‘Dragon Age: Absolution’ is a Netflix animated series that follows a team of mages, fighters, and a runaway elf on their quest to steal a powerful magical artefact.
Story
Miriam is a skilled thief and a runaway elf. After running into her old friend Mira, she’s convinced to embark on a mission to retrieve a powerful magical artefact from the summer palace of Tevinter Divine.
The team consists of Miriam, Hira, Fairbanks, Roland, Lacklon, and Qwydion. They break into the palace and then the vault, and steal the artefact, but backstabbing from a member leads to Hira getting caught and Fairbanks dying, while the rest escape.
The team decides to go back and rescue Hira, while Miriam stands at risk of contending again with familiar faces from her traumatic childhood as a slave in the palace. Magister Rezaren is a high-rank mage who wants Circulum to resurrect the dead.
Miriam and the team go for the second bout and take successfully break out Hira, who turns out to be the traitor, having dealt Miriam the artefact. However, the team manages to spoil Rezaren’s plans and save Miriam, who deals the final blow to the Magister, killing him with her knife.
Miriam then tries to persuade Hira to turn to her side and leave her hate and anger behind. However, Hira can’t do that; she leaves the team and rushes off to her accomplices who are mighty foes of the Tevinter kingdom, awaiting its utter destruction.
Miriam and the team set off once again to track down the Circulum and retrieve it before it falls into the wrong hands.
Performances
The voice cast for ‘Dragon Age: Absolution’ is made up of talented actors who all put forth a competent and laudable display of voice-flexing, conveying brilliantly all the animated quirks and emotions of the characters.
That said, due to the temporary nature of the series, there isn’t enough for the voice actors to play around with.
Positives
The animated series has a lot of great action sequences that take advantage of the rich fantasy elements and lore of the video games it’s adapted from.
The CGI incorporated in the series can be sometimes iffy, but it’s a commendable effort overall and doesn’t become an eyesore as it can often come across in similar animated projects.
Negatives
With a total of six episodes, 30 minutes long each, there’s just not enough time for the characters’ backstories and development to take place.
As a result, it’s difficult to properly empathise with or be sympathetic to the main characters except for Miriam, who could also do a lot better with a fleshed-out backstory and more screen time devoted to it.
Verdict
‘Dragon Age: Absolution’ is too concise of an affair to make the viewers care for its main characters, let alone the supporting ones who are bereft of any sort of backstory.
Being an adaptation of an already existing fantastical world, the lore in ‘Absolution’ is nothing to scoff at, but the feeble runtime betrays all the good parts of what could have been a highly entertaining as well as emotional watch.
Dragon Age: Absolution
Director: Ki Yong Bae
Date Created: 2022-12-09 13:30
2.5
Also Read: Dragon Age: Absolution ending explained: Who has the Circulum Infinitus?