‘Utopia Falls’ attempts to navigate a dystopian world's politics with hip hop but loses pace occasionally
With its latest offering ‘Utopia Falls’ Hulu has attempted to bring something unique for its audiences by creating the first-ever sci-fi musical. It features the city of New Babyl in a not-so-distant future and its citizens whose lives are solely driven by the teachings of their leader Gaya.
‘Utopia Falls’ premises on the annual cultural event Exemplar, which is expected to bring order to the city of New Babyl through the inspirational performances of the candidates.
The society is divided into various sectors such as Industry, Reform, Nature and more and talented teenagers from each sector are chosen by the members of the Tribunal to participate in the Exemplar.
While the participants view Exemplar as an opportunity to make history, Aliyah (Robyn Alomar) and her friends from the academy discover an ancient and forbidden music Hip Hop in the Archives of a library hidden in the depths of woods and use it to start a revolution in a society that extinguishes everything to thwart flow of free thoughts. However, they are faced with struggles and threats when the authorities learn about their plans to start a revolution in a dystopian world, through the power of hip hop music.
Although ‘Utopia Falls’ tries to shed light on serious issues such as racism, activism, lack of freedom in a society led by corrupt leaders and the fears it instills in the innocent citizens, the prolonged display of teenage drama and their ability to easily grasp an art form which they were never exposed to, eliminates every bit of realism from a show that wishes to convey significant messages.
Throughout the ten episodes, we can’t help but wonder about the extreme resemblance it holds to ‘Hunger Games’. For those of you who are familiar with the movie, ‘Utopia Falls’ fails to offer anything different in terms of visuals and concepts. However, each episode of ‘Utopia Falls’ serves up a few cheesy moments of entertainment when the participants take the stage to rap and quote prominent hip hop artists from the ancient past known to us.
The cast of young characters is one of the highlights of ‘Utopia Falls’, whose comical chops and zeal to fight against the system manage to retain our attention when the narrative loses pace occasionally.
We ought to appreciate the series for skillfully navigating the power of music, although it could have been executed in a much appealing manner.
RT Throne’s ‘Utopia Falls’ makes for a decent watch for those who wouldn’t mind exploring a new genre on television, given you keep your high expectations aside.
All episodes of ‘Utopia Falls’ are available to stream on Hulu.