Critic Reviews

It’s hard to tell if this tighter approach to episodic storytelling will reach a satisfying end, since Tartakovsky excels more at bringing us into the heat of the moment than exploring a bigger picture. But he’s off to a promising start. Jack may not be back from the past just yet, but Genndy Tartakovsky has certainly returned to form.

Genndy Tartakovsky is the world’s greatest living action filmmaker, and Samurai Jack, which starts its fifth and final season on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim March 11, is the most aesthetically daring series on TV. Amazingly, both statements were true back in 2004, the last time Samurai Jack aired new episodes.

Everything glows. One hopes for a happy ending, of course, but what matters most is shape and color, the abstraction of rain on stone, the sun through the trees. It makes Samurai Jack endlessly rewatchable: Every picture tells a story.

Samurai Jack is animated storytelling of the highest caliber and it hasn’t skipped a beat.

I’m happy to report that this cartoon created by Genndy Tartakovsky is as exciting, beautiful, and multilayered as it ever was.

Tartakovsky had described Season 5 as 10 parts of a five-hour movie, and it’s felt instantly.

Samurai Jack wasn’t a property I’d been dreaming of ever seeing again, but it’s emerged from its trip through time and space far better than most of the recent TV revivals.