The Umbrella Academy review: Netflix superhero tale more indebted to Wes Anderson than Stan Lee

A bonkers reminder that caped crusader adaptations can be delightful and insightful as well as deafening

Netflix’s commitment to the superhero genre was perceived as undergoing a massive wobble when it cancelled the majority of its Marvel tie-ins. Yet even as fans mourn the loss of Daredevil, Iron Fist and Luke Cage (The Punisher and Jessica Jones are surely for the chop also), the streaming service has made thrilling amends with its adaptation of the Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá cult series, The Umbrella Academy.

Where the Marvel shows have become entangled in the phoney war between Netflix and Disney – Marvel’s parent company is in the advanced stages of launching its own rival streaming platform – The Umbrella Academy saves its complications for the screen. It is both a revisionist – and frequently batty – take on the caped milieu and a winningly knotty mystery. And it surely is the first big-budget superhero tale more indebted to Wes Anderson than to Stan Lee.

The eponymous Umbrella Academy is a sort of X-Men for natural-born super-freaks. Thirty years before the story begins, the world is rocked by the birth of 43 babies to women apparently falling pregnant just moments earlier. Seven such infants are acquired by the mysterious Sir Reginald Hargreaves (Colm Feore), who names then numerically in order of perceived utility (the super-strong newborn is “Number One”, the child with no discernible powers “Number Seven”).

But now Sir Reginald is dead, apparently felled by a heart attack. Having, in the majority of cases, renounced their superhero careers, his family return to their Wayne Manor-esque childhood home to mourn him. Among the returning step-siblings is supremely earnest Luther, aka Number One (Tom Hopper), the annoying, telekinetic Klaus, aka Number Four (an overcooked Robert Sheehan), and Ellen Page as Vanya, aka Number Seven (the only thing she is good at is violin).

The tearful reunion unfolds predictably until the sudden arrival of the missing Number Five (Aidan Gallagher). A world-weary time traveller trapped in the body of his 13-year-old self, he returns from a future in which humanity has been destroyed. On his tail are supernatural assassins in grotesque animal masks (R&B icon Mary J Blige and Cameron Britton, from David Fincher’s Mindhunter).

Throw in Sir Reginald’s talking chimpanzee butler (Adam Godley) and a terrifyingly chirpy robot “mom” (Jordan Claire Robbins) – she may or may not have had a hand in offing the old man – and you have a superhero drama that leans enthusiastically into its weirdness. In this, it is abetted by dialogue that feels like a cousin once removed from the Wes Anderson school of wry understatement and production values steeped in Andersonian quirkiness. A flashback in which the Umbrella kids train by running up gilded stairs in matching track-suits could, for instance, have come straight from The Royal Tenenbaums.

Devotees of boom-biff superhero capers may consider the uncanniness distracting. Yet, beneath the quirky veneer, The Umbrella Academy is a devastating rumination on how childhood scars can continue to define us as adults. It is also a satisfyingly murky thriller that demonstrates genuine innovation in its occasional action scenes (such as a split-screen shoot-out in a department store soundtracked to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”). As we count down to the latest Avengers bombast-fest, The Umbrella Academy is a reminder caped crusader adaptations can be delightful and insightful along with punch-drunk and deafening. It’s as bonkers as anything – but a brolly good show to boot.