A bloody war rages across Europe, claiming thousands of lives on an almost daily basis. Even the most physically impressive soldiers don’t stand a chance against bullets and bombs, and our hero isn’t exactly a giant amongst men. Then he’s given the opportunity to make a real difference: a new experimental serum designed to turn him into a super-soldier. Sounds familiar? Not the way The Sentinels tells it.
While it’s tempting to think of the series as France’s answer to Marvel’s Captain America, it’s quickly made obvious that whatever early similarities there might be, this is taking the idea of super-soldiers off in a much grittier direction. No gaudy costumes or flag-waving here: this is war – the First World War, to be exact – taken to a whole new level.
It’s April 1915, and the German advance has France on the brink of defeat. French scientists have come up with a way to turn the tide – all they need are subjects to experiment on. Enter Gabriel Ferraud (Louis Peres), coughing up black muck and surrounded by his dead comrades in no man’s land. Crawling through mud, wrestling with the enemy in shell holes, blown up by his own side, it’s a wonder he survives the first five minutes.
Recovering in a military hospital behind the lines, he’s a wreck. He won’t see his wife, can barely get out of bed; in his state, the offer of a seemingly miraculous serum that will enable him to fight again seems too good to be real. Or it would, if he were given the chance to refuse it. It’s sheer luck that he survives being injected with the serum; with what lies ahead, there’ll be times he wishes he hadn’t.
The gothic mood is heightened by scenes at a decadent French nightclub run by The Baron (Ouassini Embarek). There, the war is a distant memory, unless you’re a German spy looking to make a deal for information about a certain secret laboratory. When the floor show turns out to be a psychic (Pauline Étienne) with the ability to make people obey her against their will, it’s clear that this might be grounded in the horrors of war, but it’s not afraid to dabble with the fantastic either.
Olivia Ross as Irène. Credit: Caroline Dubois
More down-to-earth is the search by Gabriel’s wife Irène (Olivia Ross). One of the few editors left at a Paris newspaper, she’s only staying until her husband gets out of the hospital and they – and their six-month-old child – can get to safety. When she’s instead told he’s died, she doesn’t believe it and sets out on a search that will uncover more than one secret some very powerful people will kill to keep.
Visually, the series looks stunning, with a heightened realism, whether it’s the carnage of the front lines, the excess of the Parisian underworld, or the nightmarish 1915-style high-tech laboratory where Ferraud and others are transformed into war-winning weapons via brutal operations – or die in the process.
The Sentinels is based on a series of graphic novels, but the approach here is much closer to steampunk than superhero. Ferraud’s promotion to unstoppable killing machine comes with a Frankenstein-style series of transformations into a clanking WWI version of Robocop, a brass and leather machine whose humanity is locked away, struggling to survive as the procedures he’s gone through continue to have unforeseen (and sometimes useful) side effects.
Soldiers in action in 'The Sentinels'. Credit: Caroline Dubois
There’s no shortage of action here. Automatic weapons, psychic abilities, super-speed and strength; this isn’t your great-grandfather’s World War One. No sooner is Ferruad off the operating table than he’s taking out an entire unit of German commandos, and he’s only getting started.
But all this power comes at a price. Not only has he lost his family, but his very humanity is also on the line. Being literally turned into a living weapon is a pretty blunt metaphor for the dehumanising nature of war and as he and his unit of super-soldiers take the fight to the Germans, they soon learn that while their bodies might be hard to kill, the men they were might already be dead.
Then there’s the small detail that the Germans are working on a Übermensch program of their own, and Ferraud just might have more in common with their unholy creation than he realises.
Even in the First World War, a superhero needs a supervillain.
The Sentinels season 1 episodes 1-7 premiere Saturday 1 November on SBS On Demand. Episode 8, fast-tracked from France where the series is currently screening, will become available on Tuesday 4 November.
Upcoming On Demand
The Sentinels
series • action • French
MA15+
series • action • French
MA15+
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