“Love, Death, and Robots” consists of 18 unrelated short science fiction and fantasy films, all under 20 minutes and most animated rather than live action. Their quality varies wildly, from sublime to ridiculous; most look and feel like the video game trailers that sometimes pop up in the advertisements of the ridiculous CW superhero shows that I love to watch.
There were seven that I really liked–“Three Robots,” “Helping Hand,” “Ice Age,” “Sonnie’s Edge,” “Beyond the Aquila Rift,” “Good Hunting,” and “The Witness.” These had interesting stories, characters, and animation styles, and seemed to be more than just video game trailers. And there were a couple–“Shape-Shifters” and “The Secret War”–that I thought were just abysmal, with no effort to rise above the genre. The rest might have had a few interesting aspects–for example, Samira Wiley’s performance in “Lucky 13,” and the animation in “Fish Night”–but were mostly predictable and frankly dull.
Most also had gratuitous nudity to make them seem more “edgy” than they really were. Nudity was appropriate and used well in “Sonnie’s Edge” and “The Witness,” but in the rest it seemed to be there mostly for the “NSFW” vibe. The violence was pretty much over the top, too, but not really out of place given the subject matter; some of it, particularly in “Sonnie’s Edge,” was grueling and effective.
Overall, this series reminded a lot of “Heavy Metal,” though without the loose unifying structure that the orb provided in that movie. I haven’t seen “Heavy Metal” in years, and I suspect that on re-watching it I’d find the same things to criticize, though it was a pretty awesome movie for a 14-year-old boy’s tastes; which seems to be the audience most of “Love, Death, and Rockets” was targeting as well.