Fallout review: Watching Amazon’s video game adaptation is more fun than playing it

REVIEW:

Fallout begins with the end of the world. Mushroom clouds. Fire and brimstone. Chaos and panic as 1950s Los Angeles explodes in the show’s opening scene. Among the carnage, a cowboy on horseback tears down Hollywood’s winding Mulholland Drive in a futile effort to escape unharmed. If only nuclear bombs showed mercy.

It’s a killer opening for a series that’s bound to be blowing up critics’ Best of 2024 lists come December. Right from the outset the show inspires confidence, with fantastic cinematography, performances and its fully realised aesthetic of 1950s-style retro-futurism.

All of which has been lifted wholesale from the video game franchise that the series is based on. This is a good thing. The Fallout games have long been celebrated for their unique, gee-whizz, space-age vibes, which contrast greatly with the hostile nuclear wasteland of the game’s setting.

The show wastes none of it. With almost three decades of lore and design to work with, the world Fallout presents is incredibly detailed and realised. Fans of the game can revel in all the little nods and Easter eggs, while newcomers to the franchise will find themselves impressed with its immensely cohesive world.

After the end, the show fast-forwards 200 years into the future. Many humans now live in vast underground vaults, hiding away from the radiation that’s still blowing in the irradiated wind. They’re the fortunate ones.

Life, as the saying goes, finds a way. Out in the wasteland, a more cut-throat existence is scraped out by those whose forefathers couldn’t get to a vault in time. Along with the everyday horror of living in a post-apocalyptic nightmare, there are also gangs, marauders and mutated creatures to deal with.

The next time we see that fleeing cowboy he’s being exhumed from the grave. Only he is not dead. Instead, the bomb’s nuclear radiation mutated him into a “ghoul”, a fleshy skeleton of the man he used to be. After some brutal gun-slinging action, he sets off on a bounty hunt across the wasteland.

His mission ties in with that of Maximus, a young recruit in The Brotherhood of Steel. Members of this militant group have declared themselves the watchmen of the wasteland and rule with the iron fist of their giant mech suits. They get word of a provocateur up to no good in the wasteland. They quickly suit up and set off to track him down.

These actions have them on a collision course with Lucy, the show’s main heroine. She’s a wide-eyed, model citizen of Vault 33, whose whole world comes crashing down in extremely gory detail when a violent gang of raiders blag their way into the sanctuary of the vault. After they’re done pillaging and plundering, they kidnap Lucy’s father and hoof it out of there.

Ella Purnell as Lucy in Amazon Prime's Fallout. Photo / Amazon Prime

To save him, she must do the unthinkable and leave the vault to brave the outer wilds of the wasteland, with her quest quickly dovetailing into that of the ghoul and the Brotherhood.

The show’s story ticks over with all the precision of an expensive Swiss watch. It walks the line between parody and sincerity flawlessly, with moments of drama, levity, tension and, occasionally, a bit of the old ultraviolence. It’s almost cartoonish how bloody it gets.

Fallout has hit the winning trifecta of a compelling story, a meticulously crafted world and a superb cast, especially the inimitable Walter Goggins (The Mighty Gemstones, Vice Principals) who is a delight as the gun-slinging ghoul Cooper. The intellect and respect with which the creators have treated Fallout is how Star Wars fans wish it had been treated.

Don’t be put off by its video game history, the grotesque imagery or all the blood splatter. Because watching Fallout has proven to be even more fun than playing it.

Karl Puschmann is the Culture Editor and an entertainment columnist for the NZ Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.