The Sandman is Netflix’s latest hit!?

The Sandman can be streamed via Netflix as of this week. To watch or not?

This week is The Sandman became available on Netflix. This DC Comic was long considered impossible to translate into a movie or series. Netflix picks up the gauntlet and did it anyway.

Created by Neil Gaiman, the DC comic tells a dark fantasy story that sometimes looks like a nightmare or a dream. A lot of characters pass by and we have to get to know a lot of characters. A lot of symbolism and you have to watch with full attention, otherwise you won’t follow it. First the trailer.

Unknown actors

No laundry list of famous stars. Netflix has dared to open a can of unknown actors. Not bad really, because that gives it something very special.

Leading actors in the series include Tom Sturridge (Dream), Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Death), and Patton Oswalt (Matthew the Raven). Not a simple storyline to summarize, but we’ll try. Morpheus, King of Dreams is one of the Endless and his job is to help others with dreams and stories. Dream’s siblings have names like Death, Despair, and Desire and those names aren’t chosen at random and say exactly what’s on her mind.

Criticism

Neil Gaiman’s DC Comic has always been deemed unfilmable and that also means that if it does eventually happen, you can expect the necessary criticism. Gaiman himself has been closely involved with the series and in consultation with him the story has been moved to the present time. He himself says about it:

It has been liberating to have the story set in the present day, although it has caused less change than we thought. The most important thing I’ve learned over the past 34 years is that we’ve done a lot of things right. We were already a bit ahead of our time. I find that deeply reassuring. We didn’t expect it, but the stories have held up well.

When the comics came out, the criticism was that the stories lacked politics, which was popular at the time. Now the criticism is correct that because of Netflix’s creative choices, the series is much too “woke”, too politically correct and that would not fit with the original stories. Gaiman himself was involved in the adjustments, so apparently they can give his approval.

The reactions and reviews are mostly good, so we advise you to just see for yourself and see for yourself what you think. To stream via Netflix.