On July 17, the detective drama miniseries «Untamed» starring Eric Bana and Sam Neill became available on Netflix. It consists of six episodes with an average duration of 45 minutes. Is it worth spending this time on the weekend on another Netflix show — we are rushing to tell you in the review below.
Genre crime thriller, police detective, drama
Showrunners Mark L. Smith, Elle Smith
Starring Eric Bana, Sam Neill, Rosemary DeWitt, Wilson Bethel, Lily Santiago
Premiere Netflix
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
One day, while climbing Mount El Capitan in Yosemite National Park «Yosemite», two climbers almost fall into the abyss when the body of a dead young girl falls from the top right on top of them. A tough National Park Service special agent, Kyle Turner, arrives at the scene and immediately begins investigating Jane Doe’s death. He is assigned Naya Vasquez, who has recently been transferred here from Los Angeles, as his partner.
In the beginning, the unsociable Turner is wary of his less experienced colleague, at least in terms of outdoor investigations. But as the characters gradually get closer to the truth, the trust between them will grow. It’s time to unearth the ancient secrets that the local rivers, dense forests, and majestic mountains hide.
«Untamed» begins quite rapidly. Climbing a mountain peak in the opening scenes is hardly a surprise today — just remember the extreme Tom Cruise in the second «Mission Impossible» (2000) or the carefree tourists who didn’t realize the imminent disaster in «Wrong Turn» (2003). Or Stallone in «Cliffhanger» (1993). However, here we are immediately offered an intriguing intrigue: who is this girl and how did it happen that she was flying down the mountain at full speed?
Eric Bana has enough wisdom in his eyes and noble gray hair to assure the viewer that all the secrets will be revealed, so at first, all we can do is look forward to a potentially exciting investigation. Moreover, it will be accompanied by side complications related to the peculiarities of the location. For example, a wild bear may suddenly appear from around the corner. Or a walk in the local caves can lead to tragic consequences.
«I don’t think you should walk alone here at all» — Naya Vazquez says after getting to know the area. «This is not Los Angeles. Everything is different here,” says Karl Turner from Banff.
Unfortunately, the initial hopes for the above investigation are decisively dashed when the narrative begins to get bogged down in long, boring scenes, and the intrigue is extinguished by the pressure of dubious drama.
And while this is only the second project in screenwriter Elle Smith’s career after «The Marsh King’s Daughter» (2023), her colleague Mark L. Smith is a gritty bun. He has such hits behind him (where, by the way, nature also played an important role) as «The Revenant» (2015) and the recent «American Primeval» on the same Netflix. It’s no wonder that under his tutelage, the story turned out to be so mediocre.
The trouble is that no matter which character we see in the frame, almost everyone has their own drama and skeletons in the closet, and it’s a pleasure to dig through them. Almost everyone is affected, with the only exceptions being Bruce Milch’s minor mustache, who clearly dislikes Turner, local fisherman Jay Stewart, and a gamekeeper played by Wilson Bethel, who you may remember from his role as the Marked Man in «Daredevil». And even he has something to hide.
In fact, the main detective intrigue is based on one of these skeletons, which in the end turns out to be a predictable disappointment.
If the Smiths had confined themselves to the tragedy that befell the protagonist and his ex-wife, the series would have benefited from this, because then the drama would have resonated with the viewer much more powerfully. Instead, the authors are sprayed with unnecessary, unnecessary background of Turner’s new partner, the tragic fate of Jane Doe, local deer, and all this is layered with a far from interesting path to answers to burning questions about those bumbling hippie squatters or secret drug labs.
At the same time, there is no chemistry between Bana and Lily Santiago, which prevents us from sincerely feeling the development of professional relationships between their characters.
The scriptwriters build the narrative on the principle of least resistance and maximum comfort for themselves — in the most tense moments, the savior can appear out of nowhere (which in itself does not make the maneuver unpredictable, but rather the opposite), and against the background of the general narrative monotony, what had good potential turns into something monotonously boring.
The numerous picturesque landscapes of untouched nature, the idyll of which is disturbed by surprisingly unnatural computer deer, are pleasant to the eye. And as long as there are no people in the frame, this is probably the best series in the world.
The same can be said about «Untamed» if you turn on the show for the sake of background viewing, paying attention only to the noteworthy moments (there are undoubtedly some here, too). But if you take up a thoughtful, meticulous reading, then along with the suffering of the characters, the viewer runs the risk of suffering a little.
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Cуб'єкт у сфері онлайн-медіа; ідентифікатор медіа - R40-06029.
