Critic Reviews

In Netflix’s new heartfelt, utterly enjoyable fairy tale series, “Sweet Tooth,” the post-apocalypse is refreshingly less inhospitable and dour. While it’s definitely not a completely fun-filled utopia, it is an antidote to the grimdark worlds we usually see in apocalyptic fantasy and one brimming with love, hope, beauty, and, well, sweet treats.

It never falls into the trap of making the viewer feel as if nothing is real and nothing really matters. Season two builds skilfully to a showdown with several bravely uncompromising payoffs, delivered in a way that its younger viewers can easily appreciate, not least because it tends to be grownups who meet their fate.

The performances are strong throughout—Anozie is particularly remarkable—but it’s the consistently inventive writing and robust filmmaking that makes the project stand out. It’s heartfelt and fantastical at the same time.

Sweet Tooth is a series worth your time and emotional energy. The creative team has lovingly rendered a fully realized world, utilizing subtle, practical visual effects, gorgeous cinematic landscapes, stellar writing and beautiful performances across the board. Together it makes for one of the best adaptations in recent memory.

Mickle and his writers do a remarkable job tying together the disparate character, mythological, and thematic threads from the book into a cohesive and impactful outcome for the show. Again, while the details differ, the broader themes and reimagined representations of Lemire’s visuals are quite surprising and maybe even a little more resonant, especially in the final episode.

In short, "Sweet Tooth" exemplifies the best of what fantasy storytelling can be, creating a whole world without ever forgetting that the most important one of all is our own.

What’s even more impressive is the delicate balance between the laughable and the distressing here. “Sweet Tooth” has some serious and timely bite.

The transition of Sweet Tooth into more of a family-friendly fable is a good look for this sprawling tale, one that thankfully is full of hope rather than destruction. Sweet Tooth does this through an endearing adventure that shows rebirth and new chances can come out of even the worst disasters — which makes this a rare uplifting pandemic story in 2021.

If you can withstand the early earnestness, the lack of subtextual consistency shouldn’t be a problem, and so much of Sweet Tooth lands exactly on its desired terms. The performances are sturdy, the action scenes thrilling and Jeff Grace’s score conveys the right notes of adventure and melodrama.

There is a great deal of jeopardy along the way, but the scenes always come back to something reassuring, and there is no gore. It’s reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s output.