The Pentaverate is the latest Netflix mini-series created by the legendary actor and comedian Mike Myers. It revolves around an age-old super-secret society consisting of five men who work for the greater good of the world since the Black Plague of 1347. The Pentaverate is a spin-off of the 1993 film So I Married an Axe Murderer, in which Myers played the lead role. Also starring in the mini-series is Debi Mazar (also in So I Married an Axe Murderer), Ken Jeong, Keegan-Michael Key, Jennifer Sunders, Lydia West, Richard McCabe and Jeremy Irons (narrator). Additionally, Rob Lowe and Maria Menounos appear as themselves.
– The Pentaverate review does not contain spoilers –
Ken Scarborough (Myers) is a Canadian journalist, who decides to reveal the secret group the Pentaverate and save his job. In this dangerous quest, he is accompanied by his cameraperson, Reilly Clayton (Lydia West) and a consistently-farting conspiracy-theory enthusiast, Anthony Lansdowne. Meanwhile, the Pentaverate are dealing with a conspiracy within their own organisation as one of their member gets murdered.
The Pentaverate consists of some of the most powerful people in the world, four of them hilariously played by Myers himself. In playing these characters, Myers employs great nuance and wordplay; for example, the Russian mogul (one of the group) pronounces ‘count’ as ‘cunt’ because in Russian the ‘o’ is not accented. There are a lot of puns used, like, ‘Big Dick’s Halfway Inn”, “Pants are Half Off” (when there’s a sale in the clothing store), the names of the two servants of the Maester, ‘Ergo’ and ‘Anso’.
Myers is a stalwart when it comes to comedy, with films like the Austin Powers franchise, Wayne’s World (1992) and the Shrek (2001-2010) films, he has brought several great characters to life. Speaking to great characters, he has played eight of the including four The Pentaverate members: Lord Lordington- the oldest member, Bruce Baldwin- the Australian media mogul, Mishu Ivanov- the former Russian oligarch and Shep Gordon- an ex-rock and roll manager. In the tradition of Monty Python, Mike Myers is amazing and funny in all these roles, as Ken Jeong and Debi Mazar talk about in this interview.
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The Pentaverate have a mission, apart from unveiling the conspiracy amongst them, they are also trying to find a solution to the problem of climate change. First, they recruit Dr Hobart Clark (Keegan-Michael Key), a nuclear physicist. Then they recruit Skip Cho, played by Ken Jeong, who is a casino mogul and quite knowledgeable about the chaos theory and weather patterns. Both actors have aced their characters, especially Jeong, who is excellent at playing quirky, slightly deranged characters.
The mini-series, through its humour and satire comments on the way the internet spreads these mindless conspiracy theories and we, the ‘sheeple’, believe in them without giving a second thought. Throughout the series, you will find yourself in a post-truth world, where everything is a conspiracy theory, where birds aren’t real, where America faked the moon landing and the video quality in Canada is worse than in every other country.
But we have read about or seen a YouTube video about these things ourselves, and as the character of Lydia West says, these theories are popular so that we keep busy trying to unveil them, while the real conspiracies (corruption, illiteracy, poverty, climate change) go unnoticed and the higher-ups do not have to answer to the people. In our quest to find the “truth”, we come ever farther to it, and in the process, lose ourselves and our purpose in life. The Pentaverate is a fun way to experience this thought.
The Pentaverate: Satire that will leave you in splits
You will particularly enjoy the role of Jeremy Irons of Die Hard fame, as the narrator, who is tired of the ‘Netflix n chill’ generation skipping the Intro of each episode. There are numerous references to dicks, as there should be, and you will never get tired of them. The Pentaverate are like the Illuminati, but nicer. Also, they like Billy Eilish, as she is a future Pentaverate member. Its past members have been the likes of Charles Darwin and the poet William Wordsworth. The Pentaverate‘s annual event is called the Meadows, which is “kind of like Davos but its secret and there’s an orgy.”
The Pentaverate will leave you laughing throughout, it will seem like time has flown by, the episodes are over, but are left wanting more. Its classic rib-tickling, laughing-out-loud kind of humour will make your day and leave you happy. Sprinkled with great punchlines and biting satire, The Pentaverate proves its worth as a Mike Myers creation. You can watch The Pentaverate on Netflix.
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