The Pentaverate TV Review

Plot: What if a secret society of five men has been working to influence world events for the greater good since the Black Plague of 1347? As this new series begins, one unlikely Canadian journalist finds himself embroiled in a mission to uncover the truth and just possibly save the world himself. Remember, the Pentaverate must never be exposed!

Review: I have long been a fan of Mike Myers’ Wayne’s World follow-up, the 1993 romantic comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer. One of the funniest moments in that film involves Myers playing the Scottish Stuart McKenzie who explains about a secret cabal known as The Pentaverate. Now, three decades later, Myers returns with his first starring role since 2008’s box office bomb, The Love Guru. The Pentaverate, a six-episode Netflix series, expands on his 1993 joke for a hilariously profane and immature comedy that harkens back to Myers’s work on the Austin Powers franchise. While not breaking any new ground that we haven’t seen before, The Pentaverate is a timely story that involves climate change and lots of pop culture references as well as a fair amount of scatological humor and broad puns. In short, it is classic Mike Myers.

The Pentaverate opens with the induction of the latest member of the secret order, Dr. Hobart Clark (Keegan-Michael Key). With his entry to the five-member panel, the audience is introduced to their mission to solve the world’s problems. And, according to the opening credits narrator Jeremy Irons, they are different from other secret societies because The Pentaverate is “nice”. Playing all five members of The Pentaverate, Myers gets to adopt all sorts of costumes, prosthetics, and funny accents. The group operates much like Dr. Evil’s crew in that they sit around a big table and throw easy jokes at one another. The jokes include a lot of words that sound different via a Russian accent from the Rasputin-esque Mishu Ivanov (Myers) or just simple references that take the viewer out of the story with fourth-wall-breaking asides. It is all funny in a way that I imagine a fourth Austin Powers movie would feel if it were released today.

Myers also plays some non-Pentaverate characters, notably Canadian reporter Ken Scarborough who is working to uncover the truth about the Pentaverate. Ken is the most heartwarming and likable of the characters and makes for some funny Canadian/American jokes including one about how everything north of the USA is fuzzy as well as a joke about how vulgar Americans are. Ken is aided by camera operator Reilly (Lydia West) and conspiracy theorist Anthony Lansdowne (also Myers) who follows alt-right nutjob Rex Smith (again, Myers). These characters serve as the “heroes” of the story despite The Pentaverate considering themselves the good guys. The other major appearances come from Jennifer Saunders in dual roles that rival Myers’s talents as well as Ken Jeong, Debi Mazar, and funny minor roles from Rob Lowe and Maria Menounos.

As the series progresses, the jokes begin to feel a bit redundant and slow down the pacing, even though each episode clocks in at just a half-hour each. If this were a feature film, it would run at three hours and if you don’t think you could handle Mike Myers for three hours, then this is not the series for you. Austin Powers pushed the envelope of the jokes and sight gags you could get away with in a PG-13 film, but The Pentaverate never shies away from amping up the humor past innuendo and into straight vulgarity. I would be lying if I said I didn’t laugh through the show, but at some points, the jokes are very groan-worthy, and feel like they could have been cut and no one would have missed them. Still, there are some funny tidbits that make the show worth checking out, but they are mostly tangential and work outside of the series as a whole. For example, don’t skip the opening titles of each episode and you will get what I mean.

The series originated from an idea by Mike Myers who wrote the first, and strongest, episode on his own. The five subsequent episodes were co-written with Roger Drew and Ed Dyson. The entire series is directed by Tim Kirkby, a veteran TV director known for work on Fleabag, Brockmire, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The visual quality of the series is far better than anything in Myers’ previous projects thanks to the deep pockets of Netflix. I mean, this is a silly show and it manages to have a score from British band Orbital, something I imagine carries with it a decent-sized price tag.

The Pentaverate is funny and will be enjoyed by fans of Mike Myers, but it does feel a bit overindulgent. Clearly, Netflix gave Myers free reign to make whatever he wanted and didn’t force any sort of edits. It is pretty telling that the series did not screen for critics before debuting today. While Myers’s work has never been critically acclaimed, fans seem to enjoy it. The Pentaverate is going to get roasted by critics because it feels very familiar and the jokes aren’t all that original, but Myers and his crew certainly had fun making it. While I am glad I didn’t have to pay to see this on the big screen, I enjoyed laughing at some dumb jokes for a couple of hours.

The Pentaverate is now streaming on Netflix.

The Pentaverate

AVERAGE

6