect it strongly to the thematic layer. With stylish fight scenes that unleash Vision's powers, this storyline only becomes forgettable.

VisionQuest is a worthy entrant into the pantheon of Marvel's series. It is a step up from the studio's past projects. But in failing to fully realise its own potential, the series ends up facing the effects of an identity crisis of its own making.