Streaming: Untamed (Netflix series), Família, Pero No Mucho (Netflix) & The Institute (MGM+ series)

Untamed is an American mystery crime drama, starring Eric Bana, Lily Santiago and Sam Neill, set against the impressive backdrop of the Yosemite National Park.

Eric Bana (The Hulk) stars as Kyle Turner, a taciturn Park Ranger, who decides to investigate the mysterious death of an unnamed young woman who took a fatal fall from Mt. Capitan.

Was she pushed, or did she fall, either by accident or by her own design? The powers that be would like it if this case just went away, but there wouldn’t be much of a story if it did.

Kyle gets help from a younger agent, Naya Vasquez (Lily Santiago), which causes some inter generational strife, but they still end up working well together.

Kyle, who has a troubled past, also gets support from his ex-wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) and his boss (the always reliable Sam Neill), while Naya and he go about their search, coming to interesting places and meeting unexpected supporting characters along the way.

The Yosemite National Park is there as an added character, even though most of the series was apparently filmed in Canada.

Untamed is created by Elle Smith and Mark L. Smith, who worked together on The Marsh King’s Daughter. Mark also co-wrote Oscar-winner The Revenant, while also creating American Primeval, which was a hit for Netflix at the beginning of the year.

The duo obviously like untamed landscapes and this new series (created by Warner Bros. television and debuting on Netflix) is no exception, even if this one feels a little more conventional, almost like a Scandi Noir but in a different setting / landscape.

The main characters learn a lot about themselves and what it means to be human, helped along by actors who are well equipped to play them and try their best to add a little more meaning to a familiar story that is always worth retelling, because in the end there is always more to the picture than at first meets the eye.

(*** 1/2)

FAMILIA, PERO NO MUCHO (Netflix, 2025)

Brazilian movie Família, Pero No Mucho (or: Almost Family) is a rather feeble attempt at a family oriented feelgood comedy. It’s about a middle-aged father Otavio (Leandro Hassum) who is coming to terms with the fact that his talented daughter Mariana (Julia Svacinna) is coming of age.

Dad always dreamt that she would one day take over the family restaurant and perhaps even turn it into a franchise, but Mariana is a talented violinist and she goes to Paris instead to study at a prestigious music academy.

And when she comes back after three years, she has fallen in love and is planning to marry her Argentinian boyfriend in the snow-filled town of Bariloche, in the west of Argentina, close to the border with Chile.

Dad promises to be on his best behavior, but pretty soon rivalry (and possibly some hilarity) ensues between the Brazilian and Argentinian families.

The characters are likable enough, and of course there is some bonding taking place along the way, but the main problem is that the comedy feels to broad, with not all the jokes landing and not enough room for more subtle touches either.

So even at 81 minutes, Família, Pero No Mucho just feels like it’s stretched too thin.

(**)

THE INSTITUTE (MGM+ series)

The Institute is a new thriller series, based on a fairly recent book by Stephen King, and ably adapted by Jack Bender (Lost, From).

It tells the story of Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman), a teenager with special abilities. He is not only a boy genius, who is allowed to go to the Massachusetts institute of Technology (MIT), but who also has a talent for Telekinesis, which means he can move stuff around when he gets into it.

One night Luke is kidnapped and taken to a faculty somewhere in Maine, called The Institute, where a secret organization holds other teens, who are either good in Telepathy or Telekinesis, in custody, as they are experimented on in a misguided attempt to change the world for the better.

Luke’s storyline is intertwined with that of Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes), a former cop who quit the force after too much trauma and now settles from a job as a night knocker in a little town in Maine.

It’s only a matter of time before their paths will cross, but first Tim starts discovering some strange(r) things, while Luke gets intimate with Kalisha (Simone Miller), while also meeting with the people that run the facility, led by Ms. Sigsby (the great Mary-Louise Parker), who is both commanding (in her career) and pretty miserable (in her personal life).

The Institute takes a while to get going, but I actually quite enjoyed the slow pacing of the first episode. I’m not saying it’s great, but I liked the fact that Jack Bender takes the time to build the characters and the worlds they inhabit. In one touching detail Luke’s bedroom is completed replicated for his new one in the facility, except for one little thing (a missing winkle hook) which immediately gives the game away.

The Institute is kinda like The New Mutants, but at least it’s better than that failed movie.

(***)

Note: Apart from being on MGM+, The Institute can be accessed through HBO Max in some parts of the world and on Prime Video in others.