Da Vinci’s Demons Season 1

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Synopsis:
Set in Renaissance Florence, this follows the life and adventures of a young Leonardo Da Vinci as he defends his beloved Florence and the De Medici family from the intrigues of Rome.

What the series may remind you of:
– I find this show most similar to the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes movies in that it follows a genius trying to solve mysteries… but instead of the mysteries being murder and theft, it is the mysteries of science. But don’t think that the science is too academic – he is usually trying to deal with some sort of political or romantic intrigue. He also has to get out of scrapes by coming up with Macgyver like inventions.
– It is also a bit like the film Shakespeare in Love in terms of the style of the main character, Da Vinci. He also reminds me a bit of Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow
– It is a very tiny bit like Game of Thrones in that there are plenty of political power plays in an early Renaissance setting (close to Medieval) and some significant violence and nudity, although not nearly as severe as Game of Thrones

Positives:
Where do I begin? -The writing, the plots, the characters are all so awesome. The actors are all very good, although the female lead is too similar to Angelina Jolie.

Negatives:
I doubt the history is accurate. But I love it just the same.

Conclusion:
Watch it – you can’t go wrong!

Important:
When you watch the first episode, they made a bad decision to make the first few minutes surreal. Most of the series is not like that. Get past the first two minutes and watch the entire first episode, and you will be completely engrossed!

– Katy G

I cannot recommend this highly enough. I see some criticisms in regard to historically. I’d say if you wish to know more about DaVinci watch a documentary! This session introduces us to the man and his art. He is a patron of the Medici’s in Florence – Italy was a conglomeration of countries at this time. The various families ruled their area with a degree of fear and the Medici’s use DaVinci’s intellect in designing war machines-rotating cannon and bombs. He receives commissions that he does not always finish! We see the city of Florence and meet its many characters. The underlying theme is that Leo (as he is called by his friends) has an ability to remember (and draw) anything he’s ever seen-but can’t recall his mother. His quest to find her leads him to a mystic/magician who tells him if he can find the Book of Leaves all will be revealed. Said book is supposed to reveal many mysteries – and Leo is always in search of knowledge. I especially enjoyed how we can “see” what Leo is thinking – as he imagines designs/paintings the images appear on the screen as if he is drawing it for you. I knew DaVinci was a master of different arts but had no idea just how much (and that part is historically correct!). The costumes, the music, all the actors are wonderful. Yes there’s a fair amount of sex and violence and the series touches on Leo’s homosexuality in involving a court case where he is charged with sodomy (though said individual was a prostitute – Leo’s sexuality is a matter of public record – he was charged with sodomy and rather disappeared for some time in real life). So if that type of sex scene or gore is objectionable to you-this show is NOT for you! Otherwise, it’s a delicious feast

– Jean Richmond

This was a show on Starz I had barely viewed before, but now have seen & at the end of the day like so much of modern pop culture material we get as tv shows & movies this one was yet another mixed bag of good and not so great art (but certainly not for the usual reasons such as Hollywood pushing an agenda, or my usual culprit villian political correctness). This show was made by Europeans who are adults, but again the negatives in this other wise pretty darn good material really strike out at me not to list as one of the best this decade.
We have a well acted role in the main character, of course based on one of history’s finest artists and men Italy’s own Leonardo Da Vinci (one of the founding front runners of the modern technological world). How accurate was this version of Da Vinci? It is really hard to say. Some fantasy fiction stories are intermixed with real history, and that to me is fine but I still would like all portrayals of this remarkable man to be as accurate as possible.

The Da Vinci character is narcotic, eccentric, and wild to say the least. He runs the risk of getting ruined in a world that only had began to get out of the dark ages in terms of mentality. His and the likes of his two buddies, one another man his age and a teenage assistant boy, are good characters as with his part time teenage art model who runs a seedy bar in Florence one pale faced lady of beauty. She is a likable and good character too, but as each episode runs onward we see the extensive featuring of homo-erotic and homosexually themed visualism in a lot of scenes.
Yes we get to see our protagonist wild hero extensively make love to a mysterious Floriantine beauty who also has an affair with the city state’s king, named Lucretia with a lot of naked imagery scenes portrayed. But then we also have a ton of buck ass naked dudes walking all over this show which forced me to say, “Okay, why the Hell do we need to see this exactly? It does nothing to advance the story.” (Just to be fair, I stated the same thing for Starz’s debaucharous show “Sparticus” for only showing violence and endless nudity with featured graphic fornication with a lack of plot or substance despite how hot the women were) For instance the main villian, the Pope his high holiness himself is featured torturing a young 20 something nude dude in his giant bath tub, then afterwards walks out in just about scene after scene with nothing on himself, even in front of poor Lucretia’s character.

And that is it right there, I do like the costumes, the drama, the artistic Italian scenery of the show a lot but I hated the homosexual and even some bi-sexual themes simply because it isn’t needed and I do not want to see any of it even if the show makers want to prove their theory that the real life Leonardo was bi-sexual. We have no idea what a man who lived that long ago was (and does it really matter?), but why does it need to be in my face in order for this plot to be acted out? It did not need any of it honestly.

But for the high mark the ladies in this show are indeed gorgeous to look at, and on occassion it may have made up for other scenes, still the show could have done better with less of both.
The Pope is a good bad guy, and so are those plotters whom work with him, but yes again, why do I need to see this villian with no close on over and over again exactly? That is the problem with the show, unlike “Game of Thrones’, it simply does not know when to show naked sexuality themed scenes and when not to so we get a very bizarre work of art at the end of the day. But set that asside some times I had felt viewing these episodes that we do not really see a clear pattern, unlike “Thrones” again which clearly aims for adult audiences, this series has episodes in one minute whic was clearly adult themed and R, the next episode is as childish as Disney cartoon. So I do not really know how to rate this this series other than say it is not for kids, but it is young teen friendly at the end of the day to say its a mix of PG-13 and R together but really not hitting either one of those categories to be honest. It is a thumbs mildly up because it does have a cool and fun “whacky good guys verses bad guys mixed with a sexy romance” story in there . The charater of the Lorenzo Medici as the ruler who himself despite being very flawed and some what of a bastard at times, is actually a good guy too like Da Vinci. He is interesting, and I did also like the mysterous “Brotherhood of the Cult of Mythras” part through out the show to keep things moving. We also have some scenes of marvelous new technologies being tested “James Bond” style through out each episode that I do give it a very mild thumbs up but again not by much. B-/C+ for “Da Vinci’s Demons”.

– The Boss Guy

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Tom Riley, Laura Haddock, Elliot Cowan, Lara Pulver, Tom Bateman
Directors: David Goyer, Paul Wilmhurst, Michael J. Bassett, Jamie Payne
Writers: David S. Goyer
Producers: Lee Morris
Format: Multiple Formats, Box set, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English, Spanish
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 3
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
DVD Release Date: September 3, 2013
Run Time: 466 minutes