The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Review: A More Mature and Ambitious Season Episode 1-12
Cast: Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson
Director: Young Heller, Alicia Chan, Eugene Lee
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Climbing the rating charts is an extremely complex task, especially if it’s an animated show, but The Legend of Vox Machina has managed to repeat itself (and perhaps even surpass itself) with its second season. About a year after the enchanting start of a small revolution for the format (which we talked about in our special on The Legend of Vox Machina), the animated series inspired by the first D&D campaign of the RPG phenomenon Critical Role is back on screens with the precise intent to show the full potential of their stories. From a purely transpositional point of view, the adaptation work carried out by the participants of that epic campaign themselves is worthy of large productions and aims to bring RPG-themed animated works to another level.
Backed by the passion of those directly involved and by a community of loyal followers, the adaptation of that splendid adventure is proving to be one of the greatest successes for the Prime Video platform. The group of voice actors and most famous role players in America has not only broken down the gatekeeping barriers that saw the RPG forced and limited to the niche but has shown that productions born from collective storytelling can also aspire to great things in other media. With a third season already in the pipeline and a new production on The Mighty Nein campaign announced in recent days, Critical Role has gained greater confidence in its potential. Today, this renewed spirit and ever-greater ambitions make it a company to keep an eye on for the future as well.
The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Review: The Story Plot
Once the thread of the narrative has resumed, with the attack of an organized group of Dragons on the capital of Tal’Dorei, Emon, the Vox Machina find themselves dealing with a real apocalypse. Kingdoms collapse, oppressed by legendary creatures, and chaos dominates the scene: among the rubble of the unfortunate and the tenacity of those who remained, the rowdiest group of adventurers on TV understands the importance of opposing it for the good of ordinary people. The strength of each one will prove to be fundamental for the outcome of the battle to come, but to reach it will be necessary to find the strength within oneself.
Facing the past to improve the present and save the future, the Vox Machina group then embarks on an arduous journey to find the Vestiges of Divergence, legendary artifacts capable of granting unimaginable powers. The search for these objects serves as the perfect link between the main strand of the plot, in which Draghi and outside forces conspire to subjugate the continent and the personal stories that form the beating heart of this season: observing, as happened with Percy in the first season, the origin of the twins, Grog or Keyleth, the episodes give ample space to each of the characters and their respective bonds, carefully scrutinizing each stage of their maturation journey as the plot thickens. The scope of events increases dramatically and reaches an increasingly worrying degree of threat, but at the same time, the interest in increasingly three-dimensional, deep, and multifaceted characters also increases.
Therefore, less room for wide-open laughter, but more balance to convey all the sensations with which the fantastic campaign had upset the web years ago. As already happened in the last season, The Legend of Vox Machina manages to excel in the way it tells and tells itself, facing potentially trivial elements with an extremely rare coherence and depth for works of this genre. Fearlessly facing the horror, bringing to the screen extremely realistic aspects both for the characters and for the context, the second season of the Critical Role show promises to satisfy longtime fans and to surprise them along with viewers who have never followed the countryside.
An extremely pressing rhythm, alternated by sequences with palpable pathos, allows the series to move freely where it most wishes, passing from flashbacks to interlude sequences with extreme agility without filling or confusing the observer. From an expository point of view, however, the deviations are the masters: genuinely opportune and ideal for contextualizing dozens of hours of play at the table, the changes allow the narration not to encounter hitches and indeed to benefit from them, improving its plot to adapt it perfectly to the dynamism of the small screen.
The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Review and Analysis
Already from our first look at The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2, we were able to understand the importance of the adaptation for the general success of the show. The writing of the episodes, in this sense, was able to draw from an infinite amount of material to make decisive steps forward both in emotional terms and in purely qualitative terms: the dialogues appear more interesting and the exchanges acquire the right weight in every single scene, supported by interpretations of the highest level – both in the original language and in Italian, thanks to a dubbing (but above all an adaptation) that is as attentive and cared for as few others.
In mixing a huge number of themes and elements, the preliminary sensations are confirmed and demonstrate that nothing on the screen appears by chance. The fillers are reduced to the bone, between ad hoc quotes for the fans and small details for the more attentive observers, while the staging is committed to making each sequence spectacular to make the adventure more and more engaging. In this sense, the direction makes a decidedly important qualitative leap, guaranteeing ever greater spectacularity and epicness that allow each episode to shine for different reasons. Whether it’s a scenario, a fight, or a song, The Legend of Vox Machina has fun unleashing the many arrows on his bow.
The animations honor the effort made by Titmouse, but also show how the team has found an exceptional partner in Critical Role – especially on the creative-aesthetic side, where the affinities are evident. The quality of the designs and environments is admirable, as is CGI, which acquires greater cleanliness and tries to get closer to the overall quality of the work. The style of the series now appears unique in its kind, capable of giving new form with original inclusiveness to the most classic styles of fantasy and acquires further epicness thanks to the sensational music composed by Neal Acree (historical composer of World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Stargate SG -1). After a first season of introduction and settling, The Legend of Vox Machina is more than ever intent on impressing with a masterful mix of action, comedy, adventure, and drama. Critical Role now seems to have acquired full artistic maturity, net of some excesses in the management of subplots. By justifying the run-up to the main elements of the narrative with the excessive amount of material to adapt, the hope is that the next seasons will give more space to certain events without excluding the goodies for the fans.
Considering what we have seen, we are confident that The Legend of Vox Machina is very close to setting a standard for fantasy-themed television representations. Guided by those who deeply love the original material, totally created, produced, and interpreted by the same team, the Critical Role show has already made it clear that operations of this kind can guarantee enormous success even beyond genre classifications. Combining a fascinating story, a proactive production, and the best voice actors in America, it is not surprising that the results achieved have prompted Amazon to extend the agreement for further production.
After seeing how difficult it was to render certain events on the screen compared to the build-up of an entire campaign, one can only be satisfied with the work done in this second season. The new episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina represent a cohesive and satisfying combination for everyone, net of slight distortions in the interweaving phase, which manages to surprise with its colors and its prevailing imagination while striking straight to the heart. An all-around adventure that not only brings tabletop RPGs closer to the general public but also delivers a beautiful story to the public that everyone can appreciate even if far from certain dynamics.
The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 Review: The Last Words
The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 proves to have acquired greater awareness of one’s means and also greater courage in addressing certain issues. Unafraid to take great risks in condensing or diverging from the source material, the series manages to create epic preconditions and epic developments for each of the characters involved. Maturity and ambition are the keywords of success destined to set the pace for further future productions.
