Beyond the world of genres and subgenres, lies stories which are powerful enough to become popular tropes of their own. A group of kids going on adventures, and solving mysteries, is one such trope. We have seen iterations of this in popular media like The Famous Five, The Goonies, and Stranger Things. While trying to follow a popular story structure is nothing to be frowned upon, Prime Video’s Snakes and Ladders goes above and beyond to remove even the inherent joys of the stories it aims to emulate.

Snakes and Ladders follows a group of school kids who inadvertently find themselves entangled in a murder mystery that connects them to an organised crime network. Even the stereotypical characterisation of making every kid in the gang designed to have their own unique personality traits is absent. Except for the studious nerd (who obviously wears glasses and stutters), every kid is a vague amalgamation of an adult’s perception of a pre-pubescent. There is no change in rhythm or tone in the dialogues, which makes everyone sound the same, kid or adult. The series is also undecided about its tone. In one scene, you witness a convincing, violent home invasion and in the other you see kids knocking out fully grown adults with a shovel to the head, like cartoon characters. However, if you think the tonal shift is justified for scenes involving the kids, then the dialogues could have at least matched the tone. The writing is defiantly lacklustre and it almost seems to revel at the lengths of blandness it could dive into. The paltry attempts at humour never work and almost the entire length of the series is devoid of any attempts to have fun with its own adventurous premise.

Creators: Kamala Alchemis and Dhivakar Kamal
Directors: Ashok Veerapan, Bharath Muralidharan, Kamala Alchemis

Despite all attempts by the writer, Manoj Bharathiraja brings much needed life to the character with subtle quirkiness. Subash Selvan stands out with his emphatic portrayal of a man divided between duty and love. On the contrary, it is apparent that Nandaa, with unfocused eyes, and monotonous dialogue deliveries, seems heavily uninterested. However, it is unclear if the problem lies with the actor or the writing or the direction. Naveen Chandra has little to do except walk about, peeping from the shadows, in mysterious ways, and maybe occasionally burst out in anger. Characters make odd choices and narrative threads go nowhere and the plot points that do lead somewhere, leave us underwhelmed and frustrated. Apart from the writing, technical departments too leave a lot to be desired. The soundtrack is heavily reminiscent of the first season of Stranger Things, not for its use of synth-wave music but for how the music matches the scene—The kids are driving bicycle down the hill? Let’s play something like the track ‘Kids’ from Stranger Things, which also plays when the central characters take a bicycle joyride. The editing in the climactic fight scene feels like deliberate sabotage.

Snakes and Ladders seems like an experiment to create the most tepid murder mystery with the bare minimum in every department, from writing to direction to acting. With traces of competency and flashes of authenticity, it seems that the problem with the series is the overall creative decision to have only a vague idea of what it wants to emulate. It ends up neither being a satisfying kids’ adventure nor a gripping thriller. The series does end up being a cautionary tale to streamers who want to recreate popular tropes with soulless imitations.