Netflix’s Western Miniseries From The Revenant Co-Writer Doesn’t Match Oscar-Winning Hit On Rotten Tomatoes

Westerns may not be as popular as they once were from a box office standpoint, but new titles in the genre continue to be released regularly. The Western (and the neo-Western) has also become particularly popular in the TV landscape, with the Taylor Sheridan universe essentially reviving the genre with Yellowstone and its spinoffs like 1883 and 1923. The genre isn’t quite dead on the movie side of things, though, as 2015’s The Revenant proves.

Taking place in the 1820s and in a frozen landscape that’s less often featured in a typical Western, The Revenant stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hugh Glass, a frontiersman who sets out for revenge after being left for dead. The movie hails from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu with a script from Iñárritu, Mark L. Smith, and Michael Punke, and it was a major critical and commercial hit. Smith is now returning to the Western genre with a new Netflix miniseries, which promises to paint just as unforgiving and brutal a picture of the era as The Revenant did.

American Primeval Fails To Match The Revenant On Rotten Tomatoes

The Netflix Western Series Isn’t Impressing Critics So Far

The Rotten Tomatoes score for American Primeval has arrived, and the miniseries hasn’t gotten off to a great start. Following a variety of characters and their violent encounters during the tumultuous settling of the Old West in 1857, the miniseries, directed by Peter Berg, features an impressive cast, including Taylor Kitsch, Dane DeHaan, Shea Whigham, Jai Courtney, and Betty Gilpin, among others. Now streaming on Netflix, the American Primeval reviews are pouring in, meaning the project’s score is now available on Rotten Tomatoes.

Though it’s still early days and this score is certain to fluctuate as more reviews are added, American Primeval sits, as of writing, at a lackluster 43% critics’ score from 7 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The Revenantby comparison, has a 78% score from 401 reviews, along with an 84% audience score. An audience consensus hasn’t yet taken shape for American Primevalbut a score will likelyarrive over the next few days as more viewers get a chance to watch the series.

What American Primeval’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Means For The Show

Why The Response To The Netflix Series Has Been Mixed

It’s entirely possible that additional reviews will see American Primeval‘s score rise (or fall) over the next week or so, but the series thus far is dividing critics. In his review for Screen RantNick Bythrow awards the Western TV show a 6 out of 10, praising the show for its strong atmosphere and relentlessly violent action scenes but taking issue with characters who end up feeling somewhat thin across the six episodes, in addition to a bleakness that sometimes becomes overwhelming.

This sense of bleakness and the show’s focus on all the gory, graphic, and uncomfortable aspects of life on the American frontier in the 19th century is a common point of division across all the reviews, with some praising just how unflinching the show is, while others feel that it overpowers the character drama at the core of the story. As is often seen with titles that underwhelm critics on Rotten Tomatoes, however, American Primeval could end up faring much better with general audiences, and this could translate into viewership success.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes