Review Apple TV+ series ‘Link’ – SerieTotaal

The political espionage genre has the luxury of appearing intellectual beforehand. The mysterious intrigue, the jargon and those many abbreviations for government agencies; everything seems to be written by people who understand things most people don’t have access to. Link use that luxury, but ultimately falls through the basket. It’s just an average thriller series.

A hacker gains access to British government networks and begins performing deadly stunts in London. A lock that lets too much water through, a furious train that puts the green light where it shouldn’t, an airplane in which the autopilot suddenly takes over: the metropolis is having a hard time. A British government agent and a French ‘mystery man’ go in search of another hacker on the run who has access to important information, but their collaboration is not a bed of roses. Both have a passionate past.

There are film and television makers who are good at taking a simple story and telling it as complicated as possible. the one of Link not so. First of all, it takes a while before it’s clear what’s going on, as little information is given about the plot and characters. Very mysterious, but it creates a distance between the series and the viewer. It only gets exciting when it’s clear what’s at stake.

Secondly, the idea is that sparks fly with the two main characters, played by Eva Green and Vincent Cassel. The opening titles show vaguely sexy images of a couple making love while a sensual song plays. Every time she sees him something awakens in her. She does not stir anything with the viewer, because apart from the fact that her past is only revealed in the penultimate episode -and that is not the most fascinating background- there is not a remarkable chemistry between the two stars either.

It also seems that Eva Green likes to remind everyone that she is not British, but French. Yes, the English voice actress who has had an enduring hold on the heart of James Bond since Daniel Craig first played him was born in France to a French mother and a Swedish father. The many conversations between her and Cassel are in French, so most of the series is not in English.

It becomes clear that Link It’s not a great series when a videotape showing the main characters at a younger age appears in the fourth episode, so Cassel wears a wig with longer hair and Green comes off as a rebellious teenager. The videotape shows his participation in a street protest, at which several full-fledged camera crews were apparently filming, all of the footage of which had apparently been collected and edited. Everything on that videotape is completely ridiculous.

The series itself becomes more interesting when it is clear what the story is about. It’s certainly not groundbreaking, but at least it makes the above understandable. It’s not logical, by the way, because if that hacker hadn’t been messing with London security, no one would have started looking for a culprit and the bad guy could have completed the plan without resistance. For fans of the genre. Link Get on with it, but the rest can better skip this series.

★★★☆☆

Link can be seen on AppleTV+.