Killer Bean Episode 1 Review

Rating: 3/5 

Synopsis: Everyone’s favorite killer bean, Killer Bean, returns for the first episode of his series to kick some bean booty.

My Thoughts: After over two years since the Killer Bean Forever movie, I was hoping for some more over-the-top action with Matrix-style choreography and risibly hokey zingers, all of which made Forever such a fun film. Alas, what were the primary components of the movie are greatly diminished to minor ones in favor of poorly executed self-referential humor. The episode begins with a promotion for Killer Bean merchandise which was admittedly funny enough and reminded me of the irreverent adverts other animation channels such as Explosm and Vivziepop do in their videos albeit less crude. From there, we get an about 8-minute long scene taking place in the meeting room with former drug lord Cappuccino’s gang members basically recapping and lampshading the events of Forever. Now there were jokes that could have delivered well including that bit about some of the other beans’ shock upon learning female beans existed before flashbacking to portions of the movie to zoom in and add eyelashes and red lips modifications to background characters that were supposedly female. However, these parts fell flat due to the amateurish voice acting and audio quality which contained too much echoing and noise, giving it production values of a cheap impromptu live stream. Thankfully, past this point, the episode finally picked up steam beginning with a stylized intro which, despite being oddly spliced with another promotion for Killer Bean merchandise, set a promising impression that delivered well. First off, the establishing extended long shot depicting a derelict alley in which our titular action hero drives in a hijacked police vehicle created a killer (no pun intended) atmosphere filled with mystery of what is to come. This is followed by a dramatic entrance (which Killer Bean himself acknowledges) before introducing Kessler, a nerdy techie who spends much of his time in front of the computer screen and other contraptions which he uses to automate drones to take out Killer Bean who fights them off seamlessly in the first and only action scene in this episode. The humor in Killer Bean and Kessler's confrontation and exchange makes up for it nevertheless and contained some of the funniest dialogue which I won’t spoil that had me in stitches.

Final Thoughts: Besides the cringey first 8-ish minutes, episode 1 was a decently entertaining treat though the tone leaned more heavily on the comical side rather than a subtle spoof with a serious overtone. Hopefully, the coming installments in the series will lean more towards the latter.