Love, Death & Robots Vol. 3 Series Review: Sticks to what the franchise is best known for

Netflix is back with the third volume of its unabashed, no-holds-barred, quirky adult animated shorts melange, Love, Death & Robots and this season perfectly captures and emulates the true essence of the franchise. While there's everything from humour to romance and amped-up gore and violence, this volume, consisting of 9 shorts, plays it safe and doesn't really break barriers. What it does offer is a brilliant voice cast coupled with some breathtaking visuals that pushes the boundaries of CG that the series has become synonymous with. Given how contrasting the mood, story, narration and visual feel of the shorts are when compared to each other, I feel it's only unprejudiced to talk about them all.

Created by: Tim Miller
Cast: Joe Manganiello, Jai Courtney, Mackenzie Davis, Rosario Dawson, Troy Baker, Josh Brener

Three Robots: Exit Strategies

The first entry in the third volume is also the first sequel in this franchise which brings back our beloved robots K-VRC, XBOT 4000, and 11-45-G who are busy embarking on another post-apocalyptic trip. In the first volume, they tried to figure out how humans lived based on their limited knowledge of them and what they had left behind. This time, they try to wrap their metal head around how humans tried and failed to survive the apocalypse. Beneath the unintentional humour, the robots deliver a social and economic commentary that's both thought-provoking and funny. While this cartoon-ish short isn't as humorous as the one we enjoyed in season 1, it still manages to stay true to its origins and offers the perfect start to a series that only gets more serious and darker.

Bad Travelling

Probably the most well-rounded short in this volume, Bad Travelling is about a giant man-eating crustacean called Thanapod that takes over a shark-hunting ship and slaughters almost all the crew members. Directed by the biggest name attached to the series, David Fincher, the short has his stamp all over it and is sure to remind us of his previous hits like Alien 3, especially during the human-animal conflict resolution sequences. The short works thanks to how brilliantly the problem aboard is handled while also dwelling on other factors like the human psyche, mutiny, democracy and the greater good during times where entropy reigns supreme and it almost makes you absolve the short for its surprisingly sober ending.

The Very Pulse of the Machine

The most visually stunning short in the series is so other-worldly that it's actually set on Io, one of the moons of Jupiter. The audience, along with the short's lead, a stranded astronaut, are taken on a journey that blurs the line between fact and fiction, the known and the unknown and reality and what lies beneath it. Bearing a core idea that's similar to Roland Emmerich's Moonfall which came out earlier this year, The Very Pulse of the Machine is the story of survival, what lengths one would go to achieve it, and how that "trip" can help you learn and unlearn a lot when the universe isn't what we thought it is. Loved the CG in the latest Doctor Strange film when he passed through different dimensions? This episode is for you!

Night of the Mini Dead

My pick of the lot is a funny short on how a horny couple defiling a church and a cemetery causes a zombie infestation leading to an apocalypse. Yes, you read that right. This brilliantly shot short is a fitting homage to the genre and true to its title, is made to look like a stop motion animation compiling miniatures captured from a bird's eye view. Right from flame throwers, zombie giants, explosions, modified vehicles, and nuclear missiles to the POTUS giving his opinion on the situation at hand, this quirky short showcases the butterfly effect on steroids.

Kill Team Kill

Speaking about paying homage to a particular genre of films, this one is about a team of soldiers trying to outlive a cybernetically-enhanced grizzly bear that looks like the love child of an 'Alien' and a 'Predator'. The 90s action cartoon-style graphics, the testosterone-powered characters, weapons straight out of a World War film, blood-splattering gore and the incessant use of cuss words come in handy in establishing the mood that the makers were after. The plot? Not so much!

Swarm

And we are not done with aliens yet. This short, directed by the series creator Tim Miller is probably the most complex of them all and that's something to look forward to in a series where content often takes the backseat. This story is about humans trying to understand an alien race so it can be controlled and used for the benefit of our species. What happens when the hunters get hunted forms the rest of "Swarm" which is not only a piece of work that will put a smile on sci-fi fans' faces, but it's also a visually stunning commentary on society, hierarchy, and the human instinct to wreck chaos.

Mason's Rats

What's intriguing about this franchise is the way the episodes are layered and after every short that needs a moment to process, comes an episode that's light-hearted yet true to the series' flavour. Imagine Ratatouille but instead of becoming friends, a man and rodents turn foes and that's the plot of Mason's Rats. This amusing short is a simple imagination as to what would happen if the pests fight back and how far would a man go to save his barn. Beneath the ludicrous plot lies a wacky yet surprisingly charming short that's got its heart at the right place narrated in a perfectly chosen style of animation.

In Vaulted Halls Entombed

Another short on the toes of "Kill Team Kill" ditches the earlier one's humour and replaces it with folklore and dread. When a team of soldiers on a hostage rescuing mission moves deeper into a cave, one horror after the other pushes them into the bowels of the tunnel where a shocking revelation leads to an 'every man for himself' - situation. Once again, the choice of animation style, which reminded me of a lot of futuristic sci-fi and warfare games, aids in passing on the vibes of transversing unknown terrain and facing fears whose existence was unknown. The ambiguous ending that's open for interpretation though might really not go down well with some people like me who grew up with a steady diet of such films where the good guys usually win.

Jibaro

One of my favourite shorts from the first season was The Witness and its director Alberto Mielgo has returned once again for a mind-bending episode. This time, instead of modern Hong Kong, we are taken to Puerto Rico during the times of conquistadors where a group is intercepted by a mysterious gold and jewel-draped women-like creature whose high-pitched call kills all the men except a deaf knight. While all the other eight shorts rely more on death and robots that make up two-thirds of the series' title, Jibaro is probably the best entrant to file under the L-word category. Mysterious yet alluring, this silent short with life-like visuals makes for the perfect finale to end this season on a high.

With many hits and very few misses, the third volume of Love, Death & Robots is another stellar addition to a series which has doubled as the calling card for the endless possibilities of various animation styles that pushes the envelope in today's approach toward narration. On the whole, this season offers a medley of stories with visuals that are as mind-blowing as its predecessors or even more, but also leave you wishing that the stories themselves were as interesting as the way they were showcased.